Review: The Strangers

Posted by Movie_Maven

June 17, 2008 |

As a lover of suspenseful films with the added elements of horror and gore, I went into The Strangers with high expectations; particularly after reading decent reviews about it. While there were moments where both I and my doesn’t-usually-jump-in-movies husband did, in fact jump, the movie itself was sorely lacking in both plot elements and character development.

There was no chemistry between the main characters (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman); a couple in the midst of relationship angst who are staying in a somewhat isolated house after attending a friend’s wedding and are, subsequently, terrorized by a trio of masked strangers with unfortunate results.

The characters’ back story was very thin, and this, coupled with poor development and equally poor acting, made me not care for the characters in the least; essentially eliminating the filmmakers’ intended reaction to the climax. Similarly, the plot was thin, with glaring oversights and plot holes which, if addressed, may have made this film significantly better.

The film is based upon a true story; however, we are all aware of the proliferation of ‘based upon true events’ films which, quite frankly, take considerable artistic liberty in ‘retelling’ the story; and, of late, have not been collectively good in the least.

A lot of conversation I overheard while exiting the theatre (as well as reading on various movie boards) involved asking why these events happened. Unfortunately, the main point to be gleaned from this film is that there is not always a carefully-wrapped response to why. Of course, the lack of any clear motive for the events is disturbing in and of itself; however, the film just plodded through a bland and somewhat rushed retelling of the ‘events’, while failing to make the audience care about the characters, which could have made for a much better film.