Movie Review: The Strangers
Starring: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, Gemma Ward, Laura Margolis, Kip Weeks
Director: Bryan Bertino
Writer(s): Bryan Bertino
Studio: Universal
Rating: R
Official Bar Score: 
Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler star in The Strangers as a young couple that returns to their remote rural home after a friends wedding. Their evening is depressed from a failed engagement attempt. But this soon becomes the least of their worries as their night of disappointment soon turns into a nightmare of dread and danger! The two young lovers receive an odd and untimely late night visit by a seemingly lost young woman. Soon after, bizarre noises begin to penetrate the comfort of the walls of their home. The noises grow louder and the tension grows higher as they learn they are being tormented by three strangers wearing freakishly scary masks. The strangers are strange indeed as they seemingly have no motive, no method to their madness, and no end to the mystery of their malice.
Inspired by true events, “The Strangers” is finally a horror movie that delivers the goods. For far too long now the horror genre has relied on gore to scare their audiences. Now don’t get me wrong I admire and appreciate a great gore movie just as much as the next fan, but this film serves to be a very innovative and refreshing way to provoke a genuine scare without the extreme use of gore and special effects. In fact, with little to no special effects, movie score, or speaking parts on the behalf of the villains, “The Strangers” is just as much creative as it is incredibly creepy! Not too many movies scare me anymore or even come close for that matter, but this movie made me jump at least five times. The film brought an arsenal of ongoing and ever growing suspense and tension that will leave you with goose flesh, white knuckles, and hair standing on the back of your neck. The driving force of this film is sheer psychological terror in which the mysteriously masked trio have seemed to master to an exact science. I loved this movie and with the killers creativity seemingly drawn from a Manson Family-esque inspiration they are three strangers that no one would want to get to know!
Recent Posts by Shane Train
- Movie Review: In Bruges - June 27th, 2008
- 10,000 BC - March 26th, 2008
- There Will Be Blood - February 20th, 2008
- Atonement - February 20th, 2008
- The Golden Compass - December 14th, 2007
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This coming from the guy who thought Monster House was scary.
Ummm get it right dipshit wendell did the review on Monster House not the Shanetrain lol good one goob!
hahah get it right numnuts, I did the review on “Monster House”. It wasn’t scary, but damn if it didn’t rule.
I want to see this. I REALLY want to see it. I had a dream last night that I was in a situation like the plot. Now I HAVE to see it.
take me with you winston i need to get out of the dungeon for a while …..or do i
you know you are not going nowhere Matt. Keep that chain on.
Matt wears the gimp outfit from Pulp Fiction when no one is around.
Hey does Liv Tyler show her tits in anything?
I’m gonna see this tomorrow,Great Review but you did cry with king seen 3 times during P.S. I Love You.
O.K. so not only did Winston and I have to pay twice to see this film, failing to finish the first time due to a TORNADO. We also had to put up with two very immature females who cackled and screamed at everything. My opinion of the film was not discouraged by these events, although they aggravated me they only fueled my fire.
This is a good review and pretty much sums it up, I agree with the creepiness and the old school horror movie feel, I also agree that nowadays movies rely on gore and special effects way too much to scare you. I really liked the rawness of the film.
What I didn’t like was the story or lack there of and the pace of the film. It was very slow and awkward, and nothing really happened in the first 40 minutes of the film, when it finally builds up enough momentum to reclaim itself it ruins itself by NOT delivering a pay off. Another problem I had was the disclaimer at the beginning of the film about violent crimes in America and the strangers wasn’t violent at all.
I expected a lot more from this film than I got and was a little disappointed, though that might shadow my thoughts on the film it doesn’t take away from the fact that the movie seriously lacked the violence that it needed to pull off the story it had. It was creepy though and the strangers were very strange indeed.
The best part of the film was the Quote at the end when Liv Tyler asked them “why they were doing this to them” and the Stranger says “Because you were home” She should of got naked.
Yeah I’ll agree with both Wendell and Shane here and say that it does indeed invoke memories of old school horror films. Old, boring, and overrated old school horror films.
This movie was fucking terrible. There wasn’t a single genuine scare throughout the entire movie, and then it ended horribly and ultra vague (what the fuck was with the church pamphlet?)
The one thing this movie did right was show you the end at the very beginning, so you have ample opportunity to get up and leave knowing everything you need to know. Unfortunately, we didn’t take it. This movie was garbage. I’ve taken shits scarier than this piece of crap.
I could go on for days. The coolest part of the movie (the “Because you were home” line) is the most prominent part of the advertising, so not only did Wendell and I drop about 80 bucks total to see a movie we only had to watch about 30 seconds of (tickets to the show interrupted by the tornado and last night, and concessions both times), we really didn’t even need to see that 30 seconds, we just had to watch the fucking trailer which we already have on our own fucking website. Liv Tyler’s character was annoying and Scott Speedman’s was a little bitch. And the worst part of the whole thing is that the killers could have been taken care of easily by the two little mormon kids at the beginning. Horrible casting. Horrible story. Horrible attempts at cheap scares that didn’t work. Horribly predictible. Just plain horrible.
Not to mention this has nothing to with the murders it supposedly is based on. A genuine reenactment of that would have been a thousand times better.
And for the record “Monster House” is way scarier than “The Strangers”
WOW…. NOW WHAT DO I DO. DO I WAIT FOR REDBOX AND WAIST A DOLLAR, OR DO I JUST NOT SEE IT, OR DO I PAY TICKIT PRICE AND JUDGE FOR MYSELF? I GO FOR DOOR NUMBER TWO! REDBOX BABY!!!!!YEA!
Wow, that’s a shocking waste of a dollar. You could buy a Nestle’s Crunch bar or something with that.
COME ON THE REDBOX WANTS MY MONEY AND I DONT CARE FOR CHOCOLATE THAT MUCH.
You like it more than you’ll like “The Strangers”
THATS YOUR OPINION AND I TRUST BOTH YOU AND SHANE SO I’LL MAKE UP MY OWN MIND.