The Strangers
Reviewed by Edward Larsen Terkelsen

USA, R, 85 m, 2008
Directed by Bryan Bertino. Stars Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler, Glenn Howerton, et al.

More than a few reviewers have likened The Strangers to Funny Games, and although both films center on the damnable crime of home invasion, it’s not an appropriate comparison. Funny Games (you can take your pick of either director Michael Haneke’s original German-language film or his shot-for-shot American remake) was a lecture on our shameful obsession with simulated butchery, while The Strangers is a straightforward exercise in suspense on the order of He Knows You’re Alone or When a Stranger Calls. For a first-time director, Bryan Bertino has made a surprisingly competent thriller here, but he doesn’t have much to say about anything other than filmmaking techniques. That’s not enough to keep me engaged these days (I hate it when I’m left with nothing to chew on during the closing credits), so while I commend Bertino’s technical proficiency, I can’t say it looks like he’s going to become a director of much relevance.

The first hour of The Strangers is a real nail-biter. A couple of lovebirds, James and Kristen, arrive at James’s parents’ isolated summer home to spend the night after a friend’s post-nuptial doings. But the mood is sad, leaden—everything appears to be moving in slow-motion. We soon learn that James proposed to Kristen at the reception, but she rebuffed him, so the preparations he made for an evening of romantic bliss (which included the decidedly girlish gesture of sprinkling rose pedals all through the house) have been—at least in his mind—all for naught. It’s not that Kristen doesn’t care for the big lug; she just isn’t ready to take on such a major commitment. (She’s happy to keep spreading her legs for him, though.) While Kristen has a good cry in the bathtub, James dials up his main man, Mike (Glenn Howerton), and asks him to drive over and rescue him from his misery. (What kind of guy deserts his girlfriend at his parents’ house in the middle of the night? I dunno, but this odd piece of business appears to exist just to set up a cheap shock later.) Mike lives a good way out, so James spends the time he has to wait engaging Kristen in a heart to heart. It goes well—so well that Kristen removes her panties and unbuttons James’s britches, but just as the two are about to partake in some steamy makeup sex on the kitchen table, there’s a knock at the door. What the—? It’s nearly 4 AM, for cryin’ out loud! Well, maybe whoever it is will go away. Nuh-uh. There’s another knock, but this one gives off a spine-chilling echo. The home’s front door is a substantial and seemingly impenetrable affair, but it lacks a peephole (not a good idea if you don’t like getting an earful from those pesky Mormons), so James has to pull it open to see who has come calling. It’s a young, vacant-eyed blonde who’s looking for so-and-so. James informs her that so-and-so doesn’t live there and sends her on her way. Hmmm, that was kinda weird. Oh, well, let’s get back to the old in-out.

Argh! No such luck. Looks like that half-baked little twit at the door put James and Kristen off their mood. Since the opening moments of The Strangers inform us that the protagonists are going to wind up with pennies on their eyes, the only real suspense this utterly obtuse piece of sadism has to offer us is if Liv Tyler is going to get butt-nekkid, but such hopes are maddeningly dashed once a trio of masked goofballs show up and start attacking the house like those randy Irish pigs in Straw Dogs.

To help ratchet up the intensity, Bertino (who also wrote the screenplay) needs to get James out of the house for a while, so he sends him off to fetch Kristen a pack of smokes. That’s a crazy thing to do when a member of the Addams Family is setting up camp in your front yard, but off James goes, into the night. (I’m beginning to see why Kristen is so skittish about marrying this dipstick.) Now that Kristen is alone, the thumps on the door increase and take on an even more ominous reverberation. And soon she’s hearing crashes and booms and bangs all around the place. Bertino torments us with the usual amount of false alarms, but he manages to get off a great, gasp-inducing shot when one of the masked loons (he looks a bit like that dime store Scarecrow in Batman Begins) appears and then disappears in the distance behind Kristen while she hangs out in the kitchen smoking a cigarette. If there’s one moment that’s likely to keep you up at night, this is it. 

