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Directed by: Bryan Bertino Starring: Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler We decided we'd catch the midnight showing of The Strangers on a whim when I checked out Fandango for the week's releases. I didn't check rottentomatoes or read any previews about it before going in. The only thing I had seen was a trailer I caught a while back in theaters. Having not seen any good horror in a while at the movies I hoped it'd be fairly entertaining. And overall it did deliver for me. It isn't long after the movie starts before it starts picking up with it's creepiness. Clocking in at a little under an hour and a half, I'd say over an hour of it is sheer loving edge of your seat suspense. Call me a pussy or maybe I was just in the right mindset tonight but the film's suspense is spot on and the antagonists in the movie do their job right. (Then again things become a lot easier when you've got a mask right?) Liv Tyler sucks as usual, providing a bunch of lines that fall flat due to delivery but Speedman isn't so bad. They really should've gotten someone a little more alive to play the female protagonist. Either way, I'd check it out if you're in the mood for a decent suspenseful movie. 3.5/5 stars
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May 30, 2008 07:13
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 17:50 |
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I went to see the midnight showing of this as well. I disliked it very much. The only really interesting part of the movie is how they first decide to show the main bad guy. He didn't pop up on you, he just simply slid out of the background. It was really chilling. That said, the film then went on to show the scary characters many many many times, leaving us desensitized to the villains. Also, Liv Tyler looks haggard as poo poo after about two minutes alone in the house. I saw this because I thought Glenn Howerton would be in this longer, but alas, he was in it for 5 minutes tops. Funny Games took a story like this, made it extremely realistic, and awesome as poo poo. This movie failed in so many ways. 2/5
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May 30, 2008 23:38
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Saw this tonight. I wasn't expecting very much from it and it delivered very little. The strangers in the movie were genuinely creepy but as mentioned before, you do become a bit desensitized to them. The subtle scares were probably the best parts of the movie, however the film is almost entirely devoid of plot. Aside from some uninteresting angst-ridden exposition at the beginning, character depth and story arc are almost completely nonexistent. The movie wore on me towards the end, I was praying for some development in the story or at least a few decent lines of dialogue, but neither Tyler nor Speedman were up to the task. 2/5 Pros: Decent scares, lot of tension, some very clever, subtle scary parts. Cons: No real storyline, no character depth. Robert Analog fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Jun 27, 2008 |
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May 31, 2008 06:10
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Saw it just tonight. I was thoroughly in the mood for a horror flick, and while I ended up being thoroughly entertained, it wasn't really the movie that did it for me. Overall, I didn't really get startled my much because whenever it's quiet in a movie like this you know something is coming. The trailer gave away most of the good parts of this film, and I would probably have been a little more startled had I not known that the guy was going to walk into the room at the time he did or that the girl would come out from the barn when she did etc... The movie was mostly entertaining because I love the interaction of the audience, which this time was literally 98% composed of 16 year old girls. The reactions that the director wanted, he got in spades from these girls even though it became one of the most predictable movies I've seen lately, for example: who honestly didn't see the guys best friend being blown away as soon as he pulled up in the truck? But it was the one thing in the film that I felt the characters were justified in doing and I felt for them completely. The plot was frustrating in a lot of ways, like how fast he seemed to get over himself murdering his best friend and not turning his rage into a hunter instinct and either killing them right away by running out of the house and shooting them or dying in the process like what my reaction would have been (not LAYING ON THE loving GROUND WITH THE SHOTGUN AND LOOKING AWAY FROM THE LIGHT! Honestly, you couldn't have at least shot at the flashlight? The only advantage the main characters had was completely squandered! The ending was disappointing, I fully expected at least one of them to escape or to untie themselves and find a concealed weapon at the last minute and kill those fuckers, I wanted them dead. I know it sounds stupid and nobody should be able to say this, but I KNOW I could have reacted better then the main guy in this movie and I'm disappointed in the overall outcome of the movie. I mean they sat there and got stabbed! They could at least, at least the man character could have died fighting! What the gently caress! 2/5 Entertained, but because I was drinking during the movie and because I was enjoying all the 16 year old girls screaming and yelling at each other for making noise. I honestly thought I'd see a loving cat fight after the girl next me called the girl 2 rows up a oval office! I was ready to snap one off for real. Baldrik fucked around with this message at 06:33 on May 31, 2008 |
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May 31, 2008 06:31
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Horrible movie. I'd been on a streak watching good horror I picked up on a whim (Rec, Inside, and Cannibal Holocaust, finally) so I guess it had to end somewhere. A bunch of false tension jump scares - the only part that shook me at all was the scene where the dude was standing behind Liv Tyler, and I'd seen that in trailers - to a thirty second payoff that definitely wasn't worth the hour and some-odd I'd spent waiting on it. I also caught a ton of derivative shots/scenes from other horror movies. The part where what's his name shoots his buddy with the shotgun was almost straight out of Inside, and the "Liv Tyler in the closet" thing was a direct ripoff of the awesome Jamie Lee Curtis closet shot in Halloween. I'm also getting tired of the "spooky bag mask on top of a business suit" cliche I've been seeing since before The Orphanage. Juxtapositions only work if they're not run into the ground, aspiring filmmakers! 1/5
