The Strangers

Genre: Horror
Starring Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler, Gemma Ward, Kip Weeks, Laura Margolis, Glenn Howerton
Written and Directed by Bryan Bertino
Run Time: 90 minutes
Rated R (for violence/terror and language)

All For Nothing
For a slasher flick with no pay back for the audience, the movie suffices. There are scary moments when I held my breath, waiting for the killer to appear, moments when I worried for the male and female leads and moments when I felt myself cursing the killer and also the leads for coming to such a place.

Thanks to the good looking leads, the plot was easier to bear, especially considering the fact that towards the end, I realized that the killing was all for nothing and just because they were home! Even for Vacancy, for those who remember that I actually rated it one of the worst shows I watched in the year 2007, there was a motive for the killer, though it was not strong, at least there was an actual motive.

However, this film chooses to skirt the issue of accountability to the audience by stating at the very beginning that this is “based on actual events”. Does this mean that this movie has the right to end on such an unfinished note where the killers are made to kill just for the sake of killing?

Yes, it may be true that in many unsolved deaths in the world, there are many murders that do not appear to have any motive and the killer(s) never found. But in a movie? Based on the fact that this tactic has been used before, this kind of unresolved ending just does not satisfy me at all. It appears more like a cop out.

However, as what Roger Ebert says, because this was a first time writer and director, there are so many redeeming factors in the movie that he felt obliged to give it more than a one star rating. And perhaps I have to agree. The idea of this movie came about because the director used to stay in far-flung homes where no one can hear him even if he were to scream at the top of his lungs. He wanted to reenact the creepiness and chilliness of those moments when the world appears to have stopped.

I just wished to have a more coherent and responsible storyline. Good casting of two eye candies though.