Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I'm quite looking forward to this flick. Ever since the first teaser poster this has looked interesting. It's not the most original idea ever, a couple terrorized in their house, but it looks like they're really taking the material seriously and giving us a real horror film. I'll be seeing this myself tomorrow and I'll let you know what I think when I get back from that screening. We have two reviews in so far. One spoiler-lite and the other super spoilerific. I'll start with Jubba's fairly spoiler free review. Enjoy!
Greetings, I just got back from a Toronto screening of the horror/thriller flick "The Strangers" starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman. This review will be relatively spoiler-free. The trailer for the movie pretty much sums up the plot of the film and you get exactly what they advertise, no more no less - for whatever that's worth to you. A couple in an isolated house is terrorized by multiple masked people with no apparent way to escape. But does it work? Is it scary? Is it believable? For the most part, I would say yes to all 3 questions. A film like this wants to put the viewer in the shoes of the victims, to make you think that these horrific events could happen to you and to get you just as scared as the people in the movie. The camera work is never too dark, too shaky, or too close-up. Wide shots of empty rooms and the woods are scary enough when you know somebody is there, somewhere. The opening, during which Liv Tyler's character is left alone in the house for a period of time, is probably the most effective part in terms of delivering real scares. She hears knocks on the outside doors that get louder and more persistent and she finds indications that someone has been in the house or may still be in there with her. If you can put yourself in her position and feel even a little of what her character feels at this point, you'll get some good scares as the creeping dread takes over. The creepiness stays throughout most of the film but does eventually give way to those "jump out and scare you" moments when there really isn't anything else new left to be done for scares. The final scenes with Tyler and Speedman recapture some of the real terror as the film reaches its climax. The "bad guys" do perform the typical here-one-second-gone-the-next trick that nobody should be able to do (unless you're Jack Bauer) and after a while, the grotesque appearances of the masks somewhat lose their shock effect. One that happens, you really get the sense that these people are seriously fucked up. They bad guys are human and maybe that's even worse. One of the things that I liked is that the two main characters aren't your typical horror movie leads. They don't make bad decisions (except for splitting apart once) and everything that I thought they should try to survive, they did try, to varying degrees of success or failure. They put up a fight and plan as best they can, but are never given enough time to relax and figure out what to do. They are cut off from the world, they are in the middle of nowhere. The bad guys are hiding in the woods, coming and going from the house, and they don't want you to survive. If you can get into the movie enough and put yourself in their shoes, you'll get the scares you're after. It's a movie about sick people doing sick things to people just for the hell of it, so don't expect anything else. The performances of Tyler and Speedman are solidly adequate. By this I mean that they did exactly what was required for this movie. Tyler's character was the weaker or the two and some may complain that she could have been a stronger female character. All things considered, there probably aren't too many people who would hold up terribly well in her character's position, so it's believable and effective. Speedman, with whom I was completely unfamiliar, also delivered a believable performance as the stronger boyfriend without ever seeming like he was flexing his muscles or trying to do anything but survive with his girlfriend. There were one or two plot points that seemed a bit contrived, but I won't hold that against the actors and I'm pretty sure that they were added to draw out the length of the movie. I don't think it ran much longer than 75 minutes. It didn't need to, though. The movie is like an extended version of the trailer. If you like what you see in the preview, you'll like the film. If you want some creepy scenes, some jumping scares from the darkness, or a feeling that maybe this could happen to you, then you'll like what "The Strangers" has to offer. If you didn't like the trailer, stay away from the theatre this time around. -Jubba
The next review comes from someone calling himself The Big Tin Man and it's full of spoilers and bit more negative than Jubba's take.
Hi Harry, If you use this you can call me The Big Tin Man. I just got back from seeing The Strangers. I was very intrigued by the trailer to this movie, as it stated it was based on "true events" and looked kind of creepy. Well what you see in the trailer is pretty much what you get in the movie for 95% of the film. There will Spoilers in this review. The movie doesn't start off with a lot of promise. It starts with the "based on true events" speach at the beginning and is then followed by some BS crime statistic, which is supposed to explain what we are about to see. I always know a movie is in trouble when it tries to justify what you are about to see, because this is what's happening in the world around us. Also, it clears up, what I had started to suspect, this is not a true story!!. The film then moves to an opening shot of the aftermath, as two boys discover the aftermath. There is the obligatory 911 recording of one of the boys screaming about what he had seen. After that, it's all a flash back to what has lead up to this point. We meet Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman driving in a car home. They are said and not speaking because she said no to his marriage proposal. Who can blaim her she's Liv Tyler and can do better than this guy.The films tells us she's not ready for marriage. They go to house that appears to be out in the middle of no where. Once inside they start to talk about things and then start to get it on (a Tyler nude shot would have made this film worth while no matter what happened next), but this is short lived as a loud knock on the door occurs. This is how the film works. It's a peek a boo, loud bang, and then nothing movie. This is okay and the film makers do it well. They build the tension well. The couple goes and answers the door. At the door is a young lady asking if another girl was at the house. The young lady's features are kept hidden from the darkness outside. The couple says she has the wrong house and the young lady leaves.. After that Speedman goes for some smokes and leaves Tyler by herself. This is when the stuff in the trailer begins and continues after Speedman's return. The three masked people appear.A lot of loud banging and masked faces appear out of no where. You know this is what you are getting and again it's done well. The theatre jumped at most of the right times. This goes on for just over an hour. Oh buy the way his is a very short movie, not even an hour and a half. The movie throws every scare tactic at you and even the obligatory "friend death". Spoiler alert. After about an hour, the cat and mouse game starts to get old and then the movie changes, for what I hoped would be the better. The masked people capture and tie up our couple. This is where I was hoping for some interaction between the masked people (I didn't say killers because at this point, THEY had not killed anyone). To my disappointment...no not disappointment...too my utter dis-a fucking- belief, the only interaction is what is shown in the trailer. Yes it consists of the "Why are you doing this?"..."because you were home" and that is all. The masked people take off their masks (we still don't get to see their faces, probably to keep casting for a sequel cheap) and stab Speedman and we hear Tyler scream. The only other interaction from the baddies occurs after this, when they speak to the christian boys who discover the house. The killers are driving away in a pick up truck, and pull over to talk to the boys. After that not so creepy scene (the boys are obviously okay because of the first scene of the movie), the boys discover the carnage and then we get the scream at the end of the movie by a character that should be dead. I hate it when a movie doesn't take the time to write a fucking ending. If I had known the ending was like this I would have snuk out and watched Indian Jones. I feel cheated by a movie I wasn't expecting much from but had built up such good tension, just to be let done by a crap ending. If you want to see this based on the trailer, just watch the trailer over and over for 80 minutes this way your payoff is better than what the movie gives out. Cheers.
