''The Owners'' is a 2020

horror thriller Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

film adapted from the

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

''Une nuit de pleine lune'' by Hermann and Yves H. Directed and co-written by Julius Berg in his feature film

directorial debut This is a list of film directorial debuts in chronological order. The films and dates referred to are a director's first commercial cinematic release. Many film makers have directed works which were not commercially released, for example early work ...

, the film stars

Maisie Williams Margaret Constance "Maisie" Williams (born 15 April 1997) is an English actress. Williams made her acting debut in 2011 as Arya Stark, a lead character in the HBO epic medieval fantasy television series '' Game of Thrones'' (2011–2019). She ...

Sylvester McCoy Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith (born 20 August 1943), known professionally as Sylvester McCoy, is a Scottish actor. Gaining prominence as a physical comedian, he became best known for playing the seventh incarnation of the Doctor in the lon ...

Rita Tushingham Rita Tushingham (born 14 March 1942) is an English actress. She is known for her starring roles in films including ''A Taste of Honey'' (1961), ''The Leather Boys'' (1964), '' The Knack ...and How to Get It'' (1965), ''Doctor Zhivago'' (1965), ...

, Jake Curran, Ian Kenny and Andrew Ellis. An international co-production of the United States, United Kingdom, and France, ''The Owners'' was released in the US on September 4, 2020, by

RLJE Films RLJ Entertainment (formerly Image Entertainment) is an American film production company and home video distributor, distributing film and television productions in North America, with approximately 3,200 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 340 ...

Plot

Gaz, Nathan, and Terry have decided to break into the home of Dr. Richard Huggins and his wife Ellen, as it's in the countryside and is said to have a very large safe full of cash. Nathan's girlfriend Mary complicates matters when she arrives to retrieve her car to go to work, but she is persuaded to come along. She enters the house after the boys fail to access the safe, as she had been waiting for a long while. Once inside, she tells Nathan that she's pregnant. When the Hugginses return, the boys tie the couple up and try to threaten them into opening the safe. In the process Richard recognizes Nathan and Terry from when they were children, causing Nathan to become reluctant to continue the theft. In an attempt to take control Gaz picks a fight with Nathan and stabs him. He then tries to hurt Ellen, only for Mary to kill him with a sledgehammer. As she and Terry untie the couple, Ellen seems to recognize Mary. Richard tricks Terry and Mary by offering to operate on Nathan and pretending to call for an ambulance. Ellen then secretly drugs Terry, who hallucinates Mary's twin sister Jane, who went missing a few months back and is presumed to have run away. Mary realizes that they've been tricked. Richard tries to persuade her and Terry to drink tea with them, during which they discuss the untimely death of the couple's daughter, Kate, years prior, as well as the mysterious disappearances of numerous teenage girls in the area. Now aware of the danger the couple poses, Mary tries unsuccessfully to escape. She and Terry make it to the garage, only for Terry to shoot Mary in the back. As she bleeds out, Richard taunts Mary about her impending death, despite acknowledging that she saved him and his wife from Gaz. He also tells her that he and his wife have kidnapped and imprisoned several girls in their safe, which is actually a vault where they would dress them up as little girls and call them "Kate". It's insinuated that the girls who didn't work out were killed and disposed of. The most recent girl they kidnapped, however, did fit the role. And when Richard opens the vault it's revealed that Mary's sister, Jane, is inside. Mary finally succumbs to blood loss, with the last thing she sees being her long lost sister in chains. As a reward for helping them, the Hugginses imprison Terry inside the vault with Jane. The film ends with Terry's mother discussing her son's disappearance with the Hugginses, unaware of the couple's involvement and the presence of Mary's freshly buried corpse in the garden, presumably alongside Gaz and Nathan.

Cast

as Mary / Jane Vorrel *

as Dr. Richard Huggins *

as Ellen Huggins * Jake Curran as Gaz * Ian Kenny as Nathan * Andrew Ellis as Terry * Stacha Hicks as Jean

Production

In February 2019, it was announced that

had been cast for the film. In May 2019, Jake Curran, Ian Kenny, Andrew Ellis,

and Stacha Hicks joined the cast.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began in May 2019. Filming took place in an isolated Victorian mansion in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, near

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. Director and co-writer Julius Berg, speaking of the film's themes, stated that, "in a way, it's a bit of an

anti-capitalist Anti-capitalism is a political ideology and Political movement, movement encompassing a variety of attitudes and ideas that oppose capitalism. In this sense, anti-capitalists are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economi ...

movie. When you're poor you have less of a chance to survive."

Release

In April 2020,

acquired distribution rights to the film. It was released in the United States on September 4, 2020.

Reception

Critical response

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "''The Owners'' will prove excessively mean-spirited and over the top for some, but should be just pulpy enough for genre enthusiasts up for some home-invasion thrillers."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

reports a score of 53 out of 100 based on four critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Owners 2020 films 2020 horror thriller films American horror thriller films British horror thriller films English-language French films French horror thriller films Home invasions in film Films shot in Kent Films set in the 1990s Films based on Belgian comics Live-action films based on comics Films set in England 2020s English-language films 2020s American films 2020s British films 2020s French films