Synopsis:

After returning from a wedding reception, James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristin McKay (Liv Tyler) make their way to an isolated vacation house.  What should have been a romantic evening between the two quickly turns horrific when they receive a knock on the door. Finding a stranger outside who poses a troubling question, the couple sends her on her way and the uneasiness of the evening settles in.  Knocking returns, more violently than before and what ensues is an invasion by three strangers, their faces hidden behind masks. The couple find themselves in a violent struggle, in which they go beyond what either of them thought capable in order to survive.

The Freak's Rating: D+ : I enjoy a good scare as much as the next guy.  Going to movies alone is a necessary part of being a movie critic.  I just can't always find someone to go with, especially to a film like The Strangers.  I walked into the theater, spotting 2 groups of 2 people each.  It seemed a total audience of five would be watching a horror movie that started at 5pm.  I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised.  I made my way to my usual seat, 3 rows up, dead center and made myself comfortable.  As I glanced over my right shoulder and saw a suspicious man seated behind me, I realized I was breaking the cardinal rule of horror movie watching.  You can't sit with your back to anyone!  It may sound incredibly cheesy, but when I'm home watching a horror movie I still go around the house locking doors and windows beforehand and glance over my shoulder every now and then...if its a good one of course.  What can I say?  I throw myself into movies full steam ahead.  So I made my way up a couple rows where everyone would be in front of me.  Ahh, now I could relax.  I was now ready to watch The Strangers, unobstructed by my positioning in the theater.

The Strangers started out strong.  Opening with the "inspired by a true story" tagline and given a short narrative on gruesome murders in the United States every year, I was ready to see one!  Though a necessary evil of storytelling, the 5 minute break of character development meaning to link me somehow with the leads was dull.  However, once the director mistakenly thought I had bonded with them, the story started to pickup.  With the soundtrack as an obvious tone setter for the film, I was instantly frightened by the door knocking, screeches, squeals and what I like to call the "jump track" aspect.  Jump Tracks are where someone hits a high pitch sound accompanied by a deep bass thud whenever something pops up and the audience is supposed to jump.  The Strangers had a good sound mix and it was effective in its intention.  However, the sound was pretty much the only positive in this one. 

SPOILERS START (Don't worry, you shouldn't see it anyway!  Read on!): 

I was inspired to see an effective plan by the hero and heroin to sit tight with a loaded gun and wait.  As soon as they made this choice, I thought "fantastic!  Someone will actually do it right".  Nope.  Someone comes to help them and they accidentally shoot him instead of the bad guys.  I say roll the dead guy out of the way and wait for the bad guys.  They said, "run".  Idiots!

After the killers have shown they can break into the house, the two venture outdoors.  When things go bad outside they retreat to...the house?  This part made absolutely no sense.  It is as if a soldier runs away from a ticking bomb, finds another and then returns to the first.  Idiots!

Where is the phone line to your house located?  I'm willing to bet that most people couldn't cut their phone line if their lives depended upon it.  My phone lines are in a locked box attached to the side of my home with screws so long you'd need a 14V power drill and at least 5 minutes of loud drilling to remove.  The lines run from the box directly to the inside of a pipe that leads two feet down into the ground and is then buried underground to the street phone box, which is also locked.  Killers must all take a course at AT&T, because they always know where they are and how to cut them efficiently.  I accept that this happens in almost all movies of this nature, but that doesn't change the absurdity of it.

If, at the end of the film, we are to believe that one person lived, then how is it possible that "nobody really knows what happened that night" could be valid, as the films introduction says?

SPOILERS ARE OVER

Logic tells you that if it says at the beginning that it is "inspired by true events" and that "nobody really knows what happened that night", that everyone dies.  So that isn't a spoiler.  The actual deaths at the end of the film are disturbing.  There were many ways that the ending of this one could have been done that would have made it truly terrifying or over the top gruesome.  Either would have been more entertaining.

This is NOT "based" on a true story.  It is "inspired" by a true story.  There is a gap between these two terms the size of The Grand Canyon.  The film is VERY loosely based on the legend of Cabin 28 (www.cabin28.com), where a mysterious murder occurred and was never solved.  If you dig too deeply into the basis, you'll see that it had little to no similarity to The Strangers.

First time director Bryan Bertino had his hands full with this one.  Give me a team of Michael Jordan, Shaq, Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and I can win a championship.  Give me the roster of the Charlotte Bobcats and it becomes far more difficult.  Composition and length of shots are strong enough, but there is just no story here.  Acting is fine, but the cast is reading throwaway lines that could be written by the average 8 year old.  We had few words uttered by the killers and zero explanation for who they are or why they do what they do.  I suppose this was the fear of it, that it could have been entirely random.  However, if this was the case then why have them speak at all? 

The only truly terrifying lines in the film are when Tyler's character says "why are you doing this to us?" and the killers calmly respond, "because you were home".  It is that line alone that keeps this movie from failing and that inspires a little bit of fear in everyone that sees it.

The potential of a good horror film never existed in The Strangers.  It is one that I wonder why people like Speedman and Tyler signed on for.  The style of the director and the jumpiness will entertain those who are just out for a good scare, but I'd bet even that audience won't like the ending.  For me, the scares just weren't enough to recommend seeing it.

The AntiChrist's Rating: B : first of all, you are not supposed to judge every little bad detail in a movie or show. you simply give an overall, justified review. secondly, when you mentioned the part in the movie where the man walks in and the protaganist shoots him, i'm pretty sure you woud'nt just roll over your BEST FRIENDS body and not care about it. you would be sobbing just like everyone else in the world. And another thing regarding to them retreating to the house, where do you honestly think their going to go? walk to Mcdonald's? their car was destroyed and even if it wasn't would you run into the woods at 1:30 at night? all i'm trying to say is when your in the moment and you have very little time to think, theres a good chance your not going to think your going to go on what your instincts tell you to. Furthermore, not everyone has a fancy power box like you. in fact, i'm willing to bet all the way out there in the woods that they don't have a modern phone line like everyone else living in the burbs. So again its not "absurd" to have a phone line cut in the middle of nowhere to add a little fear and suspense into the character/ audiences minds. Lastly, i will agree with you on the ending because it simply made hardly any sense. yes the acting was fine, but the identity of the killers was simply unimportant in the story. if the director wanted you to know who the killers were he would have made it clear. the point he was trying to make was that it could have been anyone, and that is what he wanted the audience to keep asking themselves "who could it have been?". oh and one other thing, good horror elements were most definatly displayed in the movie. sure, most of these may have been cliches but it doesnt mean that they arent present. so all i ask is before you go off and write a review on a movie you just saw, think long and hard at what the director wanted to see and how he wanted you to feel.

comment here to add your review!