Intrusion-- My take on the movie with spoilers!


PLOT SUMMARY: Meera discovers dark secrets about her husband Henry after a home invasion. 


 Twelve years can be a long time to get to know someone. Or so you would think.

In twelve years, you are bound to learn some secrets about a person that they didn't share at least in the first year you've met them. There is probably an odd habit that surfaces in twelve years. There definitely were some arguments along the way too. And then you or your partner falls sick and that becomes a true test as to how committed both of you are to each other. An illness can make or break a relationship.

Twelve years of togetherness should be enough to develop comfort with each other. There is an ease in the way you talk to that person, not concerned that you may have to filter out some things.

Twelve years. It is a long time. And it is the amount of time Meera and Henry have been married in the movie Intrusion.

The reason it is shocking to discover that they've spent twelve years with each other is not because of the twist in the second half which frankly isn't that surprising. It is shocking because when the movie opens, there's unease between the two characters. 


INTRUSION Movie Plot


Meera and Henry are supposed to be a lovey-dovey couple who have it all. They both have successful careers; she is a therapist, he's an architect. They've built a modern house far from anyone who can hear them scream.

Yet, when we watch them go on a date, leaving behind their cellphones, you notice how they don't appear to he married at all. Now that part is the actors' fault. They just don't seem comfortable with each other.

Anyway,  Meera is a cancer survivor who worries about a lump she finds during a shower. Henry notices but says nothing at that time and brings it up on their date.

Meera says she didn't want to worry him and wanted to confirm with the doctor before she talked to him. He seems satisfied with the reply and they head back home only to receive a rude shock: their house has been broken into. Someone has thrashed their house completely but the only thing missing is their laptops and the phones they left behind.

A Detective is called and advises the couple to install security cameras. He also comments they need to get a plumber to check the rattling in the pipes. Of course, this isn't just a random thing inserted in the dialogue. This bit of information is useful towards the end.

Henry installs security cameras and the couple regains some happiness when Meera founds out her cancer has not returned.

They talk about the housewarming party but that night Meera wakes up to hear a strange sound.


She wakes up Henry when the lights go off. He goes outside to inspect and finds someone has smashed the generator that is outside the house. He looks at the house and notices flashlights. He rushes back in and finds Meera is tied up and gagged. He unties her and they tiptoe inside the house only for them to notice the intruders.

Henry casually excuses himself and retrieves a gun he hid inside a plant. Meera is shocked to discover a weapon. At that moment she doesn't seem concerned there are intruders in the house who could very well kill them.

The couple runs around the house and Henry lowers Meera down the balcony.  He, however, is captured by the intruders. Meera makes a run for the car and thinks about calling for help. That is when she hears gunshots. She thinks Henry must have been injured when she notices an intruder running towards her. She screams when he is shot. Behind him is Henry with a gun.

Later at the police station, the couple is shown mugshots and Meera recognizes the kid whom Henry shot. They are informed that all the intruders are all from the same family: The Cobbs and that the daughter, Christine has been missing for some time now. Also, one of the intruders has survived.

Meera wants to postpone the housewarming party. She asks Henry about the weapon and he tells her he wanted to protect her and that he doesn't even have it anymore as it is in the possession of the police.

But Meera starts to suspect Henry and snoops around his office and finds his drawer cabinet has a combination lock and that he has pictures of the missing girl on his computer. Henry returns home and sees the light on in the office and asks Meera about it who initially lies then lies about wanting to do some cleaning.

Henry obviously doesn't believe her because no one has seen Meera clean anything around the house. Eventually, she tells him she's a snoop and he reveals the combination is their marriage anniversary.

Meera seems reassured and tells him they should throw the housewarming party after all.

Henry goes to get supplies and Meera realizes he left his phone and decides to follow him because how can anyone be without their phone for even one second?

She notices that Henry isn't headed to the city to go to the store but towards the hospital. She's so distracted by this discovery that she forgets her driving skills and gets into an accident.

She takes a taxi home and finds Henry already there working. He casually inquires what is going on and she demands to know where he was going. He tells her he made a wrong turn.

Meera is still not convinced but is happy to get her husband's car which he gladly lets her borrow while hers is repaired. At the parking lot, she's visited by the Detective who informs her she no longer has to be jumpy as the last of the intruders who was in the hospital has died on the very same night Henry took his supposed wrong turn. Meera gets curious and checks her husband's car GPS to find that her husband had visited the Cobb family home.

