I initially proclaimed my dislike of THE CRAZIES on Dead End Follies' Facebook page, last Thursday night. It triggered an interesting discussion between two readers. One defended the movie and the other suggested me to watch THE STRANGERS instead, claiming it was different and more legit. I did. I may or may not have watched it with my friend JD (I totally have), it might only have increased my liking of the movie. Direction-wise, it's trying a lot harder than THE CRAZIES to make a good film. But holy shit, I think THE STRANGERS invented new ways NOT to deliver the goods. Released a few months behind Michael Haneke's self-made American remake of legendary mindfuck FUNNY GAMES, it didn't stand a chance. It was sure to fail and in many ways, deserved to.
James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) are somewhat of a privileged couple. They own a summer home, for starters. You need to be great fucking character to make up for that. But they're not. James and Kristen have their heads up their asses and their asses are full of first world problems. Mainly Kristen doesn't want to marry James because...well...she has no reason, really. Except that she's "not ready". We all know what it means for poor James, his relationship is over. James goes for a spin at 4 AM after a creepy woman knocks at the door, because that's what jilted men do, right? Leave their exes dealing with fucked up strangers lurking around their houses while they mope. Right? RIGHT? Then the creepy woman turns out to be three people. That's it, really.
What THE STRANGERS tried to do is bank on the most primal of human fears: the unknown. What a suffocating feeling it must be, to be under attack inside of your own home and not knowing by who or why you're being targeted. Stylistically speaking, director Bryan Bertino makes a genuine effort to create atmosphere. The orange/black lighting is really realistic of late night summers (lampposts are the only light at that hour) and his minimalist philosophy of creating mood through one aspect (like a vinyl playing. Come to think about it, it's another rich-people quirk). But it's the only upside of THE STRANGERS. Everything else about that movie is so frustratingly bad, it will make you throw things at the screen if you're not a little liquored up.
Derp.
First, it's supposed to be based on true events. But if you hit The Internets for what actually happened to James Hoyt and Kristen McKay, you'll find nothing. Because "being based on true events" doesn't mean it happened. According to people who had the displeasure to sit through the DVD extras, the true events happened in director Bryan Bertino's childhood where a creepy woman knocked at the door several times to ask for someone who actually didn't live there. Poor woman was just disturbed. The rest is "loosely" based on the Manson family murders. That's some convoluted, wrapped-up-in-a-hurry bullshit explanations if I've ever heard some. So nothing happening in THE STRANGERS is true. I wouldn't mind it if it was a good movie, but unfortunately it relies way too much on the disturbing assumption that it really happened...or could happen.
Whatever.
You know what else is fucked? THE FUCKING POSTER SPOILS THE MOVIE. THE TAGLINE "BECAUSE YOU WERE HOME" IS LITERALLY THE FUCKING TWIST. How brilliant is that? It's about as much of a tin can a plot can get. Make a bunch of masked people try to enter a house for about thirty minutes, make them dick around in the living room for creepy effect and then for dramatic punchline, make them have no reason at all. The intruders don't remain mysterious or unknown because they're masked. It's a freakin' middle aged dude with two girls and one of them is about a hundred pounds. (I think there was another man who got killed, but I couldn't see through the bottom of my glass). How much of a fight can they really put? James and Kristen have the survival skills of deers in headlights.
THE STRANGERS wanted so hard to genuinely scare people, but it had no idea how. So it decided to rely on the cheapest possible scare tactic: not telling people what the fuck this was about. It doesn't work. All you're left with is a series of meaningless events that drag on for way too long as a mean to create tension. Unsympathetic, helpless characters don't help either. To make it work, the protagonist should have been a wheelchair bound guy with atrocious motor skills or something. THE STRANGERS is a terrible movie. It's technically competent, but it's so far up its ass, thinking it's visceral and creepy that it leaves the viewers out. It thinks you're stupid. Don't watch it. Not even to play drinking games, because you'll all wake up sprawling on the floor. Really, the poster says it all. Next.
ONE STAR
