Movie Review: The Strangers

Title: The Strangers

Director: Bryan Bertino

Released: May 30, 2008

Runtime: 90 min.

I work at a movie theater, thus I get to see movies for free. Sometimes I even get paid to watch movies. This review should be the first in a long line of movie reviews this summer. I hope to see as many movies as I can, but these reviews will most likely be mostly positive, because I’m going to see movies I want to see, not just anything. The following review will be the exception.

I got to screen The Strangers on Thursday night, which was a pretty good gig, really. Instead of doing any real work, I got paid to watch a movie for a little over an hour and a half. While I would have preferred a better movie, I can’t really complain. It certainly was better than tearing tickets.

The Strangers is a horror/suspense film, coming from a long line of movies that I don’t care about at all. I never saw The Ring or any of the Saws, or even Friday the 13th (though I should see that one, if only because it’s a classic) so I’m definitely not in this movie’s wheelhouse. I suppose it does get the suspense aspect down, but the horror is a little lacking.

The basic premise is that random woman (Liv Tyler) and random guy (Scott Speedman) come home late at night to their cottage in the middle of nowhere and some weird woman knocks on the door asking for “Tamra” (which you’d hope is relevant to the plot or something, but not… it’s not at all) several times and mostly just freaking the two random people out. Eventually some crazies (including the first woman) start making loud noises and breaking things. And that’s basically the movie, spoiler free.

Before ripping the film apart, I’d like to speak to the few things that the movie did get right. The acting was pretty good and as realistic as can be given the fact that these people are constantly getting scared shitless and almost getting killed. There weren’t too many “why the hell are you doing that, you stupid idiot?” moments in the film, but there were a few. The side-plot was interesting enough, though not explored much. I really wish the movie had been about a guy proposing to a girl and her rejecting him because she isn’t ready to marry. I’m pretty sure I would have enjoyed that more, but probably not by much. Secondly, It was scary, just not scary enough in my opinion. Someone could have gotten the same reaction out of me by jumping out from around the corner and yelling “boo!”, but I’m not looking to be scared by movies anyway, so it doesn’t matter much to me. Finally, it does create suspense, but I’ll talk more about that later.

If you don’t want the movie ruined for you, stop reading here… I’m going into spoiler territory, which I don’t really like to do, but it’s sort of necessary.

My biggest problem with the film is that it has no plot to speak of. A bunch of whackos run around a house banging on it with axes and whatever else, bust up cars and break into the house. Inexplicably they manage to destroy random girl’s cell phone and steal the battery out of random guy’s phone. I have no idea how. Are they even human? How did they manage to get through a locked door? They even open a locked door somehow at one point in the movie… and can apparently withstand shotgun blasts from close range. Seriously, am I supposed to believe that random guy is that bad of a shot? The hooded whacko is like two feet from him, how does he miss? He’s not Greedo.

And that’s just it, none of your questions are even answered, not even the ones that the director obviously wants you to ask. Who are these people? Why are they doing this? Who is Tamra? How is Liv Tyler alive at the end? Is random guy alive too? Good villains have motivations, they have history, they have depth… these guys are cardboard cutouts. They’re faceless nut jobs who we’re to assume are torturing to people just because they can. The only explanation given at all is “you were home”.

The film is also as cliché ridden and predictable as can be, which I suppose is fairly common in this genre. The worst offense is the death of random guy’s best friend, which can be seen from the moment he appears on screen. Worst of all, it got to the point where I didn’t feel as if random couple had any chance against these masked whackos, which allowed me to become detached from their fate. They were going to die, it was inevitable (except not, because… people can survive being stabbed in the stomach and bleeding profusely for hours without any medical treatment) and there really wasn’t any point in seeing the damn thing.

I don’t go to movies to be scared, just like I don’t go to movies to see cool explosions, car chases and gun fights. I watch action movies for their plots, and enjoy the random explosions and other miscellanea because it is cool and fun. It’s the same with horror movies and this film left me annoyed. I’m sure people will gobble it up, but I say just go to an Amusement Park if you want to be scared, there doesn’t need to be a plot there.

In the end, this film is Signs devoid of any intelligence, plot, sentimentality or sense. Honestly, its one redeeming quality is that I got to see Liv Tyler for an hour and a half straight, and in the end, I guess that’s not a bad thing.