The Stranger

But still very intriguing and very weird, which I found to be good. It's not really new and you will be able to guess a couple of things coming along the way, but the way it is told and shot respectively (very dark) may be exactly right up your ally. Or you might hate it for that, but you'll be able to know very early on if you like it or not, the mood is set very early on.

It's a slow burner, but there will be blood and action if you are patient enough to wait for those "sparks"/moments to happen. It's not the flashiest of movies or the fanciest in the horror/suspense category, but it does many things right. Are you up for that?

But, I'm afraid, it was all downhill from there.

Slow.

What's happening and why? When is it going to actually start?

It had some promise, occasionally, but I just couldn't get into it. AT ALL. Because, it's terrible.

Sorry, Mr. Roth, this one was a miss.

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.

'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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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.