In Wes Craven’s Scream (1996)—a simultaneous satire of and salute to the then-fledgling horror genre—a character prided himself of knowing all the unwritten rules of horror films. One of those principles should definitely be ‘Scare the audience precisely when they are feeling safe’. And if there is one place where every individual feels secure, it has to be his/her home. After all, there is even an idiom in English: ‘as safe as houses’.
The ‘home invasion’ sub-genre of horror films subverts this saying. While most haunted house films’ basic premise lies in the living violating the estate of the dead; in ‘home invasion’ films, the act of trespassing invariably occurs on the property of the living, and that, too, by the living. Also, more often than not, such films bring to the fore the latent beast within us all. It is as if to imply that a sense of territoriality is not a characteristic merely of animals, but of man, as well.
Each one of us, to some degree or the other, harbours a fear of burglars. There is even a scientific term for it: scelerophobia. But in ‘home invasion’ films, it is not a family’s jewels, which are at stake. In fact, the stakes are way higher. In Miguel Ángel Vivas’ second feature Secuestrados (2010) a.k.a Kidnapped; it is an entire family of three that is at peril.
Though we never really get to learn what he does for a living or his surname, it is quite obvious that Jaime (Fernando Cayo, who starred in Juan Antonio Bayona’s superb El Orfanato [2007], and will be seen very soon in Pedro Almodovar’s latest offering The Skin I Live In) is doing very well for himself. Along with his wife Marta (Ana Wagener) and teenage daughter Isa (Manuela Vellés), he has just shifted into an impressive house, replete with their own swimming pool, located within a gated community.
To celebrate the first dinner together as a family at their new residence, Marta has arranged for a bottle of champagne. But Isa has other ideas. Like most other eighteen-year olds, rather than spending time with her parents, she would prefer, instead, to go to a party with her boyfriend César. Moreover, as Jaime realises, Isa is having trouble adjusting to her new surroundings, which she labels as a ‘graveyard’—a term that, unknown to her, portends to what is about to follow.
During the first quarter of an hour of this 85-minute film, we observe an almost incessant argument between Marta and Isa. Marta is, we get to learn, quite fond of César. But just for that particular day, she would rather have her daughter stay with her than go out with her fiancé. When her initial cajoling and coaxing fail to have any effect on the adamant Isa, Marta sternly puts her foot down; even insisting that Jaime would side with her in this argument. However, to her utter chagrin, Jaime approves of Isa’s idea, and therein begins another squabble—this time between husband and wife.
In other words, we witness a mother trying to gather her family together for one ‘special’ dinner, and failing miserably to get across to her rebellious daughter. Her husband, on the other hand, is a lot more concerned with whether a gum boil is making its reappearance inside his mouth than playing peacemaker. Little did Jaime know that very soon he will have a lot more to be concerned about. Nor was Marta aware that her wish of Isa forsaking the party for the sake of her family will come true, but in a manner she could never have imagined.
As the couple find themselves drained out at the end of a really long day, and try to figure out apparently mundane but important issues like how to persuade the plumbers to ensure continuous supply of hot water in the bathroom or getting the Internet up and running soon, three Albanian men, with their faces hidden behind ski masks force their way into the house.
Now huddled on a sofa than at a dining table, the family members are forced to hand over all their debit cards and reveal the ATM PIN of each. When Jaime tries to outwit the leader of the burglars— when asked to reveal the whereabouts of his cell phone—we realise the masked intruders cannot be outsmarted easily. They put a plastic bag around Marta’s head and try to suffocate her as a warning to Jaime not to try such tricks again. If the opening sequence of the film was any indication, we know, but Jaime does not, that the trio are not amateurs—but pros in the act of breaking into houses and breaking the spirit of their residents.
‘I like to have things easy’ reveals the leader to Jaime. But, inevitably, things get complicated—both for the robbers and for the family. Complications arise when one of the three criminals, in a fit of rage, decides to disobey his boss’ orders. The goings-on get even murkier when a security guard arrives at the doorstep, acting on the neighbours’ complaints of hearing screams emerging from Jaime’s house. As the initial plan of the burglars begins to get completely messed up, Secuestrados builds up to a climax that is both depressing and disconcerting.
Forty-four years ago, Terence Young had a sinister and cold-blooded Alan Arkin and two other thugs terrorise a visually impaired Audrey Hepburn in her apartment in Wait until Dark, thereby sowing the seeds for a new tenet: ‘Home is where the hurt is’. Since then, this horror sub-genre has been visited by a number of famous directors (Sam Peckinpah: Straw Dogs [1971]; Michael Haneke: Funny Games [1997 and 2007]; and David Fincher: Panic Room [2002]). As they subvert one of mankind’s basic beliefs—that of the home being safe—these films are often unapologetically brutal. Cases in point are Angst (1983), a German film whose camerawork has had a profound impact on the notorious Argentine filmmaker Gaspar Noé; Hard Candy (2005), where Ellen Page went on a rampage; the Romanian film Ils (2006) and its Hollywood remake The Strangers (2008)—both of which had a brilliant twist in the tail; and the French film Á l’intérieur (2007) that pushed the envelope quite far when it comes to gore and violence.
There are shades of almost all these films in Secuestrados. The hooded intruders of Ils, the saving the honour aspect of Straw Dogs, the element of brutality towards an older woman of Angst, the mother-daughter relation of Panic Room, and the cowering bloodied image of a female from Á l’intérieur. Even an infamous scene from Noé’s Irreversible (2002) makes an appearance. While the ‘breaking the fourth wall’ element of Funny Games is missing, Vivas has tried to break new grounds in the subgenre by having only a dozen shots in the film, and by introducing interesting techniques like split screens to depict simultaneous action.
With Hollywood deciding to (yet again) unnecessarily remake Straw Dogs; it seems we no longer need to visit a haunted house to be scared. Because horror is making a lot of house calls these days.
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