Movie Review: The Strangers (2008)
I really wasn’t enjoying this movie all that much, and then the movie played Merle Haggard, and damn, is it hard to resist the charms of one of my favorite singer/songwriters.
It’s still not a great movie. It’s reasonably scary, and it has one clever twist that I like a good deal, but it’s mostly nothing too special.
The setup seems promising. I mean, other than when they say it’s inspired by real events, because we all know that’s bullshit. But I like the setup with the characters — these two people that have been in a relationship a long time, and are sort of frustrated with each other. Unfortunately, neither Kristen (Liv Tyler) nor James (Scott Speedman) really have any character outside of that.
The killers also don’t have character, but that’s really the point. In that sense, it is pretty scary. Like in Hush, which I reviewed fairly recently, they’ve chosen these people to torment really just for the hell of it. That’s a creepy premise in its own right, and I think the movie’s massive success owes a great deal to that.
What made Hush stand out for me was its main character, who was capable, and also an actual character with some depth. Here, our characters aren’t too capable or clever, and they certainly don’t have depth.
It’s an enjoyable enough movie, but it is nothing special. The premise itself is scarier than anything that happens in it. The movie is a lot of masked people being in the background in shots and our characters not noticing them, and then when they turn around, they’re gone. It gets repetetive pretty quickly.
Rating: 4/10
