Alas, it's a slasher film. More than that, it's an exercise in poor decision making and bad judgment. What sort of bad judgment, you ask? In addition to Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, the only other actor in the film that I'd heard of was Gemma Ward. Never heard of her? This is what Gemma Ward looks like:
As you can see, she's more than a little bit cute. In fact, she's so pretty that people pay absurd amounts of money to take her picture or to get her to wear their clothes. Gemma Ward is a top fashion model who has been sought by top designers in every part of the world and has been on the cover of Vogue and other fashion magazines several times. So, Gemma Ward is a famous model with zero to no acting creds. When I heard she was going to be in this, I figured we'd get gratuitous bikini and underwear scenes which is normally why you hire a girl like her to be in your horror film. At the very least, Gemma Ward's role in The Strangers turned out to be a huge surprise. Instead of playing "Slutty Girl #2" or "Naked Girl In Shower" she plays a character listed by IMDB as Dollface, so called because, for most of the movie, one of the world's top models keeps her face hidden by a doll mask. The decision to do that is Mistake In Judgment #1 and, for me, defines the movie.
Mistake #2 was the decision to take all the potential that the movie showed in its earlier scenes and flush it right down the crapper. First time writer/director Brian Bertino does nothing to make people say, "Wow, this guy is a first time writer and director? This film is so professionally made that I'm just shocked." Instead, he studies and identifies the mistakes made by hundreds of other horror films and says to himself, "Awesome. That's what I'm going to do." Thus, the marvelous bit of foreshadowing where Gemma Ward knocks on the door of James and Kristen (Speedman and Tyler) at 4 AM, making sure to unscrew their porch light so they can't see her face, and proceeds to be as creepy as can be before saying, "See you later," and wandering off is completely undone by the horror movie cliches that follow. Dollface shows up with 2 other deranged psycho killers and Man Oh Man, did they ever hit the Deranged Psycho Killer Lottery. God must really love sadistic killers because He makes sure that one of the characters leaves his cell phone in the car and that the other one didn't bother to charge hers that day. For the next 90 minutes, He also allows them to effortlessly control these 2 innocent characters in a game of cat and mouse and aren't even stopped when James manages to get hold of a shotgun.
Yeah, that's right, one of the movie's heroes find a damn SHOTGUN! One would think that the killers, who are armed only with an ax and their ability to be staring into windows at the exact moment that the two victims happen to be looking out of them, would be at a distinct disadvantage. If you thought that, you would be suffering from an annoying urge think realistically and not realize that the true advantage lies with the killers. This is because the killers are extraordinarily lucky and because one of the prizes of the Deranged Psycho Killer Lottery is that your victims are extraordinarily stupid. At one point, Dollface, referring to her group's intent to commit future acts of terror and murder, says, "It'll be easier next time," which almost caused me to stand up and yell, "NO! It will never be easier than this because you will never again find people so stupid that they'll leave their defensible position so they can go running into the dark forest and trip over stuff," and yes, those things actually happen.
Anyhoo, from then on horrific acts of terror are mixed on both sides with blatant acts of stupidity, such as when Kristin fails to pick up her bigass butcher knife before trying to hide and when the killers make sure to act really creepy while shwoing their faces to witnesses in the neighborhood where horrible crimes had just occured. If you ever want to hear an entire theater full of people groan, go to this movie and watch the scene just before the credits roll. Otherwise, don't see The Strangers at all.
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