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The Strangers
Review By: Dan Deevy
DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com
My plans for buying a small out of the way weekend cabin, maybe somewhere in rural Connecticut or Upstate New York just to get away from all of the hectic madness of living in the city, have just been scrapped thanks to The Strangers.
‘Holy creepiness Batman!’ As a city kid I’ve always said there is nothing scarier than wide open fields or forests where there isn’t another soul for miles; except, of course for that deranged killer, or in this case, three deranged killers who are there to make your worst nightmares come true!
If you’ve seen the trailer for this film then you know exactly what you are getting yourselves into! The Strangers is a very quiet, creepy film that relies more on silence, musical cues and carefully chosen visual reveals to tell its story than on dialogue. Some films try this and end up looking comical, director Bryan Bertino, however, made it work beautifully!
Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler play James Hoyt and Kristen McKay, a couple on the verge of either marriage or break up who have just returned to the Hoyt family vacation home in the middle of nowhere following another friends wedding. Unbeknownst to the feuding pair, their relationship woes are the least of their problems on this quiet late fall night.
I don’t want to give anything away here so I’ll skip any further plot description, but you all know what happens that leads to the already often quoted lines:
Kristen: “Why are you doing this to us?”
Masked Figure: “...because you were home...”
---> insert eerie music here please<---
I really enjoyed this film, which is to say it kept me fully engaged in what was going on for about 90% of the total running time. I felt like it dragged slightly a little more than half way through but it picked right back up again. And that’s pretty much my only complaint; all of the other elements were solid.
It has to be tough when you’re getting ready to film a movie like this and you have to choose the three freaky masks that the killers will wear. The wrong mask can make what they hope is gonna be scary look silly, or even worse have no affect on people at all. I’d say the hooded mask that the guy wears and the doll mask with the girls long blonde hair had the perfect intended affect and it lasted throughout the entire film. Every time you see those two it freaks you out. I’m not sure why the
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