« Meg Ryan Latest on V-List: Straight to Video | Home | “Sex” Geeks: Not Living in Reality »
Review: “The Strangers”
By Kyle | May 31, 2008
1/2 star out of 4
90 minutes/Rated R
Kyle Smith review of “The Strangers”
“The Strangers” is kinda like what “The Shining” might be if you took out the ESP. And the chilling atmosphere. And the interesting actors. And the ghosts. What are we left with? How about “The Sucking”
If this review makes it to 500 words–a finish line that looms impossibly distant, given how little there is to say about this non-story, it’ll be as long as the script for “The Strangers.”
The “inspired by true events,” i.e. “made-up,” film consists of 20 minutes of a drippy couple (Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman) heaving sighs around a quiet night at an isolated country house (he wants to get married; she doesn’t) until they spend an hour getting menaced by masked figures. This middle section–by far the best part–will thrill those who have seen one or fewer horror movies, what with the way the actors inch around the (EEEEP!) house clutching (AIEEEI!) knives while hooded (AWWWK!) stalkers seep into the background to blasts of aural scream-cues.
I thought I’d guessed the twist, but I was wrong. All the hooded figures, I assumed, are just the guy in disguise–the Speedman character who disappears for long stretches. He has two possible motives: he could be a psycho who actually wants to terrorize the girl for refusing him or he might hope to change her mind about his worth by pretending to be a hero and rescuing her from himself, though of course she would wind up outsmarting and stabbing him, then taking off his mask to shock us all.
The bad movie in my head was far better than the one on screen, which offers no twists at all. A twist? There isn’t even a curl or a bend. Ancient Indian cemetery? Nope. Satanic cult? Negative. Deep-rooted moral failing comes back to do its ironic worst on someone? Nay. There are masked weirdos scuttling out of the paneling, and that’s it.
It’s obvious from the time you buy your ticket that this is a movie about whether Tyler gets killed or not. So, while we wait, does she devise a brilliant counterattack? Is she an experimental physicist who knows how to run a wire into that puddle so that anyone who steps in it will be fricasseed?
No, but she can cower and run shrieking through the yard. Her boyfriend is even dumber, punting a chance to call 911 and managing not to realize that, if you have a shotgun, getting into a cozy barricade would be wiser than, say, stumbling around in the inky night.
Various delaying gags come in on loan from the Overlook Hotel. There’s a radio that may or may not work, a potential rescuer of the Scatman Crothers variety and a red word scribbled with redrumish fever on the windows: “Hello.” So we know this about the Strangers: they can afford lipstick. They also torch a gas-guzzling car, but that seems no more than a reasonable protest of the price of unleaded. Is that 500 words yet?
Topics: Movies |
May 28th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
What a crappy review to be honest.
Somethings don’t have a reason, they just happen. And some don’t need a motive to terrorize someone.
Also a movie doesn’t need a twist to be good. I’m sure you wouldn’t be thinking straight either if someone came knocking at your door in 4 A.M. telling you that you’re going to die.
May 29th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
“Somethings don’t have a reason, they just happen”? “And some don’t need a motive to terrorize someone”? “Also a movie doesn’t need a twist to be good”?
How many movies have you actually seen, Brad? Or are youconfusing them with security camera footage?
May 30th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Dave, I agree. ‘Brad,’ you’re right, some things don’t have a reason, they just happen. But if you’re going to make a movie about those things, they should have a reason. ‘Cape Fear’ (original) is scary because we know the bad guy has a reason, a damn good one in his mind, for doing what he does. We know he won’t stop. Movies that have these lame “we do it for kicks” baddies, well, it’s just lame.
May 31st, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I was invited to see this movie tonight, but i think I’ll pass. The strangers looks predictable and boring, I’d rather stay home tonight and watch fargo in the comfort of my room.
May 31st, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Spot on review, Kyle. I love an ironic, sassy review. This is a film I will most certainly NOT be paying to see.
June 1st, 2008 at 12:16 am
Less is more people. You don’t need some flashy, highfalutin, complex or superfluous reason to engage in an early morning torturefest. Kudos to you Brad…. I disagree with you Justin because the ‘reason’ is clear and simple - the three terrorizers are, yours truly, psychopaths! You know, the one’s that think they’re all powerful when forcing extreme pain and suffering upon others. The one’s that ‘get-off’ to the torture that they so ‘brilliantly’ created.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:21 am
Excellent review — it manages to be much better than the crap it reviews. Well done.
June 1st, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I agree with this review, but to be honest this movie could have been better. No twist no nothing that was what was really bad. I liked the masked “Strangers” they were the only real cool people in the movie, even if they were killers. But some aspects of the movie I did enjoy such as the stalking and just the terrorizing.
June 1st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
“the three terrorizers are, yours truly, psychopaths!”
You do realise that you wrote that you are a psychopath, don’t you?
June 1st, 2008 at 3:14 pm
No I never said I was a psychopath, I just really like the killers characters. For instance the way they terrorized and mislead them. They first defeated them mentally then physically. One would bang on the door while the others would sneak in to the house brilliant. I am no psychopath a least that I know of haha.
June 1st, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I’ve seen the movie and read the review. While it obviously wasn’t the best thriller of all time, I think the movie was much better than this review.
June 1st, 2008 at 9:53 pm
“No I never said I was a psychopath, I just really like the killers characters.”
Sean, unless you were previously posting as Jonny, I wasn’t talking to you. I even quoted the text I was replying to, so I’m surprised that you didn’t know that you didn’t write it.
June 2nd, 2008 at 3:13 am
I thought the sadism and banality of the killers was chilling. Scariest movie I’ve seen since “Hostel.”
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Wow, Kyle, this is the first time I’ve REALLY disagreed with you. First, the director has stated that he based the movie on the Manson killings as well as a personal experience from his childhood. Second, the movie was much more terrifying in its reality that sometimes psychopathic killers don’t need a reason to torture and kill innocent people. I especially appreciated that The Strangers did not draw out the murder scene. Sometimes less is better when it comes to gore, and psychological tension is better in heavy doses which is what this movie delivers.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I went to go see this last night, and it was pretty bad. I like your review it was perfect. I was thinking the same scenario in my head, but too bad it didn’t happen.