The Owners

Well, I wasn't really sure what exactly I was in for when I sat down to watch the 2020 movie titled "The Owners". However, I was intrigued by the movie's cover/poster, and it definitely had some appeal to me. And it looking like a horror movie, of course I was interested.

So I sat down to watch "The Owners", and yeah I was entertained by the movie. Writers Mathieu Gompel, Julius Berg and Geoff Cox definitely had managed to put together something that turned out to be interesting. Well, right up to a point, then the movie just started to lose momentum and settled into auto-pilot, then the movie just grew stale. That happened at the stage right after the big reveal of what was really going on.

The storyline was entertaining, sure, but up to a certain point about halfway through the movie - as I mentioned earlier. It was a shame really, because director Julius Berg really was phenomenal at setting the stage and lining up the suspense by gradually adding to the story. But once the reveal of the events took place, the air just escaped from the balloon, and the storyline became flaccid and sort of monotonous.

It should be said, though, that "The Owners" is a movie that is driven more by its strong and noteworthy acting performances than it was driven by the storyline. The movie had some very nice actors and actresses on the cast list, with the likes of Sylvester McCoy and Rita Tushingham. But most outstanding was Jake Curran, as he really stole the show with his performance.

The movie is labeled as a horror/thriller. I would say it has more emphasis on the thriller aspect than it does the horror. If you expect a scary horror movie, then "The Owners" is not the right cup of tea. However, if you are looking for a suspenseful thriller that has some punch to it, then this is definitely a movie well-worth watching.

I am rating "The Owners" a mediocre five out of ten stars. I would have given it six, but what happened after the great reveal midway through the movie, it just felt too monotonous and uneventful really. Mind you, this is not a boring movie. It does have some strong and good things to it, it was just a shame that director Julius Berg set the movie for auto-pilot halfway to the finish line.

What I didn't enjoy about The Owners is how big of a letdown it is after the film embraces its latter half twists. The first half is heist+home invasion clichés galore - a bunch of thugs looking to make some quick money by robbing a rich house fail to realize that the resident couple has some secrets of their own to hide. This plotline has now nearly run its course and needs truckloads of inventiveness to be taken seriously. While there have been a few surprises in this subgenre such as Don't Breathe and Villains, I don't think this film makes it to that list.

The screenplay meanders, the characters are all unlikeable (the film uses the pregnancy ploy to make audiences care for Mary, the character played by Maisie Williams, but it doesn't work), and the overall slackening of pace do the film no favours. There are zero scares and it's some bloodshed alone that tags it under the horror category. Watch one of the films mentioned above (or M.N Shyamalan's The Visit) instead.

I thought with Williams as the lead the rest of the cast would be low budget level actors but they all do a fine job, particularly McCoy who was Dr Who few years after Tom Baker. It has the usual idiot trope consisting of an utter tool, a mild tool, the coward that gets roped into dumb things by his tool friends, and the girlfriend that didn't want to be there in the first place. Follows a fairly standard formula of a house robbery gone wrong but without being predictable and it ramps up the tension quite well as the violence escalates. Enjoyable thriller overall.

I found it entertaining, predictable but still it kept me wanting to continue watching... I gave it five stars.. when I find a movie that can't keep my interest than I stop it! This definitely kept me entertained and that's what movies are supposed to do!

This is only unpredictable if you've never watched anything else of the genre. It rips off Villains, poorly, but tries to have a twist ending. A twist that was as dumb as everything else.

Doesn't help that the third act was cropped to a 4:3 ratio for no discernable reason.