Invasion
aka Hojoom First screened and reviewed in October 2025
Director: Shahram Mokri. Cast: Abed Abest, Elaheh Bakhshi, Behzad Dorani, Babak Karimi, Mohammad Sareban, Esmaeil Gorji, Milad Rahimi, Pedram Sharifi, Iman Sayad Borhani, Levon Haftvan, Sajad Tabesh, Ali Miri, Soheil Soheili. Screenplay: Shahram Mokri and Nasim Ahmadpour. In Brief:
A murder mystery and a police yarn and a closet story and a vampire tale and so many things—too many! None of which jell.
VOR:③
I have to grant originality and risk; filmmakers looking for inspiration could find some here, even fix what sputters. Just doesn't hold up.
I'm disappointed to connect so little with this one after enjoying all of Shahram Mokri's other work. There's a Sorry to Bother You vibe of a director trying to cram all the projects in his head into one movie, which I can symoathize with, especially when the horror elements and the queer elements must be handled so euphemistically, visually and rhetorically, given where Mokri is working. But Invasion just feels over-plotted and ill-explained, and it keeps adding new, barely penetrable conceits when it ought to be elucidating and drawing together the ones we've already been (barely) following. The film also risks cheapening in retrospect some of Fish & Cat's highwire formal gambits by redeploying them here with less finesse, less rigorous attention to the frame, and less persuasive relation to plot or theme. There's no question in my mind this story would benefit from a more conventional shooting approach, but even then, I suspect I'd find it cluttered and overthought. Grade:C–
(I originally wrote this capsule on Letterboxd, where you can comment.)
