Theme: Home Invasion Thrillers

The Home Invasion thriller centres around people at siege from violent attackers who have or are trying to break to their homes. The reasons for this can sometimes be criminal – ie. attempting to find money, the contents of a safe etc – or else purely psychopathic – that the home invaders are Psychos and Serial Killers who delight in torture and sadistic games.

The first home invasion film was The Desperate Hours (1955) about criminals on the run who take a regular suburban family hostage. This set down the basics that have been used without too much variation since then.

The 1970s Backwoods Brutality cycle bought some particularly savage variants with Straw Dogs (1971) and The Last House on the Left (1972). The genre has been pushed to even more brutal and sadistic extremes with the Torture Porn and French Extremism cycles of the 2000s/10s. The 2010s has also brought a spate of films where burglars break into a house only to find themselves in the midst of something disturbing – where they are hunted or imprisoned by serial killers.