Warning: Full Spoilers for 2008’s The Strangers
The Strangers is one of the few modern-day horror classics, perfectly mixing tone, scares and acting. It scared the crap out of me ten years ago and still does today. I had never seen anything like it; the use of camera angles, sound and atmosphere is simply nerve wracking. I wanted a sequel almost right away. Sadly, years went by, ten in fact, making it seem like the Ross and Rachel of sequels.
When Prey at Night was finally announced, I was a bit apprehensive. Could Bryan Bertino (who wrote and directed the first, but just wrote this one), scare me ten years later like he did then? The answer is no. But, BUT, he and director Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) gave me something so different, so visceral, I was shocked. Was it good or bad? Well, dear reader, continue this journey with me and you’ll find out.
We follow Cindy (Christina Hendricks) and Mike (Martin Henderson), a couple taking their teenage daughter, Kinsey (Bailee Madison) to a boarding school. Their eldest son, Luke (Lewis Pullman), is also along for the ride, as the family needs to stay at a trailer park owned by Cindy’s uncle. This, unfortunately, is the biggest downfall for this film. Kinsey, apparently, has done something wrong and she needs to leave her high school. What she has done, we never find out. Not. Once.
I am a big fan of open endings and not giving too much exposition, but this is something that needs to be addressed. The family itself is skin deep. You don’t really get too much out of them. There’s a mom, a dad, a son and a daughter. That’s it. Kinsey is a cliché, angsty teen. Luke is, you know, her protective, dickish older brother. The parents aren’t much either. They don’t have a fraction of the depth that Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler had. When these people are terrorized, you don’t really care, instead wishing the strangers were on screen more often, much like an ’80s slasher film.
And that’s exactly what makes this film succeed. The first Strangers is a home invasion film, delivered post-9/11, commenting on senseless and pointless violence. As a society, we have moved past that and are now given a balls-to-the-wall throwback to the 80’s movement of horror I hold so dear. These people don’t just want to terrorize; they want to kill, and they want to do it brutally. Every time one of them appeared on screen, I held my breath, just as I did in the original, but for a completely different reason. I was excited to see what the hell was going to come next. The pool scene is going to go down as one of the most heart stopping scenes in horror for me. I had no idea what was going to happen. It was shocking, scary and disorienting all at the same time.
Not only does this film feel different than its predecessor but it also looks different. Gone are the dull tones of the first. Instead, bright colors are a plenty. The small, enclosed space is gone, instead giving the strangers a huge sandbox to play around in that still gives off a claustrophobic feeling. I also saw a lot of homages to 70’s and 80’s horror, most notably John Carpenter. There’s a lot of Halloween and Christine to see here, some subtle, some obvious. Man in the Mask (the male killer’s name) also seems to have a fascination with 80’s pop music, blasting it whenever he’s closing in on a potential kill. Maybe he’s not so different than I am. (The music part, not the killing part).
The film takes many twists I did not see coming. The strangers toy with their food, just as they did in the original. But Kinsey and Luke fight back (they’re the only source of character development, sadly), constantly causing their tormentors to alter their plans. The scares are also killer (pun very much intended). Again, they’re different from the first, which relied more on sound and long shots/takes. This, while utilizing the dreaded jump scare more than I would have liked, still effectively scares you using darkness, violence and, yes, cars.
A lot of people aren’t going to like this, and I know exactly why; it’s too different than the first. I get it. I also wanted the same thing going into the theater. Yet, as I sat there, realizing I was in a slasher movie instead of a home invasion movie, I was delighted at how the two films are dissimilar. Though a slasher is nothing new to me, there’s a reason I love that genre beyond any others; they’re a lot of fun and The Strangers: Prey at Night is a lot of fun. The family needed more backstory, a reason to care about them (and at 85 minutes, there was more than enough time to include that) and the ending is a strange choice (can’t spoil why, sadly) but as soon as this hits Blu-Ray, it’ll be on my shelf. Hell, I might see it again in theaters.
Grade: 8.5/10
