Aliens. At last. And they’re nasty, very nasty indeed.
This episode is the kind of stand-alone short film you see at festivals; a terrifying, tension-fuelled 30 minutes or so that delivers a real emotional punch while retaining an intense horror sensibility.
Suffering a pang of guilt that she has abandoned her family Aneesha leaves the medical camp and journeys back to the remote house where her husband and children have sought refuge. Arriving at night she discovers everyone hiding in the attic as an alien creature patrols downstairs. What follows is a potent blend of home invasion, haunted house and survival horror as the inhabitants are hunted by the sound sensitive and nightmarish alien that moves unpredictably and shadowlike in the darkness.
Home Invasion is all about Aneesha, her strength and her choices. You empathise with her struggles balancing that conscience against abandoning her rather pathetic and disloyal husband in order to protect her children. It is a personal trial, and you get the sense this is what the showrunners are going for, a stripped back personal journey in the wake of horrors experienced during an alien invasion. That this episode stands out is perhaps telling against the diminishing returns of the series so far.
There are still many questions for Invasion to answer, and the series has work to do to retain any following it has amassed, but this episode shows promise for what comes next.
Invasion streams on Apple TV+. Read our reviews of previous episodes:
