The Strangers

The scariest movie since It (or at least the first two hours of It)

When most new scary movies have to draw off gore and shock to terrify their audience, it’s refreshing to have The Strangers take you back a step back toward the classics by delivering the heebie-jeebies through hardly showing you anything at all.

Before getting into this too much, let me explain that I haven’t been truly frightened in a movie since my brother Carl and I watched the two-night premiere of It as children. The Strangers is the first movie to freak me out like that since.

Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman (Underworld) play the leads in The Strangers. While the two are vacationing in his dad’s secluded cabin, masked strangers show up at four in the morning and begin playing games. From banging on doors, leering in windows, destroying their cars and cutting off all outside communication, the strangers toy with their helpless prey until the prey can’t handle it anymore.

Nowadays, in horror movies, we’re accustomed to seeing groups of people get picked off one-by-one. Whereas, in The Strangers, we only see two people; therefore, they’ve got to last the entire movie. Because of this, the entire movie feels like one long and scary inciting incident to a horror movie. You never shake that frightening, intense and uncomfortable feeling. You keep saying, “Kill one of them already!” And that’s where The Strangers really stands out.

Considering how little we see the strangers and how little of them we see because of their disturbing masks, The Strangers relies mostly on Tyler and Speedman to carry it. And while Speedman is good, it is definitely Tyler’s terrified role that goes above expectations and brings you right into the hopeless hiding spots with them. This role could possibly be her best performance to date.

Though rated R, The Strangers is one of the mildest suspense-horror movies. There is very little swearing and only a few brief moments that are barely more violent than any given episode of C.S.I..

If you like creepy movies like Vacancy and you’re ready for a truly terrifying 90-minute experience, then check out The Strangers.

Photo credit: Rogue Pictures