The Strangers (2008)

continued...

... last twenty minutes of Halloween. You'll see a lot of bad guys suddenly vanish, and at other times, you'll be caught off guard when they appear just as fast as they disappeared. Expect A LOT of jump scares and excellent sound timing whenever your knuckles start to turn white with anticipation; the film doesn't ever allow you a moment to even catch your breath. This isn't necessary a plus either. Towards the end of the film, the scares tend to get a bit repetitious as the same scare tactics done every five minutes or so. It gets more than just a little frustrating when the bad guys are constantly disappearing out of thin air, only to have them reappearing right outside of our two main characters vision. The film is literally the last act of John Carpenters Halloween stretched out into an hour and a half. You'll see your large kitchen knives, excellent music scores used during all the right times, and the classic closet hideaway scene that probably hasn't been done this well since Aja's High Tension.

The Strangers does have its rewards; one of them being Scott Speedman and Liv Tylers outstanding performances at being...well, scared shitless. It's these two performances, and the promise that Bryan Bertino shows as a skilled director, that actually leaves you feeling thankful for making it through a film that has altogether no plot or explanation as to why these events seem to be taking place. The fact that the film opens with a little exert that tells us that these events are based on a true story doesn't help either, only because...they aren't! This film is as loosely based on a true story as it gets. It's mostly just Bryan taking an ordinary motiveless murder case and adding a bunch of sadistic spice too it. It's an old recipe and in The Strangers case, it's a concoction that needed a little more story and less of the usual ingredients.

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