Bill Bria Says Don’t Forget: Villains

The “home invasion” subgenre has been flipped on its head a number of times, enough that Villains’ concept of two petty criminals breaking into the home of a couple of actual demented psychopaths isn’t exactly new. Like numerous other exercises in genre, however, Villains’ aim isn’t to blaze a new trail but instead have a bit of subversive fun with its subject matter, testing how far an audiences’ sympathies will go with characters who commit varying degrees of immoral acts. A film like this is all in the cast, and the movie’s central quartet of Maika Monroe, Bill Skarsgård, Jeffrey Donovan, and Kyra Sedgwick are a lot of fun, with the younger couple doing a screwball comedy riff and the older couple seeing how far they can push their insanity. Villains is one of those decent genre films released every year that don’t break the mold, but are solidly done nonetheless. While its commentary isn’t particularly deep, it can stand proudly amongst 2019’s streak of genre movies taking dead aim at the rich, pointing out that they indeed may be the biggest villains of all. 

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