A tech-horror essay shot through a peephole lens, the peculiar story of the doorbell.
In four chapters, we are guided through the peculiar story of the (re)invention of the doorbell. From a collage of YouTube video feeds of people stealing Amazon deliveries, to bizarre anti-burglary trivia and a montage of home invasion films, we enter a maze of jarring footage, at times droll, at others terrifying.
In our current Big Brother world, what is our relationship to surveillance? Does any of this technology, antique or advanced, make us feel genuinely safer? With its round format and its (disturbing) doorbell soundtrack, Graeme Arnfield’s debut feature is a tech-horror essay entirely shot through a peephole lens. With that, he transmutes the entire screen into a watchful eye with no lid, an iris lens that lets us peek at the danger outside, into the everyday terror of our fear of others. Home Invasion is a boundary-pushing and profoundly insightful documentary wrapped around an insidious nightmare.
