Review of The Strangers (1998) by Pablo C — 24 Mar 2013

The best horror film I've seen since "The Orphanage". Finally, a studio horror film that relies on tension and atmosphere instead of buckets of blood, like the torture-porn flicks, or cheap Boo! moments and pale asian kids, like the J-horror remakes.

Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman give good, believable performances and their characters, for the most part, stay away from completely idiotic choices unlike most horror movie victims. First-time director Bryan Bertino deserves a lot of the credit for the film's success though.

He proves to be a patient, competent and intelligent filmmaker. He sets a creepy mood, constructs scenes of relentless suspense, and gives us realistic characters we can care about. Another intelligent choice Bertino made, and something that Rob Zombie foolishly overlooked when he remade Halloween last year, was resisting the urge to humanize the killers.

He didn't give them daddy issues or moments of comic relief or levity, anything that would've showed them to be psychologically screwed up instead of just pure evil. These killers are cold, anonymous, and all the more frightening because of it.

Unlike many modern horror directors, Bertino understands that horror comes from the unknown, not blatantly obvious and excessive violence. He makes the "strangers" into modern day boogeymen instead of run-of-the-mill pissed off psychos, and as a result they are sure to become modern icons of the genre.

Also, I have to mention the cool "true story" opening sequence, a direct homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The film does have a few shortcomings, like one or two illogical or irrational character choices, but not too many.

*Mini-Spoiler* When something breaks your window as you arrive at your brothers house and then you see that his car has obviously been vandalized, wouldn't you run into his house to see if he was OK instead of creeping slowly and quietly through his hallways? *End Mini-Spoiler* Also, the final scene isn't exactly a cop out, but it's a total horror movie cliche.

And finally, it's unfortunate that the movie's creepiest line, the one that will be remembered, is delivered by what sounds like a teenage girl you'd bump into at the mall. Her voice makes it lack the haunting "oomph" it deserves.

One undeserved complaint from viewers that I keep reading is about an underdeveloped plot. This is a straightforward survival story, and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. Why should it? It does exactly what it sets out to do, which is get under your skin and provide you with plenty of thrills and chills.