My latest triple feature was a trio of films in which Scout Taylor-Compton appears, and they all also have a home invasion element to them as well.
A STALKER IN THE HOUSE (2021)
Don’t watch this one hoping it’s a starring vehicle for Scout. She’s only in the first five minute.
After that, this becomes a psycho stalker flick in the tradition of the many thrillers released in the late 80s and early 90s. The simple plot has a young woman invite a guy she just met home, after which he begins to aggressively pursue her.
Oh. He also starts killing off anyone in her life that he feels will get in the way of their relationship.
It’s a typical suspense scenario and not gory or violent, but the performances are quite good. And what’s kind of a hoot is that this modern woman is generous with her pussy, so she just keeps getting any dude she becomes involved with killed off by the stalker without even realizing it.
Cliché plot and pussy aside, what is handled perfectly here is the ways in which the stalker forces his way into her life. The film really captures the terrifying experience that a woman can find herself in when she simple says “no” to a man. It’s initially chilling to see the vulnerable position she’s put herself in when she’s trying to get a stranger out of her apartment once he’s already in, and then infuriating to watch as she keeps giving him more chances because he smiles and charms her. Argh!
AN INTRUSION (2021)
This home invasion flick takes place over the course of the holiday season, with Santas, snow, lights, and Christmas trees as a backdrop, which earns An Intrusion a spot on the holiday horror page.
The basic premise is that a husband, wife, and daughter are dealing with a recurring intruder in a mask and hoodie. The individual home invasion scenes sprinkled throughout are tightly crafted and a definite highlight.
What unfolds might be a little hard for some to swallow. The husband has some skeletons in his closet, and the stalker begins targeting him in other ways, threatening to expose his dirty secrets. This causes the husband to really start losing his shit and moving into dangerous territory to protect himself.
The big twist is one of those that you’ll never be able to figure out along the way because the identity of the stalker comes out of left field at the very end, and the motivation for the stalking has to be fully explained in a monologue by the stalker at the last second. It’s a situation in which the backstory could have been a whole movie of its own. It’s so disconnected from everything that happens before it, which is a bad risk to take when making a movie…but dammit, I found being bamboozled kind of awesome.
As a bonus, Scout plays the detective on the case, and it’s a refreshing performance compared to her usual scream queen shtick. And Erika Hoveland, the woman who plays the wife, gives a fantastic performance when she has an emotional breakdown later in the film.
THE LONG NIGHT (2022)
I imagine we’ve all seen our fair share of movies about a person who heads to some remote location in search of answers about the family they never knew, only to learn that their lineage is ripe with Satanism, and they are the key to completing some sort of occult ritual to release hell on earth. The only difference between all these movies is the execution—some are terrifying, some are boring.
The Long Night is like a self-proclamation; it describes the evening you’ll have if you try to sit through this 90-minute movie. It is sloooooow.
Scout and her man head to a plantation house so she can explore her ancestry. Word of advice. If you have to go to a plantation to learn about your family history, you don’t want to fricking know about your family history. Meanwhile, even I know that despite the total bore that The Blair Witch Project was, the moment you find some Blair Witch shit in the woods behind the plantation you’re visiting to learn about your family history, it’s time to get the fuck out of there.
After finding some hints of Devil worship, Scout and her man spend most of the movie trapped inside the house while a cult stands outside staring at the house. Seriously, the cult refrains from going into the house for 55 minutes.
There are incredibly arresting setup shots of the cult in robes and horned animal skull masks, but suspense and scares are non-existent. Jeff Fahey makes a brief appearance, Alessa’s mom from Silent Hill now gets to play the leader of the cult instead, and there’s an early possession scene that essentially spoils the entire final act of the film.
Finally, despite being the lead in this movie, Scout somehow gets lost in the shuffle. She’s on screen most of the time, but you end up forgetting she’s even there. Weird.
