The Strangers

They say that there is nothing more terrifying than the horrors of real life, and while we slowly learn of the terrible mystery behind the Foster family killed in a murder and subsequent blaze (at the time of writing), we are reminded more than ever that this is true. This is just the sort of thing that The Strangers writer/director Bryan Bertino plays on with this movie, announcing at the beginning that The Strangers is based on true events, the truth behind them nobody really quite knows.

Having spent a day at a wedding James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and girlfriend Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) return to the Hoyt family home where prior to the day’s events he had planned a special romantic night. Something however has gone wrong, and all his best efforts which include rose petals on the bed, and in the bathtub; have been wasted. There is extreme tension between the two, and it’s blatantly obvious that rather than being a night to cement a relationship, it’s a night that would see one end. In the tension a girl calls by to ask if her friend is there, breaking the uneasy silence. As the conversations begin to flow, James leaves to get Kristen some cigarettes. But while he is gone the girl returns, asking exactly the same question. But as Kristen returns from the door she realises that someone has been in the house; then the girl returns again.

I can’t deny I was sucked in for a bit from the opening spiel which claimed that the story of The Strangers was true. Reality eventually set in when I realised that detail was quite precise, and how could this be if the events of the movies true story were unknown. This does not make the story any less creepy; and I have to place myself in a third persons shoes in order to make that statement. If I were not emotionally devoid when it came to horror movies, I’m sure you could find this incredibly scary. The story is not a complete falsity, it’s based on events that the movies creator heard about as a child, in which one night a series of burglaries occurred in his neighbourhood, there were however as in the movie no sinister masked figures and certainly no death.

The Strangers has some pretty good tools at its disposal to build up the tension, first of all there is the atmosphere between the young couple, secondly and far more sinister is the record player and it’s choice of music, one such track is kind of child like and rather unpleasant all at the same time an ideal music choice for a horror movie. Tip in some darkness, an isolated location, some electrical flaws; and you have all the hallmarks for a convincing horror yarn.

Sadly despite the great build up The Strangers is nothing you have not seen before, in fact you could find elements of the movie in the previous year’s Vacancy, or the French movie High Tension (Switchblade Romance) , you could even go further make and say there are similarities with the second Amityville movie. What I really wanted from the movie was something uniquely new, and when you see the sinister looking strangers with masked bad guys you are lured into that belief, maybe The Strangers will be that different movie? It’s not of course, which takes me back to my earlier point, nothing new, nothing special, and despite its two leading Hollywood lights nothing to elevate this from any low budget movie currently doing the rounds.

Both Tyler and Speedman do the very best they can with the movie in respect of acting, and the three incoming assailants played by Gemma Ward, Kip Weeks, and Laura Margolis do equally as well despite the fact that you never see their faces. Acting is far from being the problem here, neither really is the story itself, it’s just come along far too late.

The travesty is that The Strangers was shelved for over a year, had it not been for this then Vacancy would have followed in its wake rather than vice versa, despite the different locations both movies do have an awful lot in common, the difference is that Vacancy does take you somewhere slightly different, whereas The Strangers starts as a couple being terrorised by three people, and ends in the same way. Not even two innocent Mormon children who travel the movie from house to house “spreading the word” can change the fortunes of this movie.

The Strangers is furthermore hindered by the fact that its best surrounding is not a packed auditorium with other viewers, but instead a dark quite living room with no-one at all for company, it is then and only then that the movie may gain some majesty.