New horror flick "The Strangers" worth seeing on the Big Screen
1:28 p.m. Friday, June 6, 2008
This is an amazing effort from first time director Bryan Bertino who's made one of the best horror films I've seen in at least a decade.
The story surrounds a young couple James and Kristen (Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler) following a wedding reception. The two have had a fight following a marriage proposal from James that Kristen turned down. They arrive at the family home to talk and decide what to do next. It's 4 AM and James is destroyed and Kristen is emotionally distraught.
Then out of the blue there's a mysterious knock at the front door. Standing in the darkened doorway is a young woman who simply asks if Tamara is home? The couple informs her its the wrong house and as quickly as she appeared she's gone.
James leaves to buy cigarettes for Kristen leaving her alone (of course she's left there its a horror movie). Soon after there's another knock at the door with the same girl asking for Tamara. Suddenly there's a masked man at the window, the phone lines are cut, Kristen's cell phone is missing as somehow the Strangers enter the house and let the terror begin. It becomes a fight for their lives as we wonder throughout who're the Strangers and what do they want?
The Strangers is a well crafted, scary on the edge of your seat film that will get into your head and send chills up your spine. The movie is a nice tribute to the horror films of the 1970s. Director Bertino relies more on what you don't see than what you do see. The darkness, and shadows, sounds that go bump in the night, along with the creep, asthmatics breathing of one of the Strangers that's very eerie make this film as good as it is. That's not to say there wasn't moments of violence and shock because there is, but those scenes are placed far enough apart that they surprise the audience.
Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are very effective as the staked prey of the Strangers. There is a real believability to both of them that is very much needed in a film like this one but I wanted a really good horror movie scream from Liv Tyler and never got it.
It's never explained what the Strangers want or why they do what they're doing to this couple. That doesn't make them any less mysterious and frightening. When one of them is asked by Liv Tyler why are you doing this to us? It's simply answered with a calm voice, because you were home. That line will become a thing of horror film legend as one of the best responses ever in the genre.
"The Strangers" is such a nice departure from the current wave of horror, tourture films that seem to be more concerned with sickening the audience than scaring them. There is a place for those movies in the genre, but nothing beats getting scared at a well made horror movie with a brain to it. I love all kinds of horror movies, but this is one of the best I've seen in some time. It's one of my favorite movies of 2008 and a real winner. With all the movies I see as a critic the chills and images in this film stayed with me after it was over!
Post a comment
(Requires free registration.)