The Strangers
Directed by Bryan Bertino
Rogue Pictures, 2008
By Rachel West
At first glance, the poster for The Strangers seems an odd choice — Liv Tyler, her eyes vacant, standing rigidly in an ordinary living room, and essentially not doing much of anything. It is not until closer inspection that a barely visible masked figure reveals itself in the shadows of the image. The very basis of the plot is also revealed: what is taken for granted as ordinary and familiar suddenly becomes terrifying.
Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman star as Kristin and James, your average couple on a romantic weekend getaway at an isolated cabin in the woods. Apparently these people have never seen Cabin Fever or Evil Dead. Their romantic weekend is off to a rocky start as a marriage proposal doesn’t go quite as planned and James sees fit to leave Kristin alone in the house while he gathers his thoughts on a drive.
After an odd knock at the door 20 minutes in, Kristin is terrorized by repeated banging on the door and windows, and the chilling sound of wind chimes on the porch knocking about. Tormented and terrorized by a strange trio of masked characters, the reunited James and Kristin go through the usual horror motions of locking the doors, hiding in back rooms, and fighting for their lives.
Borrowing heavily stylistically from the new French horror (as witnessed in High Tension and Inside), The Strangers slowly builds up momentum through gentle pacing and simple shots. There are no jarring cuts or inverted angles designed as cheap shock techniques. Instead the mysterious masked invaders simply appear out of the shadows, creeping behind the characters, only to disappear back into the darkness when their presence is sensed. The randomness of their attack, as well as their random appearances in the home and in the woods outside, creates an atmosphere of a terrifying unknown. Their movements are unpredictable, inasmuch as a recycled film genre can be. The “home invasion” horror story is nothing new.
There is much to be desired in The Strangers when it comes to motive and character development. While we are given unnecessary background details on Kristin and James, the far more intriguing masked invaders are barely seen, let alone their motives explained. Unlike both the original German and recent English remake of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (another brutal look at a random home invasion) the perpetrators of violence in those films have their motives clearly defined from the first scene — they are just into torture for fun. The Strangers leaves the audience wondering what the motivation behind these brutal attacks actually is.
Horror conventions aside, The Strangers still manages to make even the veteran horror buff jump in a few places, thanks in part to Liv Tyler, who has been absent from the big screen for a while. Tyler’s believable portrayal of Kristin is what gives the film its “it could happen to anyone” feel as she hits all her marks, without being overly dramatic or screechy. On the other hand, Scott Speedman’s wooden performance lacks any kind of real emotion as his facial expressions appear as rigid as the masks that hide the killers’ identities.
The Strangers is a decent-enough film, and coming in at under 90 minutes, it’s not long enough to waste your time in a darkened theatre, sharing the experience with a dozen or so strangers.
