Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo first burst into the scene with a clever little Spanish film titled Intacto, then went on to top himself several years later with 28 Weeks Later. Being a fan of both films, I naturally assumed his next venture would be as good as his previous efforts. Unfortunately, that isn't the case with his latest pic, Intruders, which turned out to be a rather boring and predictable entry to the genre. Though, much of the blame should be put on the poor script, which suffers from several holes and a lack of proper character development.

Anyway, the flick follows two parallel stories, one of a young Spanish boy and his mother, and the other revolving around Clive Owen and his troubled daughter. We switch back and forth between the two, and the only thing seemingly in common with each other is the mysterious entity known as "Hollowface" which is a strange hooded faceless being that creeps into the rooms of children to steal their faces (or parts of their faces), in an attempt to recreate a face of its own. The kids encounter this thing on many occasions, but as time goes on, the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred, causing the adults to question their (and their children's) sanity.

I wanted to like the movie, but it just had way too many things going against it. Aside from numerous plot-holes, the film's "twist" towards the end was easily predicted within the first 20-minutes. Then we're given nothing but dull, standard scares, and this whole clichéd aspect of the story that questions whether what they're seeing is real or if it's just a figment of their imagination. The film just tried to be much smarter than it actually was, and it's just sad to see such talent wasted on a poor script. Negative aside, the flick kept my interest and the dark atmosphere was pretty top notch, thanks to the talented director.

Intruders is a dull and clichéd horror entry that attempts to be much smarter than it actually is. Had it not been for the talented cast and director things could've been much worse off. However, if you're easily amused and can ignore the plot-holes, it's a mediocre time-waster.