Editorials
The Tables Are Turned in ‘The Owners’ and These 8 Home Invasion Horror Films
Nothing hits as close to home in horror as a home invasion movie. It’s as much to do with strangers violating the sanctity of our dwelling as it is the realism – we’re far more likely to encounter a dangerous burglar than a werewolf on the prowl. The realistic thrills of home invasion films can offer some of the most intense horror and some of the biggest surprises when the formula is subverted. In The Owners, a group of friends think they’ve chosen the perfect score in a large estate owned by an elderly couple. When the couple arrives home early, the erstwhile robbers realize they picked the wrong house when the tables are turned.
Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones, New Mutants) stars as Mary, a young woman unwittingly drawn into the attempted robbery through her boyfriend and friends. When Dr. Huggins (Sylvester McCoy) and his wife Ellen (Rita Tushingham) reveal their deranged side, Mary is caught in the middle of one twisted cat-and-mouse game. Jake Curran, Ian Kenny, and Andrew Ellis also star. The Owners was directed by Julius Berg, who co-wrote the screenplay with Matthieu Gompel.
RLJE Films is bringing this home invasion thriller with a twist to DVD and Blu-ray on October 20, 2020. We look back at eight home invasion movies that also turned the tables on their invaders in anticipation.
Intruders (2015)
Anna (Beth Riesgraf) has crippling agoraphobia. So much so that she’s been unable to leave her childhood home in the ten years since her father’s death. After the death of her brother, three criminals break in, hoping to steal her fortune. They soon realize that Anna harbors more issues than agoraphobia. Anna turns the tables on her robbers, though she’s far more vulnerable than your standard tough-as-nails final girl. If you could call her a final girl at all- her childhood home masks some warped secrets that’ll make this trio deeply regret ever setting foot in the place.
Bad Samaritan
Sean (Robert Sheehan) uses his job as a valet to burglarize the car owners’ homes. He bites off more than he can chew when he finds a woman chained and held captive at the home of wealthy patron Cale (David Tennant). Unable to help her, he flees and calls authorities, who can’t find any evidence of her. It sparks a deadly cat-and-mouse game between home invaders and homeowner.
The Uninvited Guest
In this Spanish thriller, Felix allows a stranger into his large home to use the phone late one night. In minutes, Felix loses track of the man, and he disappears without a trace. When he begins to hear strange noises, he suspects the man never left. It sends Felix on a downward spiral of paranoia and desperation. The Uninvited Guest isn’t your average home invasion thriller; this time, the protagonist turns the tables on himself as his fear and obsession cause him to invade another home. The invaded becomes the invader, with dire consequences.
Villains
Lovebirds Mickey (Bill Skarsgård) and Jules (Maika Monroe) are amateur criminals on their way to Florida when they stumble upon an isolated house. Thinking they’ll find one last haul needed for their journey inside, they break-in, not realizing the home belongs to one sadistic couple with a secret. Darkly funny, this crime thriller features memorable characters. Deranged couple Gloria (Kyra Sedgwick) and George (Jeffrey Donovan) memorably chew scenery, but Skarsgård and Monroe bring the heart as bumbling criminals deeply in love.
The Last House on the Left
Both the 1972 and 2009 remake apply in this context. Wes Craven’s brutal debut sees a group of thugs seeking a place to crash after escaping prison and spending a night ruthlessly assaulting and torturing young girls. They don’t realize that they’ve chosen the girls’ parents’ home. When the parents connect the dots, they don’t give the convicts a chance to think; they want vengeance. Primal rage over their profound loss causes the Collingwoods to deliver shocking violence, effectively turning the tables on some of horror’s most vile villains.
Funny Games
This Austrian psychological thriller sees two men take a family hostage in their vacation home, forcing them to play disturbing “games” for their entertainment. It’s bleak, violent, and one of the most brutal home invasion films of all. It’s not the family that winds up turning the tables on their invaders, though. In this meta-horror film, the invaders break the fourth wall to turn the table on the audience, lobbing criticisms toward those that derive pleasure from movies like this one. It doesn’t get much more subversive than this.
You’re Next
Director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett created a fan favorite with this home invasion twist. Erin (Sharni Vinson) accompanies her boyfriend to his family reunion in their rural home, but it’s soon interrupted by a trio of masked killers. Their plans to decimate the family are thwarted by Erin, who reveals her secret talent for survival. Deeply funny as it is bloody, You’re Next charms with its eccentric characters and a formidable final girl in Erin. It’s never been so satisfying to see home invaders have the tables turned on them as it is here.
Don’t Breathe
Fede Alvarez’s follow up to Evil Dead is intense. This edge of your seat home invasion thriller pits three criminals against a blind war veteran, utterly unaware that their target is the opposite of helpless. What’s worse is that the veteran harbors disturbing secrets deep within his home, and he’s willing to kill to protect them. A simple concept is rendered downright chilling. In home invasion thrillers, viewers tend to root for the tables getting turned on invaders, but this mean little thriller takes it to nail-biting extremes.
Look for The Owners to turn the tables on their home invaders when it hits DVD and Blu-ray on October 20, 2020.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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