The Strangers

Director - Bryan Bertino (The Monster, Mockingbird)
Starring - Scott Speedman (Underworld, Dead Silence), Liv Tyler (Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Armageddon), and Kip Weeks (Glory Road, Totally Baked)
Release Date - 2008
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Because you were home"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     In 2008 my life changed.  My girlfriend at the time convinced me to go to college.  I was 21 at the time and was convinced that I would die in my father's garage.  That changed when I went to college and focused on a degree in education.  That year I changed for the better but I still remained a horror fan.  That year saw a ton of horror hit theaters.  We saw Let the Right One In, Midnight Meat Train, Quarantine, Trailer Park of Terror, Tokyo Gore Police, and Zombie Strippers.  This was a pretty solid year for horror.  The Strangers was another film released that year and I had no interest in seeing it.  Honestly, the film looked boring as fuck but so many horror fans loved it.  I see shirts, fan art, posters, and tattoos for the film everywhere.  Not long ago Scream Factory released the film on  blu.  Ten years is plenty of time to see it hanging around so I pulled the trigger and requested a review copy.  Thanks guys for sending this one my way!

     The film follows a couple who are in a rough patch.  While attending a wedding he proposed to her and she declined.  They return to a summer home for the night before going their separate ways but their night doesn't go according to plan.  Three masked individuals have set their sights on the couple in what would be a bloody game of cat and mouse.
    
     I hate when I get a movie in for review and I don't like it.  I always try to be open minded to the movie I review but sometimes they just don't strike a chord with me.  The Strangers was one of those films.  I wanted to like it but there wasn't enough story there to hold me over for the film's running time.  The acting in this one isn't the best but I've seen worse in a theatrical release.  People know me for my love of horror and exploitation but not many know I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan.  Star Wars and Star Trek are cool but my fandom is LotRs.  Liv Tyler isn't the best actress ever.  In fact, her range of emotion is equivalent to a celery stick.  She is decent in LotR because elves don't show emotion.  However, in The Strangers she completely ruins the tone set by the rest of the cast.  Scott Speedman tries his best to carry the film but he doesn't have the chops to be the leading man.  He shows emotion but he struggles to create a believable character.  With that being said, I loved the actors under the masks.  They act without showing facial expression which is difficult to do.  The story for this one should have never been turned into a feature length film.  A home invasion film centered around bland characters who attend an event briefly is a struggle to watch.  The attacks, if you want to call them that, happen in waves so we get random slow moments where they casually talk and attempt to act panicked.  The story has an issue with pacing and struggles to actually capture that feeling of dread.  Finally, the film does have a few gruesome moments.  The movie doesn't shy away from blood and has some fantastic practical effects.  I was not expecting that much blood and really enjoyed that aspect of the film.  Overall, The Strangers is one of the more popular films released in the last 20 years and I don't know why.  The film is predictable and rather boring.  We get some blood but nothing that stands out among other film released around that time like Haute Tension, Feast, and so on.  Scream Factory put together an awesome release of a rather flat horror flick.  If you like the film be sure to grab a copy of Scream Factory's blu.