The Stranger

The movie looks great and the actors seem OK... but as I watched something kept bugging me. Repeatedly taking me out of the story and making me wonder 'what's wrong here?'. It took me a while but it started to dawn on me that none of the voices seem right. Overly precise and just don't go with the faces, if that makes sense. I'm pretty sure now that this was done with the actors speaking English, maybe phonetically, but probably with strong accents... and then later dubbed over with native English speakers. It creates a subtle but jarring effect that really got in the way of my enjoying what otherwise is a pretty good little horror tale. A bad decision, IMO... though a lot of the blame goes to audiences who refuse to watch subtitles.

OK, other than that major complaint... it's not bad. Never scary... not too surprising.... but competent.

Must admit the trailer looked promising for The Stranger and the movie certainly had some interesting elements. I'll avoid spoilers however from the cover alone you can gleam a hint. It was really strange for me however as it almost seemed like some of the cast had their voices dubbed over, this was very strange as others sounded fine and I don't know why that happened but it was off putting as some of the cast subsequently (whether related or not) just seemed not to be doing a great job acting. So we ended up with a strange movie with a mixed cast of almost amateurs and some pros, very strange. I would have liked to know more of the how and why and less of the rather forced plot devices and characters. A shame as there really were some good elements to this horror movie however it all ended up a bit all over the show despite good efforts.

This movie was pretty good but it had the potential to be great. Ooooh I'm so bothered. Everything lined up: the story, the camera-work, the directing... then there was one character and his acting. My oh my how terrible was his acting.

Lieutenant De Luca was his name (Luis Gnecco). He was abysmal. A bald, tough guy, rule breaking cop with a loose cannon for a son that he would stick his neck out to protect. Even when his son assaults and terrorizes random people in the small town the lieutenant makes sure to cover up for him. But he was so over the top with his acting and such a caricature.

You know how there are some bad guys that you respect because of their badassness (ala Darth Vader, the Joker, Michael Myers) and there are some bad guys that you loathe because of how wicked and evil they are (Mommy Dearest, Chucky, etc.). Lieutenant De Luca was neither. You just hate him because he's trying to be something he's not. He wants to be the Darth Vader but he is more like Dark Helmet--doesn't look the part of villain and can't act the part of villain.

He romped around his small town doing as he pleased with total disregard of any semblance of laws. And because we've learned that in a small town you can do that, the other police as well as the townsfolk accepted it as commonplace. It wasn't simply his overt flexing of his executive muscle, it was the total lack of tact, guile or cleverness and the absolutely silly pathetic look he displayed when he was supposed to be tough. He was neither tough nor smart as hard as he tried to portray that. His stature and face conveyed "pity me" and the forced nature of his gruff tough guy voice conveyed "Let me make a good impression in this role." None of it worked. His character didn't work for him and he didn't work for his character.

I was so torn. The two main protagonists and the story had me drawn in but I just kept being nagged by that lieutenant. He was like a cut lip when you're trying to enjoy a good meal. The food is so good but the overall enjoyment is ruined by the pain.

While this film has an interesting premise and could have been a really good story, the execution is just so dull, slow and overly- dramatic that it really does suck all the joy and entertainment value out of it.

What's more it takes ages to show the audience what most people will have guessed in the first five minutes. With all the grandstanding and wasted time taken away this really could have just been a solid short rather than a feature film.

Overall it is hard to recommend The Stranger since it doesn't really provide enough entertainment or originality to justify its existence. Only watch if you for some reason enjoy really slow, not- horrorific in any way, horrors that have only the smallest amount of substance to justify their overly-serious tone.

'THE STRANGER': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Horror flick from writer/director Guillermo Amoedo, and producers Eli Roth and Nicolas Lopez (the three also worked together on 'AFTERSHOCK', 'THE GREEN INFERNO' and 'KNOCK KNOCK'). This film tells the story of a mysterious stranger, with a deadly disease, who comes to town looking for his wife; but death and chaos follows him. The movie stars Cristobal Tapia Montt, Nicolás Durán, Luis Gnecco, Ariel Levy, Alessandra Guerzoni, Lorenza Izzo and Aaron Burns. It's an interesting and well made vampire drama flick.

Martin (Tapia Montt) comes back home, to a small town, looking for his wife, Ana (Izzo). Instead he finds trouble, in the form of a gang of violent hooligans. Martin is attacked, and left for dead, by the criminals; but a young man, named Peter (Durán), comes to his rescue. A police officer, named Lieutenant De Luca (Gnecco), is the father of one of the gang members; and he's used to covering up his son's crimes. The Lieutenant is extremely troubled by the presence of this mysterious stranger. When the townsfolk learn what Martin's blood can do, things become even more crazy; and violent.

The movie takes it's time getting going, but it's worth the wait. It's not full of excessive gore, like a lot of vampire flicks, but it's got enough action and thrills, to keep most viewers entertained. All of the performances are decent enough, and Amoedo does a more than adequate job directing. I look forward to seeing more from him, and the Roth/Lopez/Amoedo team, in the future!

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