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Jun 1, 2008 04:00
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Quite possibly the most boring "horror" movie I've ever seen, and definitely the worst movie I've seen this year. Avoid this like the plague. 1/5
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Jun 1, 2008 16:14
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Very disappointing. Although it was "based on true events", they could have spiced it up in some fictional way. Wait to see it on DVD if you really have an itch, or catch a super early matinee so you're not wasting your money. 1/5
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Jun 1, 2008 20:48
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In a world of epically lovely horror movies, I thought this one was pretty well done. It's not a classic but I thought it was pretty effective. It was a violent movie, but the director let most of the violence happen off camera, letting your mind fill in the details. The antagonists were great and the motivation behind the murders was, for me, refreshing and perfect: There was no reason. This was a random, senseless act of violence for no reason. . The acting and writing was C- at best, but overall, I was highly entertained. I'm going to give it 3.5/5
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Jun 3, 2008 06:03
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I gotta contain spoilers cause this movie is awful and I have to discuss the whole thing *SPOILERS* The Strangers is a fascinating movie in that the director of this film seemed to want to push the boundries and try something different for a horror film. What is most fascinating is that the boundries he pushed were put there in order to guide others into making an effective horror movie. The director ends up not showing us a horror movie at all but a bizzare surreal neo-classical film, in the italian style, about a cult of serial killers who appearntly spend their time working out vigourously when they're not spooking and then eventually killing people. Because let me tell you, these people are good at briefly scaring you then disappearing into the night with super human speed. This movie was like The Bicycle Theif if that movie was a schlocky picture about two people who lack periphal vision and the instinct to survey their surroundings for people who are clearly standing right behind them. I can only assume the titular "Strangers" spent lots of time perfecting the art of walking at a brisk pace without so much as making a sound. Somewhere along the way the main dude's friends barges into the house when he notices that CLEARLY something has happened since there is broken poo poo everywhere. Instead of doing something normal like calling out his friends name or looking around for him, he slows down to the most dramatic creep walk and slowly inches, unbeknonst to him, to his swift death by friendly discharge of buckshot to the brain. The approriate reaction by the man, his friend, who shot him, is played for maybe 30 seconds until they both get over it and go looking for these strange fellows. The same who have been writing things on their walls, including the up to minute update "KILLER" on the window literally 30 seconds after the guy killed his friend. For the rest of the movie I'm not sure what happened. Liv Tyler whirled and twirled around franctically until finally confronting one of the masked asailants and bodly proclaiming "he's gonna kill you". I am not a screen writer in hollywood but I would tell the writer of this film that if someone had just been realistically experiencing the kind of trauma this lady has been for the last hour, the first time she would say something to her tormentors, it would probably be something more along the lines of "AHHHHHH" or the cliche but nonetheless realistic "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS" or "WHO ARE YOU". Instead Liv Tyler displays that her charatcer has been contemplating deeply the interal dynamic of this group of scoundrels and concluded that she can convince one of them to turn on their leader. Or something. I dont know. Then the end shows how they will be killed but not the actual act. We are left to what amounts to radio drama as we HEAR the hounds of them being stabbed to death. Oh and mormon kids freakout.
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Jun 3, 2008 19:57
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A bad movie. But you already knew that. The acting was bad. The writing was worse. About a third of the way in I was rooting for the bad guys to just hurry up and kill them, and the shakycam didn't do it any favors. Liv Tyler was the generic damsel in distress, and showed no emotion other than screaming. They constantly scare you with lulls in the music and then loud thing to startle you, which works all of about twice before I start expecting it. There really isn't much more to the story than "People Die" This was a cheap, stereotypical horror flicks which I guess is okay if you like bad movies but otherwise avoid at all costs. One of the few movies I wish I hadn't seen. 1/5
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Jun 26, 2008 05:59
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 17:50 |
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oldswitcheroo posted:
I could not agree more. And as for the hour of 'suspense'...I would say that watching two idiots run around, incapable of helping themselves or making sure to not run into that huge hole that just happens to be in the yard, is not my idea of suspense. I did not enjoy watching three Manson-following wannabes acting creepy with SAW inspired masks killing two idiots that probably deserved to be purged from the world anyways. I mean, a) creepy cabin in the woods. b) woman opts to spend some time there alone. Come on! I cannot even bring myself to give this a single star. Electric Pez fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Jun 26, 2008 |
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Jun 26, 2008 08:47
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