Rated: R
Run Time: 86 mins
Director: Bryan Bertino
Starring: Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler, Gemma Ward
The Strangers is a film that seems to have many antecedents, some
of them fictional and some at least pseudo-factual. It is also a movie that borrows much from
what must be considered an archetype of sorts within the horror genre which is so because many of us genuinely seem to
have a fear of just this sort of thing: being stalked at the hands of predators
who possess no supernatural attributes but who are nonetheless organized to a
degree unheard of while still otherwise exhibiting no special advantages over
the people they are tormenting…unless it’s that the people they’re stalking are
as dumb as stumps, a not infrequent attribute of movie victims, and one that is
particularly apt in this case. These
predators are preternaturally cunning and diabolical and, what’s worse, they
never lose their cool. They are cats
toying with their prey until they tire of them; then they dispose of them
unceremoniously. And their selection of
you as the target of their terrorizing is entirely random.
The movie opens with a
disingenuous claim that it is based on real events. My understanding of these real events is that
the writer/director was once at home as a young man when a stranger came to the
door and asked for someone who did not live there. The next day, he learned there had been
several burglaries in the neighborhood.
Whether or not there was a connection between the two events is, of
course, unknown. If, if
the doorknocker was the burglar, it is clear he was looking for who was not at home. It is equally certain that the strangers of
the movie’s title are looking for who is
home, which is a chilling thought certainly, but a far-fetched one.
I have read a review of The Strangers that challenged much of
the criticism the film received for being immoral or otherwise without any
redeeming merit either artistic or social which claimed that, hey, such things do happen. Yes, they do, but only upon the rarest of occasions. A clear source of inspiration (and one
credited by the director) for the film are the Tate-LaBianca murders committed
by the Manson Family in the late sixties.
The film’s killers are a man and two women; Manson’s goons were male and
female as well, and the women were equally as vicious as Tex Watson.
Where the movie’s scenario becomes
divorced from reality is in its depiction of the killers. The lackies of Charles Manson were
drug-addled, brainwashed hippies and runaways from conservative, sheltered
homes via Haight-Ashbury. The Strangers portrays them as
calculating and unperturbed, wholly rational sadists who appear to be working
from a script (“Okay, you knock on the door, Dollface. Then I’ll knock down a trashcan and stand in
front of the window. Betty Boop, go sit
on the swing and look creepy.”). Maybe
there is less of a gulf between these types of monsters than I think, but the
likelihood of running across the latter kind is as close to zero as is possible
outside the world of cinema; don’t ask me how I know this, but I’m telling you,
this particular brand of antagonist is usually met only in the movies. And what’s more, even these steely-eyed automatons
are not undefeatable, unless you happen to be the absolute fucking idiots who
are this movie’s protagonists.
We meet our two meat puppets as
they drive home from a party. Liv Tyler
plays Kristen and James is played by Scott Speedman. It’s clear something has happened between
them and there is a visible rift.
The two are spending the night at James’s parents’ summer home. They get there, she takes a bath, he eats
some Blue Bell, they open some champagne, and they’re just about to do it when…there
is a knock at the door. A short
blond-haired girl asks if Tamera is home.
Well, of course, Tamera does live there, our “heroes” know it, we know
it, and dammit, so does the creepy short blond-haired girl. When James goes outside, he notices the light
at the front door is unscrewed enough that it does not turn on until he screws
it back in. Is this an accident? I think not.
Does he notice this or understand its implication? Hell no.
This is close enough to our first indication that James is a dumb-ass.
Before long, the girl knocks
again. When they go to answer it (and why
would they do that?), she’s no longer there.
So what do they do next? Well, Kristen’s
just about out of smokes, so she sends James to the store for another pack… - Let’s recap:
A weird chick comes to the door and asks in a monotone, lifeless, soulless voice whether Tamera is
there. No, Tamera is not, and why is the
damned light out? There is another knock
at the door; presumably the weird chick is back. Whoops, there’s no one there, hmmm… Fuck it, let’s go get some cigs. Wouldn’t your alarm bells be going off
here? Theirs don’t. Kristen is apparently as much of a dumb-ass
as James.
Their next decision? Hey, let’s separate. And, of course, this is just where things start
to go to shit…and quickly. I’m not going
to belabor the point that has already been made again and again, but were it
not for our two characters’ seeming congenital stupidity, the movie wouldn’t
last much longer. They find a shotgun at
one point, for chrissakes, and plenty of live cartridges. Do they contrive a plan to counter their
attackers? No, no they don’t. They just cower and simper and play into the
hands of their antagonists.
Is there much else to say? Yes.
The movie has some good jump scares, predictable ones that I still fell
for. There are compositions that are
scary and creepy. There is one
particular shot you’ve likely already seen from the trailer that is reminiscent
of the scene in Halloween when
Laurie has just discovered the triptych of victims that were her friends and
then Michael’s face looms behind her as if from nowhere. It’s a rip-off, but it works. In fact, there are a lot of shots of the
hooded guy that duplicate the “oh, shit, there’s Michael behind her, she moves,
hey now he’s gone” tactic employed by Carpenter to such great effect. This movie rips them off liberally. This, coupled with the fact that hooded
creepy guys scare me (Friday the 13th,
Pt II & The Town That Dreaded
Sundown), made the movie enjoyable.
The few speaking lines of the
villains (and I think only the blond-haired girl says anything at all), included
to emphasize the random aspect of the encounter are unnecessary. We understand this as an audience without
having to be told. But overall, The Strangers does its job well. Despite their idiocy, we identify with Kristen
and James. The senselessness of their
fates is offensive. And we are left with
that damned bad feeling you get in some horror movies, the sense that evil has
triumphed over a weak but decent brand of goodness that is just not strong enough
to overcome its more dynamic adversary.
This, I suppose, is likely what has upset many viewers and critics. And I must agree with that sentiment,
although I don’t think it renders the film morally bankrupt. But why, oh, why has it become so de rigeur
for horror films to show that, no matter how ordinarily decent we are, no
matter how hard we fight, no matter that it looks like we have triumphed, in
the end evil ends up fucking us anyway?
That’s just a bummer…
RANDOM THOUGHT
What is the best home invasion
thriller I’ve ever yet seen? I haven’t
seen Straw Dogs yet, but my money is
on Wait Until Dark… There the heroine (Audrey Hepburn) has a
reason for being dumb, which is not strictly speaking the appropriate attribute,
because she’s actually blind. Still, you
get the point. And, she’s very
resourceful indeed. Moreover, as Harry
Roat, Jr. from Scarsdale, Alan Arkin is a killer villain, a man creepy enough
to scare even Stephen King. You won’t
recognize the profane yet affectionate grandfather from Little Miss Sunshine in his guise here.
The Horror Inkwell Rating: 7/10
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