In this wondrous age in which everybody and their brother can stay plugged in via one electronic do-dad or another, it’s become almost compulsory in the horror and thriller genres for there to be a scene that explains to the audience why the hero’s goddamned cell phone isn’t working. This handy though intrusive device (which has robbed an entire generation of chance social interactions) is almost always rendered useless when its owner is being terrorized in some creepy, remote location; either it loses its signal or, as in Kristen’s case, its battery runs out of juice. While Kristen waits for her phone to charge back up, one of the crazies sneaks in and throws it on the fire. Naturally, she’s in a frazzle by the time her beau gets back, but despite everything he saw and heard earlier, he dismisses her story as typical female hysterics. An axe chopping through the other side of the door changes all that, and soon he and Kristen are cowering in the bedroom with a shotgun aimed at the door. You didn’t forget about Jack’s friend, Mike, did you? Well, I’m sure you can guess what becomes of that poor bastard when he comes into the house looking for his homey. Friends, it’s not a pretty sight, but it pales in comparison to the horrific end James and Kristen meet at the hands of their tormenters. (We can only be thankful that there wasn’t a child thrown into the mix à la Funny Games.) When asked why they’re being so awful, one of the sickos replies, “Because you were home.” Oh, I see. Golly, Mr. Bertino, that is so…so…dumb! 

The Strangers claims to be based on true events (it even opens with an advisory that’s a bit too reminiscent of John Laroquette’s lurid narration in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), but this is just a huckster’s way of drumming up business. I seriously doubt there’s a particular case The Strangers can cite as a source; it’s a tactless amalgamation of urban legends and cut-rate slasher films. There may also be some inspiration drawn from the Sharon Tate murder, which is something I wish these up-and-coming moviemakers would stop referencing. (Chris Siverston’s The Lost may be the foulest offender so far.) To those of you just back from Mars, permit me to give a quick account of that heinous crime: Acting upon orders from thwarted musician Charles Manson, who was inspired by the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” to initiate a race war, four psychopaths (three of whom were female) brutally murdered the eight-and-a-half-months-pregnant Valley of the Dolls actress (and several others) in her California home while her husband, Roman Polanski, was off in England scouting locations for Day of the Dolphin. (The picture was ultimately directed by, of all people, Mike Nichols.) Despite the prolonged and inhuman assault suffered upon her, Tate could only think about the safety of the little boy in her womb, and she begged Manson’s goons to let her live long enough to see him born. One of the attackers, Susan Atkins, stared coldly into her eyes and said, “Look, bitch, I have no mercy for you. You're going to die and you'd better get used to it.” The baby (posthumously named Paul Richard) was never allowed to take his first breath; he died with his mother. Atkins then collected the blood seeping from Tate’s umpteen stab wounds and used it to write “pig” on the front door of the Tate-Polanski estate. This was without question one of the most disgusting crimes ever committed in America (a country with a long, long history of disgusting crimes), and Manson and the evil creatures that did his bidding should have all been hanged from the nearest lamppost. (They certainly didn’t deserve a dedication from John Waters at the end of Pink Flamingos, fer crissakes!) The Strangers might make you want see Bertino strung up; there is no payoff for the hell he puts his audience through. We long for some of the cathartic revenge The Ninth Configuration and Straw Dogs gave us, but the final act destroys all for which our heroes have fought and suffered. It’s frustrating, really, considering how we’ve come to care about the characters, particularly Kristen. As played by the cuddly and doe-eyed Liv Tyler, Kristen comes across as a really sweet person, and you find yourself feeling more protective of her than her doltish boyfriend does. Why we need to see her put through the proverbial ringer is anyone’s guess. Thankfully, the film is relatively short and to the point, but it leaves you feeling almost contemptuous of the medium. This kind of fare used to allow for at least one of the victims to make off with his or her life, but the new trend (which has already become a fusty cliché) is to do in everybody but the monster(s). (Is The Strangers illustrative of a godless, self-loathing culture that’s teetering on the edge of oblivion? I don’t know, but I can’t say I want to get chummy with the kind of person that gets off on this stuff.) When The Strangers ended, the folks I watched the film with were clearly feeling a bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it being a night of no small expenditure. This isn’t exactly a pseudo-snuff film like The Hills Have Eyes or Hostel or Murder Set Pieces, but there is something cruel and exploitative about it. You’ll pine for the innocence of a Smurf cartoon. 

October 31, 2008 

“The Strangers” Review. © Copyright 2008 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.