The Strangers

Here we have a horror movie which sadly is much more laughable than scary. The characters are stupid. The story, not that there actually is much of a story, is stupid. There are no big scares to jolt you out of your seat. Really there's nothing to prevent you from yawning or flat-out dozing off. When the movie ended I was stunned to find out it was less than 90 minutes long. It seemed much longer. It honestly feels interminable. Please just let the killers put their victims out of their misery. Then we who have the misfortune to be watching can be put out of our misery as well.

So the setup is that a young couple, played by Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler, are spending the night in some house out in the middle of nowhere. There's a knock on the door. A really, really loud knock. That's about the most chilling thing the movie has to offer, a loud knock on the door. Anyhow our young couple ends up being terrorized by three people in goofy masks. Everyone involved, goofy mask people and their potential victims, acts very stupidly. Our victims have apparently never seen any horror movies as, rather than wait in the house with the freaking shotgun they have, they decide to go running around outside in the dark. Because running around in the dark always ends well in these situations, no? Our silly mask people are very lucky that their prey are so stupid because they are quite stupid themselves. If anyone involved in this story had any working brain cells the whole thing would've been over in five minutes. And what a blessed relief that would have been. Instead it goes on and on, Liv Tyler just keeps screaming and the would-be killers just keep, well, standing there. They never really do anything. Ooh, look a guy with a bag on his face is standing in the corner! Scary, right? Nope, not really. There is no action, no drama, no tension. It's all very predictable right from the beginning, probably not helped by the fact the movie basically gives away its ending right at the start. We go through all the horror movie clichés as the movie limps meekly towards a thoroughly unsatisfying end. Boring, unoriginal, quite stupid. That's The Strangers in a nutshell.

The first 45 minutes are quite intense, the whole setup just works fine and the simple but effective cinematography is nice to watch. Though I was not really convinced by Speedman's attempt to reflect intense emotions, you can always rely on Liv Taylor, who is - given a rather thin piece of script - really working her ass off to get the most out of it. Congratulations for that. The mocking "Strangers" start off being quite scary and the concept seems to be somewhat more original then we probably got used too, so it all seems like we're going to have a good time, but then suddenly everything freezes in the most inelegant manner, as the makers seemingly just ran out of any kind of idea how to continue this promising movie. That means, there is almost literally NOTHING new happening from around minute 45, it feels writer and director Bryan Bertino had half a decent script and then needed to finish it in about 2 hours due to a deadline or something. So the other 45 minutes are basically prolonging 2 jump scares and 3 lines of really basic dialog with minimum creativity, like lights turning off and the after a few minutes on again for no obvious reason, till the point where some kind of climax should occur, which then never really happens. Instead we get something really unrefined and boring featuring not a bit of fantasy, it's just like no one really cared anymore.

I'd recommend though watching the first half of the movie and then striding around in some dark forest for a while, that surely does the job much better. 4/10

The Strangers, follows a couple as they stay in a vacant vacation home after some relationship issues not realizing they will soon be fighting for their lives as three strangers are hunting them around the house to kill and terrorize. The film is pretty gruesome considering these were based on true events. This film is okay though keeps the suspense. The movie was a bit dragged and took a while for the killers to prey even though most scenes they could have killed the couple on the spot. Though, I guess that's just part of their game. I would recommend the film for those looking for a light thrill.

Kristen: "Why are you doing this to us?" Dollface: "Because you were home."-The Strangers

It would be so easy to dismiss the very deliberate pacing of this film as pedestrian, but in this day and age of gratuitous violence and constant gore, this film relies on the ability to slowly torment you, as toy watch the hideous way in which the young couple are subjected to the night from Hell.

At the time I genuinely did find this a very unsettling, unnerving watch, going home to an empty house after this was unsettling.

Ignore those that call it boring, trust me, it isn't, it's paced in a way that throws you off guard.

No clear begining, or end, just a series of random events. It's a grim movie. 7/10

We all know the plot: young couple, isolated vacation home, people in masks. Yet from the start of 'The Strangers' it's clear that this film is a different. In today's bloodthirsty society, horror films are often reduced to nothing more than gore-filled gross-out fests. While many young teens may rejoice at such films, many of us still long for original, suspenseful, and, yes, terrifying horror movies. 'The Strangers' came so close.

There is plenty here to recommend: Director Bryan Bertino shows himself to be a patient and smart director. Rather than going for just cheap thrills, he wisely builds tension up to near-breaking point. The feeling of suspense and dread that covers the whole film is classic. Both Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman do well in their leading roles, and the strangers themselves are things of pure terror... yet that's where the film loses some of its commendation. The strangers at times seem that they can't possibly be human because they are made to be almost supernatural in their abilities. They appear and disappear seemingly at will and instantly- a power the young couple probably wished they had but don't because they are, after all, HUMANS. It's a simple mistake used to give the audience one of those cheap thrills that were otherwise so wisely avoided. What makes it sad is that in every other aspect, 'The Strangers' is chillingly realistic and terrifyingly possible. Every time those strangers come and go like ghosts of some kind, it makes the audience sit back once more and say, 'Ah, well, it's just a movie." That's too bad.

Still, 'The Strangers' is much better than your average horror fare. It's at last a new movie that realizes what you don't show can be even more scary than what you do. Still, one hopes that Mr. Bertino can touch up the mistakes from this film and , and deliver a really great horror movie next time around. 7/10 stars! Jay Addison