Masquerade – Film Review

The ultimate disguise in terror.

Movie Details

Director: Shane Dax Taylor
Writer: —
Actors: Alyvia Alyn Lind, Bella Thorne, Mircea Monroe, Austin Nichols, Skyler Samuels
Runtime: 1 h 20 min
Release Date: July 30, 2021
Genres: Thriller
Certification: —

Eleven-year-old Casey (Alyvia Alyn Lind) is home alone — until a group of intruders, led by Rose (Bella Thorne), breaks in. They plan to steal her family’s priceless collection of artworks, but their reckless ambition is outmatched only by Rose’s opportunism. As the stakes grow even higher, Casey now finds herself in a fight for her life as the invaders prove they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want.

Sometimes as a film fan you simply don’t feel like watching a gritty emotionally devastating drama that will play with your emotions, or a superhero movie or a comedy – sometimes, you just want to watch a good old-fashioned home invasion thriller. At least, that’s how I feel sometimes.

So as I was scrolling through the list of new movies that were available at my fingertips and I saw the poster for Masquerade, I figured I’d throw it on and see if it would surprise me – sadly, it didn’t. Maybe I should’ve been able to tell how bad this was going to be based on the fact that Bella Thorne stars in it but even still, I was quite disappointed with this one.

There’s really only so much you can do with a home invasion thriller – an innocent family gets their home broken into by a group of creepy strangers and they have to fend for themselves. The people usually come out on top and it’s all good in the end. They’re all incredibly predictable but every once in a while you do get one that goes above and beyond and actually manages to do some clever things such as the magnificent Panic Room.

But Panic Room this is not – this is one of the weakest films of the year so far. It’s not like it’s extremely hard to watch but I couldn’t help but simply stare at the screen emotionless as the minutes ticked by. I kept waiting for something diverting to happen but it all plays out painfully slow. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it takes over thirty minutes for something even remotely “thrilling” to occur on screen. And for a movie that’s only eighty minutes long including credits, that’s not good at all.

None of the characters have any sort of development either which is quite weird because it’s very apparent that this film desperately wants us to care for the characters involved that are getting their home broken into, but really… why should we? Is it simply because their home is being broken into and that’s it? If so, that’s not a good enough reason. We should feel some sort of emotional attachment to the characters and understand who they are by the time the movie comes to a close.

But as soon as the closing credits appeared on the screen in Masquerade, I truly felt as though I had just watched a bunch of actors running around a house and hiding for eighty minutes. It features easily one of the cheapest, most bland first-draft scripts of the year, and the direction isn’t all that great either.

I will say, though, that the performances aren’t too bad. As I eluded to in the opening of this review – Bella Thorne is an actress who almost always stars in garbage movies which is definitely disappointing, and I’m not really a fan of her work. But I will say that she was actually fairly decent in the role of Rose, and she has a surprising amount of intimidation seeping from her.

Whenever she is on-screen, she does bring a genuine sense of unease and she did make me feel uncomfortable at times – which was the point. Aylvia Alyn Lind is also quite good here, although the majority of her role usually consists of her screaming and crying the entire time. I wish they would’ve given her more things to do, but for what the script called for, she did her best.

Otherwise, though, Masquerade is a misfire in almost every way possible. This could’ve easily been a fun and diverting time to spend eighty minutes but instead, it ended up being eighty minutes of almost no tension present and a script that’s stretched far too thin. A thriller that’s devoid of thrills is never a good thing.