10 Great Home Invasion Thrillers!
Christopher Safranski
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7. Straw Dogs
Although more of a thriller than a true horror movie, Straw Dogs delivers plenty of terror for even the most serious horror fans. What begins as some light bullying of a rural mathematician and his wife descends into scenes of rape and murder as Dustin Hoffman is pushed to the edge. Hoffman delivers an outstanding performance as a man who has to go to extreme lengths in extreme circumstances. Skip the recent remake and check out this thrilling classic.
6. The Strangers
Based on one of the creepiest trailers of all time and sustained word-of-mouth, The Strangers became a sleeper hit in 2008. Relying on atmospheric chills rather than in-your-face shocks or gore, this movie is packed full of tension provided by off-camera sounds, eerie vinyl records, and “did you miss it?” shots of the antagonists. Bertino also provided one of the more frightening answers from an antagonist as to why the main characters are being attacked. What’s creepier than “Because you were home”?
5. High Tension
For two thirds of High Tension, director Alexandre Aja puts on a clinic in slasher and home invasion thriller filmmaking. A disorienting and shockingly gory film, this one includes sequences in which a dresser is used to decapitate a man and a driver is disemboweled with a concrete saw. Unfortunately, the film falls apart when it leaves the house and relies on an overused plot twist which undermines the movie’s first two acts. A divisive entry in the horror genre, High Tension still makes it into most lists of the best horror movies of the 2000s.
4. Wait Until Dark
The stunning and supremely talented Audrey Hepburn lends class to this home invasion movie that can claim one thing the others on this list can’t: an Academy Award nomination. Also featuring the incomparable Alan Arkin, this movie about a blind woman fending off criminals who’ve invaded her apartment in search of a heroin-filled doll is chock-full of suspense. In the film’s most memorable sequence, the screen goes black as the apartment lights go out, leading to one of cinema’s all-time greatest jump scares.
