The Intruders Movie Review – Another Reason Not to Buy a House Without Looking at its History

Runtime: 93 minutes
Release Date: February 24, 2015
Rating: PG-13

Director: Adam Massey

Rose had a partial breakdown while studying at Standford. Her father, Jerry, worries that she suffers from the same emotional and mental problems that led to her mother's death not that long ago. As the university asked her to take some time off, Jerry decides to move them into a new home far removed from their old home to give his daughter a new start.

Not long after moving in, Rose meets her next door neighbor Leila. Leila expresses disgust at her for living in that home after what happened, but before she can explain further, her father pulls her back inside. Rose also meets Noah, a handyman helping a team of contractors fix up the house and a guy who conveniently seems to be around every time something bad happens.

Rose quickly learns that a young woman named Rachel went missing from that house the year before and that Leila's dad was originally the prime suspect. The woman who owned the house, Cheri, acted a little suspicious before disappearing herself. Most people in town thought she was a pillar of the community for the work she did with her church. After discovering the story, Rachel finds that there is something just plain wrong with her house.

She finds the head of a doll in one of her desk drawers and later sees the same head popping up in other places in the house. After venturing into the basement, she finds a tiny closet with a lock on the outside and the words "Rachel Was Here" carved on the rock wall inside. Rose then hears weird noises and starts running, only to trip and fall down the stairs and see the shadowy figure of a man standing over her. Her dad begins questioning if she actually saw anything or if everything she fears is only in her head, especially after learning that someone stole the majority of his prescription pain pills...

I never heard of The Intruders until I saw the trailer for it on another movie. As a fan of Donal Logue, I added it to my mental list. He turns up as Rose's father, but he doesn't play a very likeable character, and he occasionally seems a little bored. Miranda Cosgrove does a much better job as Rose.

Both the director and Cosgrove did a good job of leaving us wondering if everything that happened in the film occurred only in her mind or in real life. When she led her dad to the basement and showed him the writing on the wall, it suddenly looked faded and barely legible, which only added to the idea that maybe she made up everything. Though the film does make it clear what happened in the end, it also ends on one of those notes that makes you wonder if maybe Rose really is more like her mother than she thinks.

I also want to give a shout out to Tom Sizemore. Given the problems he had in the past, it was nice to see him back to doing a fairly good job. As the father of the next door neighbor, he does a pretty good job of walking the line between creepy and possible killer/kidnapper and a guy just looking out for his daughter.

The Intruders got some horrible reviews, but I have to say that I actually liked it. While the reveal was a little hokey and something we've all seen dozens of times, I would probably watch it again, which is something I almost never say.

The Call – "You're an operator. You can't do this!"

Runtime: 94 minutes
Release Date: March 15, 2013
Rating: R
Director: Brad Anderson


Jordan Turner (Halle Berry, Gothika) is working as a 911 operator when she receives a call from a young girl. Fearing that someone is in the house, Jordan tells her how to hide and wait for police to arrive. When the call disconnects, Jordan calls back. The ringing phone alerts the killer, who grabs her and drags her out of the house. When Jordan later hears that they found the girl's body, she decides to stop working as an operator.


Several months later, Jordan now works as a trainer to help new workers handle calls. Though she has no plans to step back onto the phone lines, that all changes when a new call comes into the office. Casey is a teenage girl who was kidnapped by the same man who killed the previous girl. The man grabbed her out of a parking lot and tossed her in his trunk. It's up to Jordan to help Casey survive and bring justice for the man's other victims.


The Call is another of those films that I had high hopes for. I've read and heard stories from people working as 911 operators, and I don't think I could ever handle working that job. When I saw the trailer and realized that it was a horror-like film about someone who works in a 911 call center, I thought it would be interesting. While it did have some good moments, it wasn't nearly as good as I hoped.


The first half of the film is great. Jordan comes back to work but she makes it clear that she can't handle her old job. She can train other people and even briefly talk about her experiences, but the idea of sitting down and taking a call fills her with dread. Of course, that all changes when the new call comes into an operator. It seems pretty unrealistic that she would jump up and take back the job after constantly bringing up that she can't handle it.


Then we have to deal with her actually walking away from the job. I'm sure these people go to great lengths every day, but how many of those people do you think would literally get up and go on a frenzied mention to find someone. No one in the movie ever mentions that Jordan would pretty much come back to find her boyfriend/supervisor hating her and her without a job. And let's not get started on the ending. It's so incredibly unrealistic that I haven't heard a single person say that they liked it. I liked The Call when I initially saw it (or at least thought it was an okay film), but after thinking about it, I don't think I'll ever see it again.

The Tortured Movie Review – How Far Would You Go?

Runtime: 79 minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: August 28, 2010

Director: Robert Liberman

The Tortured opens with a scene of Craig (Jesse Metcalfe) screaming into a cell phone that someone kidnapped his son. Through flashbacks, we learn that his wife Elise (Erika Christensen) left him in charge of their son Benjamin when she went to work. When he headed inside to find sunscreen, a stranger (Bill Moseley, House of 1,000 Corpses) grabbed his son and took off running. Though the police later find the man, they don't find him before he kills their son.

