People, tell me what you thought of this film!!!

I am seeing this today. I am rather excited. I am hoping for a quality horror film. This seems to have the right ingredients.

Yes tell me. Is it as terrible as Funny Games or do the victims actual get Justice in the end?

So you just completely missed the point of Funny Games, I take it? Horror always has to have a happy ending?

This review is inspired by true events. Each year Hollywood releases on average 250 films. Of those films 80% are mediocre at best and outright shit at worst, the Strangers fall somewhere in between. We have yet another alleged horror film that relies on the same overused tried and the true stalker formula in order to move its non-existant story line forward. The whole film felt un-original and cribbed from other horror/suspense films. Why this was R-rated I'll never know as there was no foul language and very little (real looking) blood or violence.
Not great, not good, but not abysmal either, just below average.

Grade D

The problem I have with The Strangers is that there is no point to the film. The Strangers are made out to be too damn smart for the average horror villains and are also without personality. No motive is given, no reason why they are there, nothing. They just seem to like toying with their prey until they get bored, and then....well you know. Maybe this was the message of the film being that this is what would happen in real life if a bunch of masked serial killers attacked you. They just want to kill you, that's all. I must admit that I did like the unusual ending

P.S- I think this film has the least amount of dialogue that I have seen in quite some time.

C-

Okay, so no point and little plot with senseless violence. Do the victims get Justice or not? Jeez daddio!

I hated, hated, hated the final shot.

Everything else? Loved it. It may as well have been titled Suspense: The Movie. Everything here is perfectly milked. You know all the beats, but the execution is practically flawless. When Speedman and Tyler hide in the closet with a shotgun and Best Friend (tm) shows up and moves through the house, you just know someone's accidentally taking a shot to the head. But what happens when you put Terrifying Masked Guy behind Best Friend with an ax? Well, situation changes.

It's brutal, scary as hell, and kind of heartbreaking. Think of it as Funny Games without breaking the fourth wall and with no contempt for its audience. I haven't seen a crowd so terrified at a film since The Ring.

Everyone at Trancas and Dimension (the companies behind Halloween) should watch The Strangers, hit themselves, and ask, "Why the hell aren't we making movies as scary as that?"

Pretty much agree. It follows the genre rules but it works.

B

I have never been this scared, or genuinely creeped out by a movie like this in a while. Since my first viewing of Halloween. This is by no means that, but its great on its own. The final shot is, fucked up agreed and it could have ended better but at least it ended in a decent way. Everything building up to it. Pretty much watched through my fingers. There are some unintentional LOL moments because of the masks but that quickly goes away when these freaks do what the do. This lived up to my expectations and I'm not easily scared by movies. A-

Holy fucking shit

In all honesty, this was one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. It has been years since I was really and truly chilled to the bone by a horror film, but this one was just utterly terrifying. I just got back so I need to put together my thoughts a bit more, but it's a definite A/A- from me, and the best horror film I've seen in a long, long, long time.

And Mr. Inc's statements about the audience rang true in my theater as well. It's one of the first times in a long time that I've heard screams coming from the auditorium. And everyone leaving the theater couldn't stop talking about how scary it was.

I might take a chance and watch this tonight (I like to experience an audience that's scared) even though I may regret it. It's okay to spoil me and tell me if they live or not.

As for audiences screaming...I experienced that during The Ring and Signs and Sixth Sense and that made the experience even more entertaining.

The one annoying thing today is having to deal with fake screamers from dumb girls.

The last shot is horrendous. I really wish the film had cut beforehand.

I might be seeing this on Tuesday.

Just one question: is this just a standard horror/slasher movie or is there any depth or meaning to the story?

Pretty much agree with this. The film is pointless and won't get good word-of-mouth among non-horror fans who see it (i.e. teen girls who always seem to see these even though they pretty much hate every one, judging by their reactions afterwards). Hell, even the horror sites aren't liking this very much. The pacing was way off. The film easily could have been an hour long TV show, if that. After it ended, I heard two people say, "That was awful. Disgusting crap!" Thought that was kind of funny that they vocalized their opinions like that. I much prefer more "fun" creative horror films like The Ruins and Saw, which shows creativity in its plot twists and traps. This doesn't have any plot twists or show any real creativity.

