Janel Parrish in Trespassers (IFC Films)

Lit and scored like a Michael Mann film, Trespassers wants to be a sharp, socially conscious thriller about male toxicity and the devil in us all. What it is actually about are four exceedingly dull people that end up trapped in a house by cartoonish bad guys, with some decent kills and gore effects thrown in to keep us awake, because the plot and character development certainly aren’t going to.

Sarah and Joseph (Angela Trimbur and Zach Avery) rent a ridiculously expensive house for a weekend to work on their relationship. For some reason, Sarah thinks of inviting Estelle (Janel Parrish), her free-spirited friend from high school she hasn’t seen in years. Estelle brings her bro-to-the-max boyfriend, Victor (Jonathan Harold). They will spice things up for Sarah and Joseph or bring them closer together or something. It isn’t quite made clear.

What eventually is made clear is the reason for the strain on Sarah and Joseph’s relationship: a miscarriage, and they both still keenly feel the loss. So, one would figure that, given that information, when you look for an Airbnb, you might want to make sure there isn’t a nursery in the place. But sure enough, this astounding, isolated post-modern desert gem has one that Sarah can walk into occasionally and stare forlornly at the empty crib, which, rest assured, she does.

Now, unbeknownst to the four, but known to us—thanks to a prologue—the owners of the house have been assassinated by Mexican thugs. We know they are Mexican thugs because they drive through the night playing (I swear to God) mariachi music, volume up to 11. These guys are looking for something, and before he dies, the owner lets the Mexicans know it is in the house.

Interestingly, things go way south well before the Mexicans come calling. A stranger (Fairuza Balk, chewing every bit of scenery she can get her hands on) arrives, claiming her car broke down. Sarah lets her in to call for help, which brings the coked up and paranoid Victor to the point of apoplexy. The stranger is acting somewhat strangely, seems to be stalling, and…well…bad things happen.

There’s no time for any real character growth. The film is about an hour and a half long, and there’s about 20 minutes to get to know the foursome before the doorbell rings and the first trespasser arrives. It’s simply not enough to time to care for them. We have no idea what they do or why any of the couples are together. They all seem to dislike each other intensely, yet we don’t know why.

The acting itself is second-rate Skinemax, which I don’t actually attribute to the actors considering what they have to work with. Timbur is one of our most intriguing young performers, and she can’t squeeze anything out of this part. Avery manages to muster up a certain sense of sensual melancholy, like a Bruce Weber photograph come to life.

Eventually the police arrive, and you get the film’s only great scene. When Balk’s stranger refuses to leave, Sarah calls the police. Subsequently, a murder occurs. As Sergeant Daniels (Carlos Rota) interviews the group and calmly takes in the story the group has devised, his eyes roam the room, catching details that poke gaping holes in their narrative. Here, director Orson Oblovitz captures every stutter and stumble that Angela and company make and then hones in on Daniel’s eyes as he takes it in, clearly skeptical but not letting on. If there’s any tension at all, it’s here.

Of course, the Mexicans show up, and the real mayhem begins. Again, Oblovitz manages to build tension as the death count rises, but a third act reveal brings things to a dead halt, as the momentum slows down into an interrogation/torture sequence that actually devolves into a game of slapsies.

There seems to be an attempt at an examination of toxic masculinity, but it gets washed out by the general garishness of the proceedings and the blandness of the dialogue. It’s tough to shed light on the ills of one social issue when your bad guys are like some Trumpian fever dream.