TIFF 2013 Review: Intruders

“Intruders” is a taut thriller from South Korea that is one of those movies that is much better if you see it without many spoilers. It takes that simple Cabin in the Woods horror premise, and writer/director Noh Young-Seok has a lot of fun with it. But not quite as much fun as Drew Goddard’s “The Cabin in the Woods,” mind you. There’s an overlapping news commentary throughout that comments on a brewing war between the two Koreas, but I won’t go into it. (I think that’s what the news was about – all I remember it was political.)

This film has a lot of surprises. It might stay close to my heart because it was the first movie I ever saw that was part of a film festival programme. If I just saw it at the theatre, I still would have liked it. It’s immensely entertaining. It has plenty of scares and it’s an edge-of-one’s-seat experience. It’s great for that. It also has plenty of great laughs, if your sense of humour is dark. I like the type of Young-Seok’s type of humour.

His characters are simply characterized. There’s a funny comic relief character who is friendly and oddly insistent. There’s a timid writer who is the main protagonist that goes to an isolated lodge to finish a screenplay. When he begins to feel relatively terrorized by a duo of hunting locals, he jumps at the chance to rent a room out to a small group of skiiers. It went from one person at a cabin in the woods, to the traditional five. It always interests me to see American horror tropes have a cultural cross-over. This film makes it unique, as it blends solid thrills and black comedy. The way Young-Seok gets laughs is simple, yet so effective.

I’ll let you be surprised for the rest of the experience. I liked the characters. I laughed, I didn’t cry, and I almost jumped a few times. It’s a fun experience. I have a few nitpickings about the ending – but eh, what can you do? Young-Seok achieves what he sets out to do; he puts his small cast in a  blisteringly cold village, and everyone involved seems to be enjoying themselves. The tension-building is impressive. The finale drags a bit, making it feels like a movie that is over 100 minutes, rather than 99 minutes it actually is. Those are my minor complaints.

It was an interesting experience to watch the film with the director sitting in the audience. It was a great gesture that everyone was really kind to him and applauded his film. I don’t usually applaud after films at my local theatre, but the applaud was deserved. Well done, Young-Seok. It’s a fun film that’s rarely as obvious as it seems.

Score: 77/100