Are you excited for a sequel to a so-so horror movie from ten years ago? Hell yeah, you’re not. Seriously, I’m amazed that this movie exists, let alone that it was given a nationwide theatrical release. Classic horror franchises like Child’s Play, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hellraiser have been relegated to direct-to-DVD hell, but I guess you can’t keep down that rabid Strangers fanbase. It’s odd decisions like this that sometimes make me feel like a Stranger in this world. See what I did there? Whatever. They can’t all be gems, folks.
Our villainous trio of masked man, masked woman and masked girl are back again and are doing their stalking in a trailer park these days. Fortunately for them, our main family (the parents, a son and a daughter) are stopping there for the night en route to drop off their problem-child daughter at boarding school. This girl is a nightmare: she wears Ramones t-shirts, pouts and smokes cigarettes without inhaling. I don’t know how these parents didn’t get rid of this monster earlier. Anyway, they get to the trailer park, the Strangers show up and you know where it goes from there.
There is a fundamental problem with both of these movies that I struggle to get past. The villains aren’t supernatural; they are just a normal guy, woman and girl with knives and axes. Now, that can obviously work. It’s basically the foundation of the slasher sub-genre and I love slasher movies. However, it can only work if a movie follows a very simple rule: the victims can’t have a gun. If the victims have a gun, then their situation is just infuriating rather than frightening. In Halloween, do you remember how many characters had a gun? One. You know what happens when he finally shows up at the scene of the crime? The movie fucking ends because he shoots the villain. In the first Strangers, the heroes have a shotgun. If that movie frightens you, let me give you a tip on a surefire way to survive that situation: grab the gun, go into a room with one entrance, sit in the corner, point the gun at the door and wait. Hell, you can even watch tv while you’re waiting. It doesn’t fucking matter because you’ve already won. This movie at least takes place in a more open space, but it suffers the same problem. The heroes find a revolver in the first act and that should realistically be followed by the goddamn end credits because all they have to do is walk out. If someone with an axe charges you in an open field and you have a revolver, you have won. The only suspense in these movies is derived from the characters being fucking incompetent. At least the characters do eventually fight back in this movie, though lives could have been spared if they had done something sooner (perhaps like using the fucking gun).
I did like this movie better than the original, though, but that’s largely because of my preference in horror sub-genres. I’m not a fan of home-invasion movies (like the original) and this is more of a slasher film. It’s still not a particularly entertaining slasher film because there are only four potential victims, but it’s still more interesting than watching people hide in closets while not knowing how to use a shotgun. However, it still largely amounts to watching people run through fields and not remembering how a revolver works. But I’ll take it over the first film. The movie is also more interesting to look at than its predecessor. The overall aesthetic reminded me a bit of IT Follows because the movie desperately wants to take place in the 80s, but cell phones occasionally remind us that the movie does take place in 2018. The bitchin’ synth pop soundtrack, oddly outdated furniture and presence of more landline phones than I’ve seen since middle school all scream 1980s and the camerawork is even reminiscent of 80s slasher films. The pool scene in particular is gorgeously shot and there are homages to Texas Chainsaw Massacre (that’s from the 70s, I know) and Christine (which is the director’s favorite movie). It is a nice looking film, even if it’s not particularly interesting.
These movies are just not my thing. If you liked the original, then you will probably like this too. It’s not awful and I’m happy to see an R-rated slasher movie nowadays, but I was mostly just bored by it. I do have a pitch for a Strangers 3, though. Have the victims again find a gun in the first act, but actually have them use it, turn the tables on the villains and the rest of the film is a slasher movie where the villains become the victims. Other than that, I really have no interest in sitting through another one of these.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strangers:_Prey_at_Night#/media/File:The_Strangers;_Prey_at_Night.jpg
