The Stranger

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 had potential. Conceptually it is a solid take on the Vampire genre and it was shot well, but.... But.

It is like the movie was directed and written by a 10 year old. The dialog was just way too simple and I felt like I was watching some dubbed Italian horror flick from the 70's. Not that there is anything wrong with dubbed Italian horror flicks from the 70's. I actually find them to be charming. But, it's 2016 and the fact that I was constantly distracted by these attributes was fairly annoying.

Worth watching on a rainy day, but I wouldn't put it on the must watch bucket list.

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.

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.

So I waisted 90 minutes of my life I will never get back, waiting for the epic bloodbath. It never happened. This movie is slow and the story line with its continual flashbacks ( maybe even a flash sideways) sets any avid movie watcher up to read the ending in the first 20 minutes. It's like watching Friday the 13th where Jason decided he's depressed his mom was killed so he decides to become a child Birthday party photographer who makes animal balloons. He still can't be killed but that's ok because he'll be around for your great grandchildren's birthdays too. This movie lets you down entirely if you're looking for an action movie with an epic bloodbath.