The Strangers

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: TBA 2008

Starring: Liv Tyler, Gemma Ward, Scott Speedman
 
Directed by: Bryan Bertino 

Premise: Three mysterious strangers terrorize a young couple in a remote house after they return from a wedding.

[pete]

aw I thought the movie was about sitting on your hand.

[Thrindle]

Scared the bujeezuz out of me... However... I was alone and in the dark.  A bad episode of CSI might have scared me too. 

Fine, I admit it, I totally had nightmares.  Anyone seen this??

[Sleepless]

Saw it in the theatre. Had just had 4 teeth out and was high on painkillers at the time. Was better than most stuff I've seen this year.

[MacGuffin]

One word: Chilling. This was a very smart thriller. Remember that scene in Silence Of The Lambs where Buffalo Bill has his night-vision goggles on and is toying with Clarice by almost touching her? This movie is like that scene for 80+ minutes. The movie builds up a massive amount of tenseness and suspense by telling you exactly where the faceless torturers are, by both showing them or using the great sound design. It's not a movie that relies on scares that jump out at you; though there are a few of those, but they are earned and come off as tension relievers. I guess if one wanted a straight, tongue-out-of-cheek version of Funny Games, this would be it. Recommended.

[Pozer]

alright i'll get it on demand right now.

[john]

I saw this in theaters... thought I'd commented on it...

Anyway, some vague spoilers:

I really enjoyed this and pretty much echo Mac's sentiment, albeit with one complaint. The tone of the entire film is incongruous with it's conclusion. Everything leading up to the finale id a perfect mix of genuine tension and stylized scares. It's easy to suspend disbelief in some of the more superhuman moments their tormentors exhibit because everything is so fucking scary. (ex: shotguns are fired within inches of an attacker's face, only to have him avoid the shot unharmed. Their entire physicality, for the most part, is closer to some sort of ghost ninja... disappearing and reappearing anywhere they please - including the middle of a wide open fucking field.)

So, after all of that, the ending tries to instill a sort of grim realism into what had been a pretty fantastically scary ride. It didn't fit. Like two films jammed together.

But it's easy to forgive because everything until then is done so damn well.

[Ghostboy]

Yeah, I saw this back when it first came out and loved it. So beautifully shot, too.

[Pozer]

turns out i somehow confused this with a movie called Shutter on demand.  DO NOT make this mistake, everyone.

[Fernando]

Well, I guess this time I disagree completely with the xixax crowd, I HATED this film mainly for the reasons in the below quote:

(ex: shotguns are fired within inches of an attacker's face, only to have him avoid the shot unharmed. Their entire physicality, for the most part, is closer to some sort of ghost ninja... disappearing and reappearing anywhere they please - including the middle of a wide open fucking field.)

I don't care if the sound design was great or that it was very well filmed, the above took me out of the film completely, I even went to the bathroom and wasted time looking at some posters. Plus at no time I felt scared, in fact I thought the scares were way too obvious.

[Pozer]

you sure you didn't accidentally watch Shutter?

[modage]

The Strangers

As a thriller it was definitely effective.  But as a film a few things bothered me.  As usual the most tension occurs between the beginning of the film and when the intruders first appear, then it dissipates a bit.  But mostly, don't tell me it was inspired by true events if the true event is the Manson murders and also a stranger knocked at your door when you were a kid!  That's pretty cheap.  I also watched the Theatrical cut and not the Extended one so I'm not sure if the attackers had more dialogue or if there was anything else I missed.  I also would've hoped after all the tension mounting it would've gone a little further in the finale but at least it was short.  Whatevs.

[w/o horse]

It's not good.  Did its admirers not watch Vacancy last year?  Because if it's Hollywood folderol you crave that one is better.  And if it's suspenseful-violent-mysterious intruding you crave there's Them, which is better.  And if you like that scene with the Joanna Newsom song playing, like I did, there's a Joanna Newsom cd you can buy.  Ys is very good.

You know if I hadn't seen Them recently maybe I'd think this was good, but this movie's chemistry is Them + Hollywood manifesting emotions for the feeling impaired + masks (mmkay but I don't ALWAYS need masks, honestly, and it doesn't enhance shit to keep the villains faceless because I read about 'actors' (an actor is someone who is hired to play a character in a film who the actor is not necessarily in real life and almost definitely not in this instance), and if Liv Tyler is there I know it's actors behind the masks so fuck you).

I'm being hard on it, probably.  It's all contrived atmosphere + 1 Joanna Newsom song and nothing else.

[Stefen]

But it's filmed really well!

I wouldn't say it's good, but it's certainly not bad. It could have gone corny, but it doesn't. It should gain points for not SAWing it up. The ambience is awkward. They should have made the house creepier. Decent halloween flick. I don't feel like my time was wasted, and when I'm on the fence, that's ultimately how I decide if it was worth it or not.

[RegularKarate]

I wouldn't say it's good, but it's certainly not bad.

Yeah... I'm with Stefen on this one.

I would have enjoyed it a lot more if there hadn't been an entire volleyball team comprised of thirteen year old girls and thier coach in the theater.  They screamed at the wrong times and talked during the rest of the movie. 

Still, it was enoyable enough, but nothing new or amazing.

Oh, and Vacancy sucked much worse than this.