30 NIGHTS OF NIGHT - Night 1: INTRUDERS (2011)

Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's Intruders is a rare ghost story that is consistently surprising without being condescending.  Its surprises are genuine because they come not from a desire to turn the entire story on its head and flummox the audience, but from an honest identification with its characters.  Its ghosts are not spirits of the dead who wish to jump out from behind things at us, but spirits of lingering trauma and sadness that have remained for years.

It also recognizes the power of creativity when dealing with monsters, whether spiritual or real.  Many of its characters are writers, and tell stories as a way to deal with personal trauma.  And at least one character begins to believe that her creations are bringing something devious to life.

Intruders interweaves two stories, set at different time periods, with the implication that they will coincide somehow.  8-year-old Juan (Izan Corchero), an avid writer, finds himself haunted by the spirit of Hollowface, a tall shadowy figure who preys on children and their parents.  His mother (Pilar Lopez de Ayala) doesn't know if Juan's fears are real, all in his head, or both.  She contacts a young priest (Daniel Bruhl) to help her.

In the concurrent story set some years later, young Mia (Ella Purnell) finds a folded up piece of paper in a tree.  Written on it is the story of Hollowface.  She reads it and begins to expand on it, submitting it for a creative writing project as her own work.  Before long, she and her parents (Clive Owen and Carice Van Houten) begin to notice ghostly occurrences at night.

Without revealing too many of the film's secrets, I'll say that never once does Intruders venture into the direction of the silly.  Fresnadillo and his writers, Nicolas Casariego and Jaime Marques, always keep the ghost business just a shade on this side of believable, and we always identify with the characters who experience the hauntings.  Like The Exorcist, it's firmly planted in the real world.  It also contains the rare exorcism which is performed not as a puke-splattering, Latin-spewing kinetic mess, but as a sly psychological trick played by a crafty priest.

Owen gives a dynamic performance as a sensitive, protective, misunderstood father, who very gradually becomes obsessed with Hollowface, to the point where we fear he may hurt his family.  He perfectly portrays undying conviction, even as it dawns on him that the rest of the world may think he's crazy.  Purnell is also very good as the little girl, and a cryptic side to her performance may not be quite decipherable until the final twist is revealed.  Lopez de Ayala and Corchero are fine as the haunted mother and daughter, but Bruhl walks away with their storyline as the determined, smarter-than-average young priest.

Intruders carefully tiptoes on the line between supernatural and real horrors, and it's to its credit that it never quite falls on either side.  There are ghosts in it, but they extend from the horrors that the mind creates.  Hollowface may or may not actually exist, but he is real to Juan, and that much we believe.

*** 1/2 out of ****