Review of The Strangers (2008) by Melvin W — 11 Oct 2011

Kristen: Why are you doing this to us? .

Dollface: Because you were home. .

"Lock the door. Pretend your safe.".

When I originally watched this in theaters a few years back, I remember really liking it. Watching again, I don't really see why I liked it so much. It isn't nearly as good as I had it built up to be. Still, it is a fairly decent horror film. The villains are well done; but the story really isn't. There are some good individual scenes that have a few scares, but for the most part it is just a more violent episode of Tom and Jerry.

The biggest problem I have with this is the fact that the director didn't believe he could scare us without constant jump scares. One or two, okay; nine or ten, it is just getting obsessive. .

The story takes place in a country home. Soon after returning home from a wedding, James and Kristen begin to hear knocks on their door. Then they start seeing people in masks, "I don't know, fucking masks!" Then the events start to escalate. It's pretty similar to Funny Games, but way better because it knows what it is and isn't a pretentious piece of shit. .

I would have liked the movie more had the writing been slightly better. The characters are written like they are a couple of twelve year olds and not fully grown adults. For the most part this is an average home invasion horror film. There's been better, there's been worse. It's not a movie that needs to be watched, unless you're a fan of horror films and you want to see it just so you've seen it.