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Buried deep beneath the monsters, psycho killers, and slashers alike sits a genre of horror that is one of the most terrifying. Home invasion films, like You’re Next or The Strangers, may not seem as scary when compared to films like The Conjuring. However, the sub-genre is the most realistic, despite large-scale storylines. Sure, there isn’t an annual Purge, but when the premise of a film like that is stripped down to the bare bones, it isn’t that unlikely. According to Horror Geek Life, the first home invasion movie is a film from 1909 called The Lonely Villa. The film is about 12 minutes long and introduces some of the earliest tropes of invasion films that are still being used today.
Home is often associated with peace, solace, and refuge. When horror breaks into that home, our core morals as human beings are challenged. What’s scarier than an unknown intruder? One would think the answer would simply be nothing. However, 2008’s The Strangers introduces a band of villains that torture people simply because they want to. No motive. No malice. Just pure desire to cause harm. That’s one of the many reasons why home invasion films are among the scariest in horror.
The Game of Cat and Mouse
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Cats are the most infamous animals to play with their prey before going in for the big kill. Like cats, home invaders in horror films often taunt their victims for the sport of it all. The 1979 film When a Stranger Calls perfectly captures the premise of a killer toying with his prey. The film was heavily based on the urban legend "The babysitter and the man upstairs" that follows the film almost verbatim. According to Vulture, the film was in fact so influential that the opening to When a Stranger Calls inspired Scream's iconic opening sequence with Drew Barrymore. However, the most terrifying reveal in the film's premise is that the calls were coming from inside the house.
Modern invasion films often follow the same guidelines, but with added twists. Nine times out of ten, the killer already knows how to get into the house or could attack much sooner than the protagonist is aware. 2008's The Strangers takes the premise of an invasion film and subverts it into its own entity. Instead of having a single protagonist, the film introduces a couple that is in turmoil. After having a stranger show up at their door in the middle of the night, things take a vicious turn when three masked strangers terrorize them until brutally killing them at the film's conclusion.
Mike Flanagan's 2016 Netflix release of a film entitled Hush has become one of the most prominent home invasion films of the last decade. The film follows deaf-mute Maddie Young (portrayed by Kate Siegel), who lives alone in a secluded house in the woods. She is working on her next book, but her progress is stunted when a masked man with a crossbow appears at her door. The man is most intrigued by Maddie because she can't hear him coming and will be a challenge to scare. Maddie's ability to think ahead and envision all the possible outcomes during her escape plans aide her in surviving the night. Hush takes on a different element of fear by taking away one of the very senses most needed when combatting with a home invader.
Rival Abilities
In retrospect, home invasion films are a sub-genre in horror, and more often than not have a ripple affect in the plot's of other films. Scream is an ultra-meta slasher film, but if dissected down to the core, borders the line of a home invasion. Ghostface, in the 1996 feature, does most of his killings by breaking into his victims' home. However, more modern films like The Purge, Don't Breathe, and Us use the invaders to allude to a broader plot commentary.
The Purge was unique at the time of its release because it showed that the security system's technology couldn't withstand the forced entry when tested. Despite the many sequels that followed the initial film, The Purge franchise uses its platform to depict the horrors of class systems and politics. The premise of the films takes place in a future America, in which all crimes are legal one day a year. The choice to participate is optional, however, if you chose not to participate you aren't exactly marked safe from those who wish to cause you harm. The first film in the franchise is absolutely a home invasion film where the protagonists must fight for their lives after their security fails them, marking them at the same societal class as those who can't afford it.
You're Next, a film that was released the same year as The Purge, focuses on a family that is under attack by killers wearing animal masks. Erin, played by Sharni Vinson, is attending her boyfriend's family reunion at a house his parents purchased. Once all the family members arrive and dinner is served, the invasion begins. At the film's conclusion, it is revealed that Erin's boyfriend and his brother hired a team of killers to take out their entire family to inherit their wealth. What was presumed to be an easy job is proved false, when Erin reveals that she grew up on a survivalist compound. You're Next is easily one of the most underrated but entertaining home invasion films of the 2010s. The sub-genre's place in horror sits among one of the scariest and most versatile plots in film.