Horror can be a very subjective thing, and there are some parts of the genre that just don't do it for people. Things like ghost stories can get under some people's skin, whilst others will be very bored by it. This is because when dealing with the fantastical not everyone is going to buy into the premise; ghouls and goblins won't really entertain those who have no interest in them. But there are parts of the horror genre that seem to frighten a lot of people, those that deal with the realistic. 2008's The Strangers plays into realism to a large degree, and builds its story around a very easy premise, one that's likely to have creeped most people out at some point in their life; the idea of someone breaking into your home and harming you.
The Strangers tells the tragic story of James Hoyt (Scot Speedman) and Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler), a couple staying in James' family house out in the countryside after attending a friends wedding. The night was planned to be a good one, with James having set up a romantic scene for Kristen after his surprise proposal. However, after turning him down the two of them are struggling to figure out what this means for their relationship. Their personal issues are disrupted though when a strange woman appears at the door, asking if someone named Tamara lives there.
Despite sending the woman away strange things begin to happen around the house, and when James leaves to buy cigarettes for Kristen things intensify, and she realises that there's someone in the house with her. Thus begins a series of events that will see the young couple being tormented and hunted through the home as three masked killers descend on them.
I first watched The Strangers when it was released in 2008, having heard a great deal of positive reaction to it, particularly with people citing how the film gets under your skin. Much of this praise seemed to be down to the realism of the plot, and the fear that people had that something so monstrous could possibly happen to them. However, I didn't really connect much with the movie at the time, and never revisited it. But, with the release of Second Sight's new Limited Edition blu-ray I thought now would be a perfect opportunity to rewatch the film that has gone on to spawn an entire franchise.
The film itself is kind of much as I remembered it, a very slow burn of a movie. Slow enough that you'll question if there's even a fire at times. This does mean that there's time to get to know the characters better, but despite this there's still relatively little that I know about James and Kristen. The two of them are struggling to know what her saying no to marriage means for their relationship, but that's about all I know about them. The film doesn't really tell us much about them, and neither character actually seems to want to have the tough conversation as to if they're even still together. A generous view of this would be that the two characters are left somewhat blank intentionally, so as to allow audience members to project more of themselves onto the leads. However, I found that it went the opposite way, and found them to be two of the most blank and least interesting characters in any film that I'd ever watched. It wasn't even as if they felt like bad characters, as even bad ones would have been entertaining; instead, they were just kind of nothing.
The plot kind of does similar too, and the single sentence summation of 'people break into a house to try and kill those inside' is about all there is here. As mentioned, the relationship story doesn't really do much, and other than that there's big spaces of the movie where nothing much really happens. There are long periods of the film where you'll be watching Liv Tyler wandering around a house on her own, looking out of windows at nothing. By the time the killers get inside and actually start doing something I'd reached the point where I didn't really care much.
Speaking of the killers, the motivation they have for targeting our characters is potentially not a bad one, with the complete randomness of it all being a big part of the horror of this being capable of happening to anyone. However, when packaged in a film that's already feeling kind of flat and lacking in plot or character it doesn't really stand out to me as shocking or horrifying, and feels like a lack of care or thought from the creators part.
The best part of the film for me was the end, and not because it was over. The final scene of the truck with the killers inside driving away, stopping to talk to the two kids, and the children then making their way to the house and grizzly sight within had a kind of grittiness to it that made it feel very grounded and unsettling. It had that feel of an 80's horror film trying to make itself seem like it was based on a true story. It's a quality that made this moment in the film stand out, and if the rest of the movie was able to feel this way then I'm certain that I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more.
Perhaps most interesting of this new release is the extras. I enjoy learning about how films are made, and have been known to spend more time watching through making-ofs as I do the films they accompany. I was very interested to see how the film was made, and learning that the house was as et created within an old warehouse was interesting to me, and seeing the take where the sound hadn't been corrected and you could hear Tyler's screams echoing around the gigantic space was a moment that stood out more than the film itself. The new Limited Edition comes with a number of extras, including these behind the scenes features, and some interviews with cast and crewmembers that are brand new to this release.
Whilst my opinion on The Strangers didn't change much I was glad to be able to give the film another chance, and the extra features and behind the scenes stuff make this a release that I came away at least entertained by. With two new movies in the series being released in 2024, and a third yet to be given a date, it's a great time to revisit the film that began it all, and this new release will certainly entertain fans.
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