Director: Bryan Bertino
Screenplay: Bryan Bertino
Starring: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, Gemma Ward, Kip Weeks, Laura Margolis, Glenn Howerton
Country: USA
Running Time: 86 min
Year: 2008
BBFC Certificate: 15
A couple in crisis (Tyler and Speedman) head to a secluded family home after attending a wedding. What promises to be an evening of harsh truths, personal realisations and painful introspection soon becomes something debatably worse when three masked assailants (Ward, Weeks and Margolis) seem to have targeted the couple for a night of torment.
When it comes to home invasion horror movies I’m always drawn back to the Mark Watson joke about the 2006 French film Them. The film’s tagline is “You’ll never feel safe in your home again,” to which Watson responds “The film was great, but we had to move.” I’ve mentioned in previous reviews that for me, horror films are rarely scary if there’s little plausibility to the plot. As soon as you add ghosts, monsters or the vengeful reincarnation of an incinerated child molester who only attacks you in your dreams, any sense of fear soon departs the film. Home invasion films, however, are easily amongst the most plausible, relatable and gosh darn unsettling horror genres out there. If you’ve not experienced a real home invasion yourself, chances are you know someone who has (on a night out a university friend of mine popped back home to grab her ID then headed back out again, only to return later to a burgled flat and a note stating they had been stood right beside her when she was there earlier, and she would’ve seen them if she had just turned on the light).
It’s not enough to simply exist as a home invasion thriller to be scary though, so fortunately writer/director Bryan Bertino is able to effectively use his limited cast and locations to continually ramp up the tension and genuinely terrify the viewer. There’s a not insignificant slow burn start as we learn the relationship of our characters, but once the eponymous trio make themselves known there’s no going back.
This is, I’ve gotta say, a pretty terrifying film, but it doesn’t reach the upper echelons of being an iconic horror classic. There’s arguably too much of a reliance on repetition and jump scares – the tried and tested long drawn out silence followed by a burst of terror is used perhaps a few times too many – and keeping the antagonists at a silent distance retains their sense of menace, but leaves them devoid of personality. The masks themselves are also creepy in their own rights, but generically so, not standing out from the slew of other masked invaders. Have we seen too many masks for any new ones to truly stick in the mind? Perhaps, but these didn’t cut it for me. All that being said, any scenes involving our leads doing something in the foreground – getting a glass of water, looking for a phone in their car – oblivious to the unfocussed invader we see behind them, were almost unbearably tense and beautifully executed, leaving me constantly scanning the edges and corners of the screen for where the next masked figure could appear from.
I’m alone in my home right now and I’ve just done a sweep of the doors and windows to ensure everything is locked, something I did at least three times whilst watching The Strangers, and something I’ll be doing again very shortly now that I’m thinking about it again. I was warned prior to watching that this wasn’t going to be a fun viewing experience, and it’s true, there’s little room for levity especially with such a slight running time. However, given how emotionally draining this story becomes, having the credits start to roll at the 76-minute mark brought with them a welcome sense of relief. I’m not suggesting this was a bad film, far from it, but I was glad to have survived my encounter with The Strangers.
The Strangers is available on Blu-Ray on August 19th from Second Sight Films. The disc includes over two hours of new interviews with Bryan Bertino, Liv Tyler, Laura Margolis and editor Kevin Greutert, as well as existing interviews, deleted scenes and the extended cut of the film. It does suffer from quiet dialogue loud noises syndrome, so if you have good speakers and don’t want to disturb your neighbours you’ll be riding the volume control throughout.