Home invasion thrillers can make for the best Friday or Saturday night flick. When the lighting is just right, and you're all snuggled and cozy on the couch, these films can help provide the perfect combination of adrenaline and excitement to make for a wild viewing experience. And when the bad guy gets their comeuppance, it's all the more cathartic.
The homeowners in these pictures aren't always the victim, or at least, they don't stay that way. These movies offer some of the most "Gotcha" moments from the side of the woman, man, or sitter of the house. In some flicks, the villains are confident in their entry, or when they escape, the victim hasn't forgotten them. Check out these films where the invasion goes wrong for the invaders.
9. Sick
The 2022 horror/thriller, Sick, lives up to its double meaning from beginning to end. The film introduces itself amid the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, and, from there, it's suspense, thrills, and panic. Director John Hyams gives fans a couple of moments where it appears hopeful for the "good guy." Someone stalks a young man from the grocery store to his apartment, where he gives his stalker-turned-intruder a hell of a dust-up before meeting his fate.
Then, the flick switches gears to two young women, Parker (Gideon Adlon) and her friend Miri (Beth Million), heading to a beautiful vacation house. Once there, the assailant(s) hunt to kill the duo, blaming Parker for infecting their son with Covid-19 at a party, which later kills him. Hyams creates agonizing deaths for the intruders, some intricate, others classic, as the heroine and her friend prove incredibly strong-willed and determined to live.
8. You're Next
Here's another movie that begins with intrigue. Adam Wingard's 2011 entertainingly warped thriller brings savvy mischief. Fans watch a gallery of heart-thumping random kills before they get to the culprit's identity and the reason behind family members and friends dropping like flies. All parties involved are fair game. However, when the villain doesn't expect a woman raised in a survival camp to show up for a visit, things get complicated.
Everyone takes the same ominous dirt road to one of the most cold-blooded murders in horror history. You're Next wickedly illustrates a hit-for-hire tale as Wingard sets up the start of an innocent family dispute at the dinner table, which makes the perfect opening for the house guests' first sneak-kill. The boyfriend of the villain's sister is the first in that house to die before noticing something is amiss. As he moves toward the window, he quietly receives an arrow to the head. But, the heroine is "Miss Overkill," and rightfully so. Her murder is on the menu (even though her boyfriend denies it) at this shindig. You're Next concocts surprises and twists, providing faithful horror fans a reason to continue their loyalty.
7. Halloween Ends
The opening scene of Halloween Ends strays from its usual franchise feel. There's a new babysitter on the scene pinpointed as a murderer after the boy he cares for falls to his death in the home. Corey, now labeled the town freak, develops a romance with Laurie Strode's granddaughter. With Michael Myers' influence and "consumed by evil," he becomes what Haddonfield residents believe him to be. It doesn't take Corey long to get sucked into the dark side, and it appears Myers finds an accomplice.
Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) welcomes the Myers' intrusion that will end his life. But, will there ever be an end to the Halloween saga? Laurie's last words to Myers, "I have run from you, I have chased you, I have tried to contain you, I have tried to forgive you. I thought maybe, you were the boogeyman. Now, you're just a man who's about to stop breathing." Then, she slits his throat. And, then, he grabs hers. But, the film does attempt to pull the plug on Myer's return. Haddonfield residents make it difficult for this deranged killer's resurrection, putting him through a meat grinder-like machinery. Viewers shouldn't be melancholy about the death of Michael Myers. This franchise was an incredible ride and gifts fans an entertaining legacy filled with humorous killing scenes and memorable Strode-versus-Myers moments.
6. Breaking In
How often have fans shouted at the screen, "If the villain would just stop yapping, the victim wouldn't have time to think." Breaking In is one of those movies. Shaun Russell (Gabrielle Union) is fierce from the start of her home invasion. She's not a lip-trembling mom waiting to be rescued by her husband (he arrives at the end but is useless). Shaun's (Union) and her children's home become infested with home invaders sniffing for her deceased father's fortune. The invasion goes wrong for the invaders in this movie, and intruders get a taste of who they're dealing with early.
The film grips audiences, not in a fearsomely paralyzing way, but with steady actions of "Lose Yourself" moments from Shaun and her equally tenacious children, who take advantage of every opportunity to escape their intruders. Director James McTeigue conveys the "Don't mess with a mother's children" message in this thriller. The intruder says, "I meant what I said, you're an impressive woman." Shaun replies, "No, I'm just a mom."
