While searching for 31 new-to-me films to watch this October, I realized that I was not up-to-date on my Mickey Keating. He is a rock solid indie horror filmmaker and I’ve liked everything I’ve seen by him. I was foolish to let his films slip by me before now. I’m obviously (i hope it’s obvious to you) rectifying that this month. So, next up is his mystery-horror, Invader. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Ana arrives in a Chicago suburb via bus 4 hours later than expected due to traffic. She is there to visit her aunt, uncle, and cousin but nobody is there to pick her up. She can’t get a hold of anyone on the phone and the cab driver that offers her a ride is too sketchy, so she decides to walk. She stops at her cousin’s work on the way but the manager of the store is aggressively unhelpful. She finds her cousin’s car in the parking lot unlocked and with a bloody screwdriver on the floorboard. Her cousin’s co-worker, Carlo, offers her a ride and she accepts. When they get to the family’s house, it is immediately obvious that something is wrong. And that something was caused by a deadly ‘invader’ who is not done with the house or its inhabitants.
Invader is a tight little indie film that sits squarely in the overlapping Venn diagram circles of mystery, slasher, and psychological horror. Keating expertly wrings tense atmosphere from his suburban setting. And his characters are prototypical good vs evil. Ana is the fish out of water character who would have enough anxiety just navigating a foreign setting and language that she doesn’t have the best grasp of. When she is thrust into a cat-and-mouse with a murderous psychopath the stakes skyrocket. That murderous psychopath is played perfectly by indie stalwart, Joe Swanberg. He cuts a very intimidating figure in a mostly mute role. Some may ding the film for a lack of backstory for the killer or needing more characterization for supporting characters. (i mean, with a 70 minute runtime, there was definitely time to do both and still stay under 90 minutes.) But Ana’s character is well fleshed out and (i’d argue) the invader is a creepier character because of our lack of insight.
The Final Cut: Invader is a succinct story with a tense atmosphere and a very engaging cat-and-mouse struggle between a pitch dark evil character and an intrepid fish out of water.
No Real Danger 