After the stranger receives a sentence of 25 years to life, the couple decide to kidnap him and inflict the same amount of torture onto him that he gave to their own son. Though the setup of how the two actually manage to find the man and kidnap him is a little unbelievable, the torture scenes make the payoff well worth it.

The Tortured definitely asks viewers to suspend belief for awhile. Craig is a doctor, but he seemingly has knowledge of hundreds of different areas and superhuman strength. After drugging the coffee that the drivers drink when transporting the prisoner, Craig manages to steal the prison van. He drives a little too fast, which leads to an awesome scene where the van careens off the road and flips over multiple times before landing on the roof and crushing in the driver and passenger front. Somehow, Craig climbs right out of the van with only a few scratches on his face.

I'm willing to overlook that minor problem because The Tortured is so dark and disturbing. They immediately grab the stranger and tie him to a table in the basement of a house they find in the middle of nowhere. Since there is no one around for miles, they have no problem inflicting their own form of pain on the man. They place his feet in a vice and twist until bones pop, shove a lit cigar deep into his skin, and in one particularly gruesome scene, Craig places a mask over his face and covers the air vent until the man suffocates. Just as he's about to pass out, Craig gives him access to air again, and the cycle continues.

The Tortured didn't get a lot of good or positive reviews, which is definitely sad because this is one of the best horror films that I've seen lately. Despite originally being released in 2010, the film wasn't widely available until the last few months. I grabbed a copy from Redbox, which was so scratched that it wouldn't play, but I found a copy at a local rental place. It was the type of film that I didn't want to watch because it was so gory at times, but it was also the type of film that I couldn't stop watching. Add it to your list if you haven't yet seen it.

Amber Alert Movie Review – How Far Would You Go?

Runtime: 80 minutes

Release Date: November 2, 2012

Rating: R

Director: Kerry Bellessa

Nate and Sam are two best friends, who decide to make a tape to document their relationship before auditioning for a reality television show. Sam's younger brother mans the camera, sitting in the backseat of their car and rarely speaking. While driving down the road, they see an amber alert flash over the screen on the highway, warning about a potential child abduction. After a few minutes, a car passes by, and they joke about how it almost matches the amber alert. After a few more minutes, they realize that it actually is the same car.

Sam immediately calls the police, giving them the information, and they promise to follow up on her lead. After the police point out that they received hundreds of tips, Sam encourages Nate to keep following the car. Though they make several more calls to the police, it seems clear that they are the only ones who might have a shot at saving a young girl's life.

If you love shouting at the screen, you will enjoy "Amber Alert." There were so many times that we screamed at the television that I began worrying our neighbors might call the police on us. Sam is by far the most annoying character I have come across in recent films, and she is so annoying that my roommate wondered aloud why her best friend hadn't yet killed her.

The writer of the film clearly wanted a character willing to go to extreme lengths, but this one just takes it a bit too far. Not only does Sam force Nate to follow the car into an abandoned area, but when the man steps out and tries to talk to them, she offers to get into his car. While the man pumps gas, she sneaks up behind him and plants a microphone in his car, just so they can keep track of his movements. She even goes into his freaking house, which sets up the ending of the film.

Sam is the type of character who is such a shrew that you won't want her to make it out alive. She starts out as a sweet girl, who understands that Nate likes her as more than a friend, and she turns into this shrieking shrew that nearly ruined the movie for me. I don't care how much I love someone, I wouldn't go through what Nate does in this film. To make things even worse, it's her little brother in the backseat! She is willing to do absolutely anything to save the life of a little girl who she never met, even if it means putting her brother and best friend in danger. Who can root for someone like that?

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy "Amber Alert" because I did. It starts out with a basic premise, which is scary enough on its own. What would you do if you saw an amber alert posted on the highway and discovered the same car driving by you? Would you follow it, or would you just sit back and let someone else deal with it? Most of the film takes place inside the car with each character expressing something different. Nate wants to help, but he only wants to help to a certain point, while Sam is never willing to stop.

The problem is that the film jumps from one plot to another. Our main characters eventually come face-to-face with the possible abductor. He swears that it's his daughter and that he's taking her back to his ex-wife. Nate believes his story, but Sam is so sure that he's lying that she wants to keep following him for hours. Even after they lose him on the road, she makes Nate drive around for at least two hours in the hopes that they might see him again.

The other issue is how the film depicts police officers. While chasing the car, they get pulled over by a police car. The officer hears their story and makes it clear that he never got their report, despite being the only cop in the area. He even makes them leave their car while he calls into the station, leaving the man plenty of time to escape. And don't get me started on the other depictions of police officers either. Sam calls the cops six, seven, eight times, and no one does a damn thing. The last amber alert that we had was solved within two hours because the cops busted their asses. "Amber Alert" wants you to believe that the police are incompetent because it keeps the plot moving forward.

I was really excited to see "Amber Alert." I first heard about it a few months ago and kept waiting for it to come out. Now that I've seen it, I'm still on the fence. Nate is such a warm and likeable character that I hate finding fault with it, but that Sam is such a harpy that her character literally tainted the whole film.