READERS' CHOICE #47: THE STRANGERS (2008)

 

THRILL SCALE 1-10

9

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE?

Yes

BEST SEQUENCE

The scene shown in the poster - before Liv Tyler is even aware that a home invasion has begun, she stands by herself in an empty room and we see a masked figure step out behind her, observe her for a moment, and then conceal himself again without taking any immediate action

BEST LINE

"Hi. Is Tamara here?"

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE

48%

ROTTEN TOMATOES CRITICS CONSENSUS

"The Strangers has a handful of genuinely scary moments, but they're not enough to elevate the end results above standard slasher fare."

IMDB SYNOPSIS

"A young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants."

THOUGHTS

• Well, Rotten Tomatoes, we're going to have to agree to disagree
• It may not be surprising to learn that I enjoy reading movie reviews, considering I've started writing my own. Usually I do so after the fact, once I've formed my own opinion, and I feel like I tend to line up with most movie critics. If I'm in a self-congratulatory mood I just take this as proof that I have good taste as opposed to someone whose opinion is overly influenced by others (although that thought has crossed my mind too), but then there are times when our verdicts differ. It's happened a few times already in this blog; I mostly chalk that up to older movies which were revered and influential at the time but just didn't hold up (The Day the Earth Stood Still, I'm coming at you once more)
• The Strangers, on the the other hand, a lot of critics didn't like, especially when it first came out (it's gained a bit of a cult following since). As we see from the Rotten Tomatoes consensus above, it was seen as a middling slasher with little to set it apart. But you know what? I've seen a lot of what I would consider slashers, including multiple movies in the Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream series, and I think The Strangers is scarier than almost all of them (the original Halloween and Nightmare are both pretty fantastic). In fact, I don't even think The Strangers is a slasher, if for no other reason than the focus is on increasing the tension as opposed to increasing the body count
• A lot of jump scares. I said my piece on jump scares in my review of REC, and I still find them effective in this movie as well. The fact that this movie had a trio of killers instead of just one made the jump scares even more fair in a way that other movies can't pull off. The villain doesn't need to defy logic to pop up in a surprising place because there are three of them all over the house, stalking the protagonists in tandem
• In ranking this movie and REC so highly I somewhat worry that I'm not leaving much room for the more restrained, artful movies we have coming up like, for example, The Babadook or Let the Right One In, but I can't deny the visceral reaction I had
• I almost gave The Strangers a higher score, even toying with the idea of giving it 10/10, but there are aspects of it that just don't work as well as I wanted and make the movie drag a little (but not enough for me to consider it a bad movie). The protagonists accidentally kill their friend, and there's not much actually done with that, and there's an extended sequence in which Liv Tyler tries to get to a radio transmitter in a barn which, at that point, just felt like padding
• The ending is chilling, in part because it happens with sunlight streaming through the window. So often in horror movies it feels like dawn will bring safety (sometimes in a practical way, like if we're dealing with vampires). If the heroes can just survive until the sun rises, surely they'll be safe. No such luck here, and the final scene exposes the harsh reality of the events of this movie. There was no hidden meaning, no twist ending, no ulterior motive. This was just pure, inhuman sadism and cruelty, as evidenced by what I almost chose as the best line:
• "Why are you doing this to us?" "Because you were home"
• Despite my earlier assertion that this isn't a slasher, we definitely see some slasher influence, especially in the male killer who has the hulking physicality of Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. Incidentally, according to the movie's credits the male killer is called Man in Mask, which we can all agree is a bad name. From now on I'm going to call him Mr. Sack, a name I chose before Googling it and finding this delightful Charlie Brown action figure:

• If that's not an origin story I don't know what is

Up next: Spelunking gets spelooky in The Descent which, continuing the trend, contains one of my favourite jump scares of all time

MARK REVIEWS THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE: SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME

 

