Second Viewing: The Strangers (2008)

While I’ve long advocated that horror movies do not have to be successfully scary to be good, this is proof of the opposite — that horror movies that are scary are not necessarily good.

It almost feels bad to say this movie’s not that good, too, because it has so many aspects that I complain about bad movies not having. For instance, both leads are pretty good, with Liv Tyler really standing out as giving a tremendous performance.

She’s incredibly believable both when she’s hiding or running in terror, and when she’s incredibly melancholy throughout the first act, before the horror really kicks in.

It’s even slow and has some great cinematography — things that I generally hope for in a horror movie.

So what’s the problem? Especially if many of the scares work.

Well the problem is that despite good performances, the backstory-heavy first act doesn’t really give us anything about the characters. It just feels like a boring mumblecore movie with thinly written characters. A very well acted boring mumblecore movie, but one nonetheless.

On top of that, there isn’t much in plot escalation. Once we get to a certain point in the second half after a really cleverly written shocking moment, no character action seems to motivate anything else. It seems like the movie’s coming to an inevitable moment, making those moments of suspense and scares not really work.

Check out our podcast on this one (and It! The Terror from Beyond Space, which I find to be much more enjoyable).

Rating: 4/10