5. Death Wish
Along with Charles Bronson, bad 70s music is part of Death Wish's charm. Bronson plays a vigilante after home intruders kill his wife and daughter. No. Bronson's character doesn't kill the thuggish, murdering clan in his house. He slays them one by one in a movie filmed in New York during the city's highest crime rate. The Big Apple, also penned "Fear City," in the 1970s had native New Yorkers afraid to go outside. The movie capitalizes on people's growing agoraphobia, showing a fed-up Paul Kersey (Bronson), not recklessly killing for a taste of blood but defending strangers on the street as much as himself in this violent era. According to Looper.com, Death Wish, written by Brian Garfield, was inspired by the author's real-life victimization while visiting his New York publisher.
As fans live in New York City revisit 1974's Death Wish, residents may see similarities, as NYC is on the cusp of its old habits. Watching Bronson give this Godfather-like performance — the humble killer who doesn't want to kill but believes it's a necessity for his family — is endearing and rigid to witness, as the pain lies on Kersey's face in nearly every scene.
4. Static
A young, innocent-looking blonde who shows up at the doorstep and asks to spend the night is safe. That's what these characters thought in Static. They discover how wrong they are when intruders snatch the young blonde from their home. Or, at least, that's what writers John Suits, Gabriel Cowan, and director Todd Levin want fans to think.
This is a small, tight-scripted, you-never-saw-it-coming film. It isn't until 55 minutes into the movie that audiences see Rachel was a part of the plan to "kidnap" this couple whose child recently drowned. There are a couple of baseball bats to the head in this 2012 flick as the couple flees from their home and steps into a shrine of their lives on the walls of their intruders, complete with surveillance footage of their house. Levin includes an interesting plot twist while Johnathan (Milo Ventimiglia) and Addie Dades (Sarah Shahi) mourn their son. When fans think they know the story, the writers throw a wrench in the mechanics of the plot. It isn't easy settling this traumatized married couple. The Dades put up a chase and a fight, making the "home invaders'" task harder than it's supposed to be.
3. Hush
The horror film, Hush, about a woman alone in the woods tormented for hours, adds a cruel element to the plot. The protagonist is mute but not dumb. She's trapped inside a house and forced to watch a neighbor die, already aware that her torturer killed her friend hours before. Here is where fans root for it to all go wrong for the home invader.
Many compare this 2016 Mike Flanagan film to its Scream (1996) look-alike. The script is so sophisticated fans don't have time for boredom (not that Scream was a drag) by the long periods of silence — remember, she's mute. There are moments of silent terror by the villain (John Gallagher) that mirror 2008's The Strangers. Still, the extreme fear is magnified by the uncertainty of the masked man's next moves until Maddie (Kate Siegel) shows the audience that she's not the average, helpless victim. The mute with the silent scream has heightened senses and AI-focused planning that saves her life. What's also reminiscent of Scream is that this movie turns dark at the most unexpected moment.
2. Home Invasion
There's nothing like a home invasion to make a bratty kid tell his mom, "I love you." Home Invasion, directed by David Tennant and released in 2016, follows Chloe (Natasha Henstridge) and her stepson around their home after three thugs break into their home to find a safe.
The film lets go of the traditional home invasion scripts, opting out of the intruders severely terrorizing, assaulting, and tying up their victims, but instead chasing their captives around their house for almost 1 hour and a half. The head of an elite home security team coaches Chloe throughout the film to safety, and there are no sappy thank-yous, no love connections, and all the culprits die. The humdinger is Tennant doesn't reveal what's in the safe.
1. When a Stranger Calls
In this '70s flick, the second time is the charm. Former Detective John Clifford (Charles Durning) gets his man in the house of the same babysitter whom the intruder haunts and taunts as a lone teenage girl (Carol Kane) in another couple's home years earlier. The sitter gets away with only emotional scars, but the two children in an upstairs bedroom are horrifically ripped apart by the assailant's bare hands because authorities find no weapon. The maniacal man is admitted and then escapes from a mental hospital, and the hunt for a killer begins for Clifford.
In When a Stranger Calls, Clifford, now a private investigator, narrowly misses capturing child murderer Curt Duncan (Tony Beckley) and enlists help from a woman the escaped lunatic harasses at a bar and follows home. Clifford chases Duncan all over LA before he tracks him down at the house of Jill Johnson (Kane), now a married woman with two children. This invasion goes wrong for the home invader when he tries to recreate the death chamber from years ago for Johnson and her children, but Clifford intercepts his plans.
