Movie Review: Intruder – Drifting Between Chaos, Comedy and Catastrophe.

Christian Jude Grillo’s ‘Intruder’ is the kind of film that walks into your viewing experience with swagger and ambition, with its loud ideas. It is one of those that is not afraid to blend sci-fi thrill with pockets of comedy that feel both intentional and accidental. A closer look reveals where its inspiration is coming from, but you can see the intention to carve its own voice in the chaos boldly. Whether it succeeds completely is another conversation, but one thing is clear: Intruder is never boring.

At the centre of this cosmic madness is Bree (played by Dana Godfrey), a toughened cage fighter who moves through life like someone permanently bracing for impact. And to be fair, with the moon on a collision course with Earth, impact is unavoidable. The world is ending, and only the wealthy have the privilege of escaping aboard INTRUDER-brand ships, engineered by Bree’s estranged father, Martin (played by Andrew Hunsicker). The setup is rich with a narrative that promises family tensions, class disparity, and humanity’s scramble for survival all staring us dead in the eye.

But ‘Intruder‘ takes its time getting there. Almost too much time, actually.We meet Bree in a familiar but effective introduction, fired up, swinging even after the bell, disqualified again. She’s a mess of bruises and bottled-up rage, disconnected from her father and drifting through a life that has clearly disappointed her as much as she has disappointed others who are invested in her.

A greater chunk of the film is generously spent on building the world in which this story exists. We see random news reports, manic correspondents, and wealthy caricatures preparing for doomsday. It’s humorous at times, even sharply satirical as if deliberately running commentary on our present society. But the constant cutaways distract you and chip away at the tension that the opening acts are trying to build. The film keeps pulling us back to Earth long after the story has already left it.

When Bree finally ends up aboard a stolen INTRUDER ship, by accident, chaos, or cosmic grace, the film hits its most intriguing stride. Space becomes the stage, and the ship transforms into a claustrophobic playground for the story Christian Jude Grillo truly wants to tell. It’s in these moments that ‘Intruder’ shows its potential. It becomes a story of a lone woman, navigating a drifting vessel whilst also dealing with strange noises in the ventilation shafts and eventually an invited guest.

The film is at its best when it embraces this haunted-house-in-space energy. Bree’s survival instinct, her fractured relationship with her father, and the looming threat of his sinister boss Jude Micah (played by D.C. Douglas) create a tension that feels real and earned. And through it all stands Sali, the ship’s humanoid interface, played with standout precision by Mae Claire.

The acting in this film is typically what you would expect from a ‘B’ movie with campy VFX. Nothing great, nothing too sloppy either. Dana Godfrey commits well to the character Bree, showing fight, grit and heart when necessary.  Mae Claire also gives her all to the character Sali who is calm, sardonic and unsettlingly cheerful. Claire gives the film its sharpest personality, balancing humour with mild menace in a way that the movie desperately needed more of.

But just when Intruder starts to fire on all cylinders, the script can’t resist cutting away again to the news anchors, to the quirky rich family, to the Earth we’ve long since emotionally left behind. While some of these moments are amusing, they often feel like distractions rather than amplifiers. The film’s real heartbeat is Bree in space, wrestling with danger, loneliness, and a rapidly closing window of survival. Every cutaway steals from that momentum.

Still, there is something inherently enjoyable about this film. Even with its scattered storytelling and genre-blending impulses, the film has charm. It has ambition. And it has moments, especially in its latter half, that remind you why sci-fi thrillers built on tight corridors and creeping dread continue to captivate us. I will score it 5.5/10.

As a popcorn flick, ‘Intruder’ gets the job done. As a focused sci-fi thriller, it stumbles. But beneath the uneven execution is a filmmaker with big ideas and a story that, with a tighter grip, could have aimed for the stars instead of orbiting around them.