Saturday, January 31, 2009

The Strangers (2008)

The Strangers
Director: Byran Bertino
Starring: Liv Tylor & Scott Speedman
Genre: Horror, Suspense Thriller
Rated: R (Theatrical version) Unrated (DVD)
Tag line: We tell ourselves there's nothing to fear - but sometimes, we're wrong.
Amazon Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
My Rating: 4 stars

Plot: While staying at a vacation house in the middle of nowhere, a young couple are terrorized by masked assailants.

Review: With the raves for psychological horror movies, I'm sure that The Strangers will be horribly overlooked and insulted by the masses. The feel of the movie alone won't live up to the hype of the neo-slasher flick fans whose canon is made up of Saw, Hostel, and the remakes of Halloween and the soon to be released Friday the 13th.

However, the look at feel of the film is genuine - something out of a 1970's B-horror movie such as The Last House on the Left. The movie starts off immediately, little is left for character development. You never learn the identities of the masked assailants, nor do you get to know you're victims before the torture starts.

The acting is brilliant, as is the direction of the movie. What really gets me, however, is the fact that the killers are of a few words. There isn't a ton of dialogue to build fear in the victims. The fact that they are quiet rather than tormentors of speech makes the movie even more realistic.

Trivia: While the film is marketed as inspired on true events, the movie is completely fictitious. Bryan Bertino does note, however, that the film's inspiration is greatly due to the Manson family murders (true crime book Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murdersby Vincent Bugliosi & Curt Gentry).