I Came By

A decent and inoffensive thriller from Netflix. I find director Babak Anvari to be a total bum. I suffered through his two horror flicks (Under the Shadow and Wounds), but his third film is relatively satisfying and maybe he can surprise in the future. The film focuses on a young man who breaks into rich people's houses and paints them graffiti in the living-room, but he stumbles upon something unpleasant in one gentleman's basement that could endanger him and his loved ones. Though not very original, the film is a combination of several others like Don't Breathe and various home invasion movies, but it is definitely entertaining, suspenseful, nicely shot with a fine villain (though we don't get to know as much about him as desired) and a delightful twist in the middle that is definitely unexpected. There were a couple of scares that worked well, but it's slightly disappointing that the finale isn't intense and tense enough, it's a bit of a let down. I was quite disappointed that the film avoided violence (there was one scene calling for a butchering). Anvari still has room for improvement, but for a boring evening, I Came By is good enough. 6/10. (09/08/2022)

The film is very similar in genre to the excellent Bad Samaritan, The Neighbor, or Disturbia, so I'll be doing a lot of comparing. I Came By could actually be a good piece of filmmaking, because the premise of teenager psychopathic neighbor is pretty good stuff that can be grasped from any side, but after an hour of good story outlining, moving the plot forward, and getting to know the characters, we sort of start to go in circles, and instead of a climax we get more of the same story loop. It’s also disappointing that the villain is not introduced more, he doesn't act as psychopathic as he should and doesn't have a more distinct character to scare the viewer out of sleep. The ending is also weak, lacking the necessary final catharsis. It's a good watch, only the second half is too drawn out thanks to the aforementioned and sometimes it makes you look at your watch... (09/02/2022)

At first I was slightly bored at watching nothing but a Netflix variation of Don't Breathe with an extremely unlikeable main character, but an unexpected turn at about the fortieth minute kept me entertained and it continued well after that; an interestingly conceived villain with the face of Hugh Bonneville. Unfortunately, the final fifteen minutes are stupid on several levels and send this otherwise decent thriller into the toilet. (09/04/2022)