Grade: C-

There is no depth really to the story. You don't even learn much about the protagonists and basically nothing about the psychos.

20-25 minutes of dull build-up
45 minutes of jump scares not too unlike what you might see in a teen slasher like Prom Night
5 minute conclusion

Everyone in the audience I saw it with seemed to love it. All I heard when people were leaving the auditorium was talk about how terrifying it was.

And I much prefer horror films of this sort to stuff like Saw, maybe since, you know, this was actually scary

Saying people in the audience liked it is not a valid argument because based on the people at my screening, they have a combined IQ of 10, are constantly texting/looking at their cellphone or laughing for some stupid reason, and smell like rotten eggs

Also, it wasn't scary. I saw everything coming a mile away since I've seen so many films like this. Only people who like cheap jump scares and haven't seen many horror films will like this because that's basically what it consists of. The Strangers don't actually do anything until the end when they, well, you know...

I've seen many films like it as well and I still found it utterly terrifying. I loved the atmosphere and the tension that developed. And I genuinely felt for the two protagonists. I don't know, I always end up loving horror films like this so maybe I'm alone. But considering how disappointed I've been in the horror genre recently (the only noteworthy titles as of late have been The Ruins and Inside, and don't even get me started on how bad last year was for the genre), this one just surprised the hell out of me and reminded me why I came to even enjoy horror films in the first place.

The filmmakers don't give you any reason to feel for the protagonists since they're nothing more than cyphers. The only reason you feel for them is that you know you're supposed to because they're the victims. It shows your humanity but is laziness on the part of the filmmakers.

P.S.

Frontier(s) is a great horror movie too. It's French like Inside.

I don't scare easily at all and I thought this was scary as hell. Some of the scenes, while obvious that something was about to happen, still managed to be terrifying. That's how effective The Strangers is.

Yeah, the film lacks "depth," but I didn't go in expecting any. The film is straight-forward, scary, and I really enjoyed it.

***1/2

Great suspensul movie. Not sure it was technically horror, but I'm no expert.

It did raise a bunch of weird questions in my head though.. like why do we want to see movies of violent, senseless crimes based on real life events? It's like Funny Games in that regard but like someone said, without that fourth wall being broken. I don't know. Why did I want to see this? I'm now sort of obsessed about the real crime and want to find out everything about it (which I will be doing as soon as I stop typing this.) Do we help perpetuate such violence by getting a thrill from said movies? Why do people even do such horrible things?

On a movie level, I thought it was great. Less dialogue in scary movies is always better. And gore/blood doesn't necessarily mean scary. The suspence was there. Girls in my theater screamed like crazy multiple times. I def had an adrenaline rush throughout.

B+

the strangers

saw at 2250. told it was sold out but was able to buy a ticket through the kiosk. they had less than 5% seats left so i'm guessing that's why the bo person told me incorrectly. i did end up sitting in the 2nd damn row but that's o-----kay.

Did i find this movie TERRIBLE? No, i didn't.

Is it really good. Not really.

The film was slow to begin and get to the action but once it began with the lady asking for tamara and crept along from there it was decent stuff. I did turn my eyes away a few times because I just don't like getting all jumpy. The movie made great usage of sound and weird noises but that clinking and clanging and footsteps did get a bit old after a while. I'm thinking at the barn scene is when I began tiring of it. Now these poor people actually had a gun but not a lot of brain cells because the man kept going outside and the woman even followed him a couple times. They had a plan early on where they would wait it out since they had the upper hand with the gun and a room with only one entrance but things occurred that made them lose focus erasing that advantage. I guess the most enjoyable scene i take from the film is when they are removing their masks and the camera still doesn't let us see their faces even though knowing what they looked like would have meant absolutely nothing it was still a good shot i think. As to the absolutely last shot, I have no issues with that as that was revealed in the beginning anyway.

my grade - C