My Shudder Picks: Them

This home invasion film chronicles murders that occurred in rural Romania over the course of two days in 2002. The initial two occur in the first handful of minutes while the others are extrapolated on, and provide the bulk of Them.  These others are a French expat couple who are terrorized in the middle of the night while staying at a guest house, quite naturally in the middle of nowhere, with no discernible neighbors for miles.

This one takes its time going but when it goes it's quite a ride. The cat and mouse chase-around in the house is well-staged, intense, and makes for a favorable build-up to the underground denouement.

A handful of middle school-age kids figure as the culprits--which, if you watch the movie, will know what I mean when I say how do they stay that quiet for so long. In most scenes where someone is stalked there's these prolonged silences I had a hard time understanding; for a bunch of preteens, they were certainly careful.

But I think my biggest complaint is the lack of time spent with these kids. They barely speak, and when they do most of them seem to be deflecting blame off to someone else in their group as if they're afraid of getting in trouble. It seems like real psychopaths would be shamelessly doing these deeds, but maybe that's just adults.

Overall, an unsettling, well-articulated addition to this invasion genre of horror. I give it three stars.