She uses the GPS to head to the house and once there, does a lot of snooping to find an envelope with Henry's company's logo on it. She also finds a package in the family's mailbox because it is okay to check a dead person's mail. She finds a package but is then accosted by a man who lives around who then smashes the package conveniently because it contains something that will be revealed only later.

Meera manages to run away and once she reaches home, finds it is a tape that doesn't play properly but has the  Cobb family in it.

Meera orders a video camera to play the tape but of course, it isn't going to arrive immediately. She instead confronts Henry about it who reveals that when Meera fell sick, the I strange didn't cover all of her treatment and Henry had to resort to fraud to lower construction costs. He fired the head of the Cobb family because he was ill-treating his daughter Christine, the missing girl. The man knew about Henry's fraud and decided to blackmail him and when Henry stopped paying, broke into his house to threaten him.

Meer buys into it and looks forward to the housewarming party, especially after there's a news item of the man who accosted her at the Cobb's family house, being arrested for killing someone. Meera assumes he's  Christine's killer.

When the video camera arrives at her workplace she tries to give it away to the receptionist who has no interest in it. She doesn't care if it is free and Meer doesn't check to see if she can perhaps return the camera.

She dumps it in her car trunk and readies herself for the party.

At the party, she gives Henry all lovey-dovey eyes. The TV is on and for some reason the news it playing. Meera happens to see it and discovers that the man arrested was being charged with killing an animal. Not Christine.


INTRUSION Ending Explained with Spoilers! 


Meera realizes she is wrong and decides to go watch the tape. She retrieves the video camera and finds Mr Cobb talking about how Henry was always eyeing his daughter and how when she disappeared, their dog would smell her scent around Henry's office.

Meera feels her world going upside down literally as per the camera angle and heads to the office to snoop around. She uses the code Henry gave her to open the filing cabinet and remove the blueprints of the office. She finds that there is a concealed outlet and traces it as per the blueprints. Instead, she finds a switch and when she uses it, a secret door opens. She heads down the stairs and enters a room where right in the middle, is Christine, bound to a chair.

It is when she is roused and she moves her hand that Meera notices the way her chains move around the pipe that has been causing the clanging sound. She is shocked and perhaps if she had called a plumber sooner when the pipes had begun clanging first, this mess wouldn't happen.

Henry notices the light in his office and frowns, knowing that it is no doubt his wife trying to play amateur Detective again. He goes in, finds the hidden door open, and goes downstairs to find his wife doing a terrible job of trying to free Christine. Henry is quickly able to restrain his wife and explains that he was always this weirdly perverted man, and when she fell sick, it all came to surface. He liked to kidnap women and keep them in their basements just for fun apparently.

After he's done tying Meera up, he heads upstairs to explain to his guests that Meer was suddenly unwell and that they should all just get lost now.


The guests leave without another word as they weren't having that much fun anyway.

Meanwhile, Meera manages to get rid of her bonds and comes to Christine, and finally manages to free her. When Henry comes downstairs, they managed to knock him over and rush upstairs. But before they can leave, Henry uses the security lock button on his phone and locks all the doors. He manages to knock out Meera and finds Christine. He drags her back down the basement, caveman style.

He decides Christine is too much trouble and considers killing her. Meera wakes up and the first thing she sees is the clock in the shape of a tower that Henry had given her on their first date. The minute Henry had held it in the first few minutes of the movie, it becomes obvious that the item is going to come into play.

Just as Henry is about to kill Christine, Meer arrives with the clock and hits him on the head with it. Henry falls down, blood pouring out of him. He wastes his last breath on asking who will take care of her as he was the one who always had.

Meera says that she will know that he's going to die and all that money and the house is going to go to her.

In the end, Meera has sold the house and drives away a rich woman who can take care of herself.

The movie had a clunky start, an okay middle, and an awkward ending scene. The scenes that played out were pretty much an example of deus ex machina. Meera just happens to find the address on Henry's car and knows right away that is where the Cobb family lived.

She just happens to meet a man who smashes the package just so Meera couldn't see the tape on time. And why was the Cobb family making a tape and then not sending it to a friend or police just in case their break-in failed?

Why didn't they involve the police in the first place?

The finale clearly needed a lot of tightening.

Scare scale: 2/5

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