The Strangers (2008)
The Strangers works for a little while, but it doesn’t get in your bones. The picture may eventually scare you accidentally though, by forcing you (if you’re a critic of some sort anyway) to consider what you’ll do if this run of pastiche horror films continues much longer unabated by even the slightest originality. Recite the weather forecast below the title and the running time? Stocks, perhaps? How much more can be said about the visually competent, or even assured, but hopelessly unimaginative home invasion by masked marauder(s) of vague motivation picture? Funny Games was a crock, but its contempt for its audience gave it a mild pulse. If I had seen The Strangers five years ago, I would have probably been more glass-is-half-full in my approach, but these pictures that are just passable enough to squeak by without offense are beginning to be the most offensive of all.
See the French picture Inside instead. It’s tasteless. It’s uncomfortable. The directors, Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, may have crossed the line, but it’s a home invasion picture that’s artfully made, courts absurdity (stumbling into it often) and goes feeling around in a primal, sticky place of guilt, loss and legitimate, appalling, violation. You watch Inside and wonder how long it’s been bubbling in the back of its creators’ minds. You watch The Strangers and wonder how director Bryan Bertino, who shows talent, could have possibly roused himself, in his debut, to stage yet another picture that works the laughably tired, obligatory based-on-faux-true-events narration device; or that features the typically idiotic marching around the house outside of safety, completely divorced of any tangible, terrestrial reason to do so routine. Or the relentless, one-sided, pounding the heroes of these pictures must always endure, never scoring even a minor win against the villains. Never making one decision that is met with success. Future horror directors: if your picture doesn’t have the courage to stake out its own convictions, misery isn’t uncompromising, it’s tedious.
★★
June 6th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
This is one film I will try to stay away from for as long as I can.
June 6th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Nick, that’s probably a sound decision. You could do worse, but you could do MUCH better.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
“Funny Games was a crock, but its contempt for its audience gave it a mild pulse.” True words, those.
More and more the films that bug me the most are the ones that inspire the most indifference. That vast ocean of middle-of-the-roaders in the Wellsian parlance.
Be awesome or piss me off, I don’t have time for anything in between.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I had some hopes for this one. It looked like Ils with Liv Tyler and that was something I looked forward to. Sadly, though, it looks like it should be skipped altogether, even if it would just be a popcorn flick.
June 8th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Loved this review. Short, funny, assured, and almost certainly true (though I’ll never see the flick).
June 8th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
How is it that these movies continue to kill (pardon the pun) at the box-office?
June 9th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Craig-Couldn’t agree more. Justin-Liv Tyler is as good as she possbily could be-she gives the scream queen a little more vulnerability, but Bertino doesn’t let it go anywhere. Travis-thank you very much. Daniel-I think, as with many types of films, audiences enjoy knowing exactly what they are going to get.