• There will be spoilers!
• Well, with very little fanfare, and not much forethought, I've decided that this shall be my last Marvel review. I still like these movies, and I'm going to continue seeing each new one as they're released (in the theatre as much as possible), but the act of writing about Marvel movies has started to feel less satisfying for me, especially after the end of the Infinity Saga, and I'll talk more about that at the end of this review. At this point it feels like there are only so many ways I can say "I had fun, there was some good action and there were some funny moments." And now, with that out of the way, let's get into the review
• I had fun, there was some good action and there were some funny moments. Good night, everybody!
• Just kidding (kinda). I know everyone's loving this movie, and I feel like I might be damning it with faint praise, but I was expecting to like it more
• OK, last warning, spoilers below
• First, the good stuff 
• It's a genuinely delightful concept for a movie, effectively evoking our nostalgia while still telling a new story
• It's been a while since I've seen the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, but I don't remember Willem Dafoe being as much fun in that one as he was in this. He cackled, capered and cavorted like an absolute maniac, and I feel like we got to see more of that deranged face in this movie than we did in Spider-Man, when the Green Goblin was wearing his mask/helmet most of the time
• Speaking of whom, "You know, I'm something of a scientist myself." Love it!
• Just like in his own movie, I loved the Doctor Strange special effects and fight logistics. When he's fighting Peter and uses portals to make Peter web his own foot? Brilliant!
• I loved watching the three Spider-Men (Spider-Mans?) meet and interact. I have a lot of affection for Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, and I remember his movies fondly, even the third one. And I haven't even seen either of the Andrew Garfield movies, but he's a charismatic guy and I still liked getting to meet his version of Peter Parker. When Peter Maguire and Peter Garfield joined the scene, that gave the movie a jolt I was looking for. Which brings us to...
• I kinda feel like the movie before that point was a little flabby, a little poorly paced, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that not all Spider-Man villains are created equal. Like I mentioned, I thought Willem Dafoe was great fun as the Green Goblin, so it was appropriate that he was the main bad guy, but the rest elicited varying shades of indifference. In Spider-Man 2, Doctor Octopus was indeed one of the best bad guys in all of superhero cinema, but his powers were neutralized almost immediately in this movie, and furthermore he was cured of his villainy, turning him into a good guy! Sure, maybe it's a good arc for the character, but doesn't the fun of seeing these villains return hinge on the expectation that they'll act like villains? And like I mentioned, I hadn't seen either of the Amazing Spider-Man movies, so especially without any sort of backstory to draw from, Lizard and Electro were duds, although Jamie Foxx was still fun to watch but that's more just because he's charismatic ol' Jamie Foxx. And finally, I don't know if it was just how the character was used or if Thomas Haden Church's voice acting really wasn't cutting it, but Sandman was a big old nothing
• And then, I know this is a little nitpicky, but what was the movie's internal logic for which villains would be drawn into this universe and from what point in their lives? It was established that Green Goblin, Doc Ock and Electro were pulled from their universes immediately before dying. But...Sandman and Lizard don't die in their movies (I looked up the synopsis for The Amazing Spider-Man). Am I interrogating this too harshly? Maybe, but if the whole idea was for Peter to cure the villains in order to prevent their deaths, that loses a lot of poignancy when it comes to the villains who, as far as we know, don't die at the hands of Spider-Man
• Anyway, I certainly understand the impulse to include a villain from each separate movie, just like I understand the draw of including all three Spider-Man actors. And if you have to pull villains from (what I understand to be) mediocre movies, there's a fair bet you'll end up with mediocre villains, especially in comparison to some of the others. Maybe it would have been better if we skipped a couple of them? A team-up between Green Goblin, Doc Ock and Electro would have packed more of a punch, I'd say, without needing to cede attention to the also-rans
• Ultimately, though, I think this was a brilliant concept, and I thought parts of the whole really stuck the landing. If you loved this movie entirely, I'm not going to question that reaction. For me, though, I'd say it was just on the verge of greatness and still needed a bit of tweaking to get there
• And finally, Mark's Movie Reviews shall shed a small tear and say farewell to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 2019 when I decided to do a full watch of the MCU, the idea of simultaneously starting a review series made a lot of sense. It was a movie franchise with a huge backlog of movies I hadn't seen, the movies were all linked to each other in varying levels of significance, and when I decided to start that project there was an endpoint (an Endgame, if you will). Watching the Infinity Saga really was a fun experience, getting to know the characters over the course of multiple movies and many hours, and I thought Endgame was a supremely effective capper to that story. But then, to the surprise of no one, after Endgame wrapped things up in a bow and we came to terms with never seeing some of these fantastic characters in movies ever again, the movies kept coming out. And I wasn't upset about it! I was still excited to see more from some of these characters, meet some new ones, and see what Marvel had planned for us after the somewhat self-contained nature of the Infinity Saga had concluded. But at this point as I type this, without any big Avengers-style team-ups to look forward to, without really knowing where Phase Four is heading, and with no clear indication that we'll know where it's heading anytime soon, I'm finding it hard to gather the same excitement for the individual movies as they're released. I do still like these movies, I plan on watching them as they come out, and I'm prepared to eat my words depending on what Marvel might still have in store for us in the future. But for now I shall say thanks for the good times, Marvel Cinematic Universe, thanks to anyone out there who has enjoyed reading my reviews, and remember, part of the journey is the end