Untitled Home Invasion Romance Movie Review – Jason Biggs Trades Apple Pie for Murder in Black Comedy Caper

For such a grim premise, Jason Biggs’ Untitled Home Invasion Romance tickles out the chuckles in between the WTF moments. It’s a little similar to Peter Berg’s Very Bad Things, which turned out to be a divisive film when it was released in 1998. If you have a dark sense of humor and love characters as toxic as the two-year-old mushrooms at the back of your fridge, this film will be a riot.

The marriage between commercial actor Kevin Stanwell (Biggs) and Suzie Stone (Meaghan Rath) is on the rocks. They agree to give their relationship one more chance, so Kevin concocts the ultimate harebrained scheme to win over Suzie’s affections: He writes a script with his acting buddy Ernie (Arturo Castro) in which they will orchestrate a home invasion. Ernie will break in, allowing Kevin to save the day and to be Suzie’s hero. What could possibly go wrong here? Well, Suzie kills Ernie, because Kevin wasn’t in place at the right time.

The hook here is that Kevin doesn’t want to come clean about his original plan after Ernie’s death. He knows that people will struggle to believe his story, and he doesn’t want to lose Suzie, so he tries to figure out a way to wriggle himself out of trouble. At the same time, the investigation surrounding this murder leads to revelations about Suzie that Kevin had no idea about before now.

Overall, Jamie Napoli and Joshua Paul Johnson pen a smart script. Kevin is desperate to save his marriage and will do dumb things to keep it together, so it’s easy to see how he and Ernie could settle on such a terrible plan. Even if they think they’re clever in putting it all together, the end result demonstrates how stupid their idea was to begin with. This is the part in the story where Untitled Home Invasion Romance picks up steam and becomes hilarious to follow, as Kevin tries (and fails) to cover his tracks and everyone suspects something is amiss. The little twist in Suzie’s story also tacks on another entertaining layer to the tale, because it makes the audience question how much of this was actually an accident.

Biggs pulls double duty as the director and actor, but his comical performance as Kevin doesn’t suffer in the slightest. There’s a natural awkwardness to his character that makes everyone pity but also shake their head at this guy. While you can’t doubt his original intentions, he becomes cowardly when he thinks his goose is cooked. Does Kevin learn anything from his actions in the end? The jury’s still out on that one.

Untitled Home Invasion Romance‘s standout, though, is Rath. Suzie comes across as someone who is bored with Kevin and wants something more out of her life. Yet, this turns out to be a slight red herring to what’s actually taking place in her arc. By the time the credits roll, Suzie becomes the most exciting character in the film, thanks to Rath’s portrayal of her transformation.

For a feature film debut, Biggs demonstrates a high degree of competence in both the technical and storytelling aspects of Untitled Home Invasion Romance. This feels like a film handled by a seasoned director, who knows what journey he wants to take the audience on.

Having said that, there’s one tiny aspect in the edit of the movie that could have created a stronger connection between the viewer and the antagonists. Ernie’s brothers, Victor (Chris Young) and Oscar (Rene Escobar Jr.), are only introduced near the one-hour mark of the movie, making their arrival too late in the film and feeling as if they’re shoehorned for the third act showdown. With a slight script tweak and shuffling of scenes, they could have shown up earlier and helped to instill a sense that further trouble is on the horizon rather than whoomp, there it is.

The final act’s sin aside, Untitled Home Invasion Romance lives up to its black comedy promise. Every character here needs intensive therapy and no one’s really a hero when all is said and done. Yet, it’s impossible to look away and not be invested in these messy people and their messy story.

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