The Hive might just be the strangest home invasion film I have ever seen. Written and directed by Jared Allmond, this has a central twist so obvious that I can't believe it was ever intended not to be realised. It made for a very interesting premise, though the unlikeable protagonists meant they were quite hard to root for.
Albie (Timothy Haug) and his wife, Penny (Christie Griffin) are in the death throes of their marriage. This is mainly due to Albie being supremely self centered and egotistical, oblivious to his wife's wants and needs. With her mother looking after the children, the two go out to the opera. Arriving back home later that evening, they are startled to find a very strange acting pair in their home who insist that it is theirs. After threatening them with a gun, the couple retreat to Penny's nearby sisters house, who convinces them to return and try and get video evidence of the intruders, as for some reason, neither the next door neighbour or local police want to get involved. After sneaking into their home they are swiftly captured by the strangers and tied up, and then subjected to some cruel interrogation, with the questions making no sense to either of them. Independently, both attempt to escape, but their relationship issues are always at the forefront, hampering their escape attempts.
While I feel it was obvious who the strangers actually were (again, I am almost certain this was intended), the film brought to mind several different movies, some of which added to the atmosphere and some which detracted from my experience. The strangers (played with creepy perfection by Miles Taber and Julianne Ruck) have some nonsensical questions they are asking the couple, with the often repeated main one of "Where is the access port to the collective hive mind?" This key miscommunication makes up a lot of the plot of the movie, with the strangers unable to realise that their questions are making no sense, and the captured couple baffled as to what on earth is being asked of them. There are a handful of other characters, but it is these four who the focus is on. The strangers are perpetually smiling and cheerful acting, even as they torture the pair (primarily by the use of some type of Vulcan nerve pinch type assault), of course bringing Smile to mind. As to the couple, their doomed relationship did come across as believable, with moments where it seems they might actually be brought closer via their shared experience, but then these are ruptured again, typically by awful Albie, a mostly pathetic person who has an inflated sense of his own worth. While Penny wasn't as bad a person, some of the things she does, especially later in the film, are really bone headedly stupid, meaning that neither character I cared about.
This worked as a low key Invasion of the Body Snatchers type story, also bringing to mind the indie horror, They Look Like People. Sometimes the indie nature of The Hive brought it down slightly, such as the third act which I feel would have benefitted by more characters being present to really ramp up the threat level. The bizarre way of talking the strangers have felt right out of Dude, Where's My Car? but this led to some intentionally amusing moments. I did like the back and forth the core four characters had with each other. Special effects are used sparingly, but when they are there they looked pretty great truth be told. I liked the arthouse style quick snap moments of character's heads in pitch black screaming, was a cool technique used several times, and I thought the plot was interesting enough that you would want to stick around to the end.
Despite not really liking either of the two protagonists, I thought that The Hive was an interesting diversion to a typical home invasion film. Blending sci-fi with horror worked well, and the story, while well trodden, was still engaging to watch. The Hive releases on Cable and Digital VOD today, October 27th.
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