The Strangers is one of those rare horror movies that concentrates on suspense and terror rather than on gore and a high body count. It isn't a splatter movie, in which there are usually a large amount of dispensable protagonists, who are all shriveled, but one or two survive. This movie focuses on just two characters who don't survive, and the whole action involves showing them being really, really scared.
Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman star as Kristen McKay and James Hoyt, a young couple on their way to the Hoyt family summer home after attending a friend's wedding. There is an aura of sadness around the couple as they arrive home to find everything set up for a romantic evening with rose petals spread in the house. However, a flashback revealed that a failed proposal was the reason for the sadness. As the troubled couple talk prior to reconciling, a loud knock at the door shatters their peace and begins a long night of terror.
The couple hide in the house with James' father's shotgun and try and defend themselves against their inexplicable tormentors, whose faces are concealed by freaky masks, a sack (Kip Weeks), a doll (Gemma Ward) and a pin-up girl (Laura Margolis).
Suspenseful and invested in silence, Bryan Bertino’s debut feature gives us a creepy atmospheric thriller with a death grip on the psychological aspect.
The Strangers closely follows the off-screen violence and the idea of being terrorized in your own home seen earlier this year in Funny Games, by Michael Haneke, except that in that movie the audience sees the torturers’ faces and understands to some degree the motives behind such brutal and inhumane acts. In The Strangers, the only motive behind the torture is that the people “were home”. No twists and no surprises, which could have been read in our local newspaper, that’s for why The Strangers is so scary, frightening facts did happen, and does happen. « According to the FBI, there are an estimated 1.4 million violent crimes in America each year ».
Both Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler deliver solid performances as a couple caught at the most fragile moment in their relationship. Liv Tyler has the perfect scream to get you shaking in your seat.
We've see all of this before, unlikely The Strangers is not about plot or character development, this is a movie about chills and atmosphere.
Writer-director Bryan Bertino reminds you how care with camera placement and ambient sound can sustain these cat-and-mouse games.
The house/set design does create the perfect atmosphere for the invasion to take place, with muted colors and a shadowy hallway providing just the right backdrop for the action to unfold.
Unfortunately, the cat and mouse game goes on too long and the tension dies a little, it's just a pity that it goes on for a further 20 minutes, then the director lets down the audience by finishing up the film with a disappointing final scene. The build up over the course of the movie is slightly deflated by an ending that doesn't match the rest of the film.
Bryan Bertino, with his first movie, shows the skills to be a promising director, in spite of redundant length, he has delivered a good-looking, sophisticated exercise in scares.
-Laure Brosson-
