When someone comes knocking at your door in the middle of the night, do you open it? Even if you’re up, are you opening the door? If you answered “yes” to either question, you probably wouldn’t last very long in a horror movie.
In 2008’s The Strangers, James and Kristen are staying at a vacation home in a small town after attending a wedding reception. James had big celebration plans, hoping Kristen would accept his marriage proposal. We’re not given much information about the whole thing but she doesn’t seem to have liked that idea. So, obviously, things are awkward.
Then, theres the knock. It’s 4 am and they answer the door. Yes, they actually answer the door! The outside light won’t turn on so the girl’s face is in the shadows. She asks if Tamara is home then goes on her way when she finds out there’s no Tamara there.
From there, their nightmare begins. It’s is a pretty good example of why I don’t open the door if I’m not expecting anyone, ever… especially if it’s late. I mean, come on! Who opens the door?
If they hadn’t been so stupid in the first place, we wouldn’t get the movie, so I guess there’s always that. That brings me to the only real drawback of the whole movie to me; it’s the fact that I hated the main characters so much that I just wanted to see “Man in Mask”, “Dollface” and “Pin-Up Girl” kill these people.
The Strangers do their thing and disappear into their little rural town in what is now broad daylight.
…We thought that was it…
Ten years later, The Strangers came knocking again. This time, they’re after a whole family, but it really is pretty much more of the same. Three weirdo locals going on a killing spree out of boredom. They’re wearing the same masks and the girl asks if Tamara is home again so I’m guessing it’s the same three who went after ol’ James and Kristen.
There is a difference, though. The three masked assailants just aren’t as creative this time around. There wasn’t any suspense. They drive around in their pickup blaring 80s ballads and don’t really give many surprises.
Maybe after ten years of doing this, it’s all just instinct. Maybe the passion isn’t there for them anymore. Maybe I’m reading way too much into it because it’s just a movie and it’s really a writing difference. I don’t know, whatever. I still actually enjoyed it.
The people being tormented have, apparently, never seen a horror movie before so their every move kind of drives me nuts. This is precisely why we end up hoping The Strangers kill their prey in the first place. The movies themselves, they’re sort of lowest common denominator horror elementally, but they still work. They work because it feels like something that could really happen.
No matter how much we want to read into things like how idiotic the characters are or how many times we’ve seen this same scenario, these are slasher movies. It works because it just does. Some will argue, “THEY’RE HOME INVASION, DOOFUS!” Let’s not overthink things. Let’s not try to deconstruct them too much. Yes, they’re home invasion movies but they’re also slasher movies that really don’t need to be too deep.
I definitely think the first film is quite a bit better than the second but I have no problem turning on either and sitting back to watch The Strangers do their thing. Do we need another one? Not really. Did we even need a second one? No, probably not. If they came knocking again in the middle of the night, would I watch those dumbasses open the door again? Yeah, most likely.
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