Review: The Strangers

* * * 1/2

Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman. Written and directed by Brian Bertino. Rated R. 90 minutes. Universal Pictures.

The Strangers, the suspenseful tale of a young couple terrorized by unknown assailants, aims only to scare the hell out of you—and does so efficiently and memorably as one of the year’s unexpected surprises.

After a foreboding opening narration suggesting a “true story” (or likely a composite of many), The Strangers wastes no time setting up its premise with just enough character detail to hook us—young couple in love undergoes a crisis after she rejects his premature marriage proposal. James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) are a likeable, believable pair and both actors excel in disarming, quiet close-ups.

In an economical 14 minutes, the film establishes a solid dose of love and disillusionment while holding its cards about the nature of their spat as well as location, a country house later revealed to be James’ childhood home. This strategy of the gradual reveal is part of a master hand novice writer-director Brian Bertino applies to the drama and later, to the building terror.

Out of nowhere, there comes a knock at the door. “Is Tamara there?” asks a shadowy young woman, appearing to be lost. Sent away into the night, she will repeat this question a short time later, returning with a group of terrorizers wearing bags and masks over their heads, and whose intentions are never made clear. These faceless, voiceless phantoms mean business all right, and once they get inside the house Bertino pumps up the suspense like the movies haven’t seen in ages.

Kristen, initially alone, is driven to hysteria (excellent work from Tyler) as the interlopers play cat and mouse with a record player in one of the film’s best sequences. James returns and confronts the marauders only to up the ante by escaping into the adjacent woods. Of course, cell phones have been destroyed, lines cut and cars disabled—the tropes of any picture like this, and The Strangers is no exception.

The couple has little time to strategize though they do manage to defend themselves with a gunshot revealing a surprising reversal in well constructed sequence. All the while, the attackers keep materializing from darkness, hands reach out to shock us, scary flickers and movements fill lighted corners of the frame while James and Kristen walk around in the dark, hoping not to be discovered.

One shot is a veritable knockout, as Bertino nods to John Carpenter’s Halloween in a stunning, scary shadow play shot in the rear of a kitchen that is chilling in its stillness. It is quite a movie moment, reminding us how light and dark are still more powerful than any CGI creation.

The Strangers, unlike most modern horror films, is no torture show, steering clear of violence until its Grand Guignol climax, where daylight brings the true horror into focus. Here we are reminded of so many great terror films that have used idyllic, country settings to hide mayhem.

The film knowingly references Halloween (1978), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Last House on the Left (1972), Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973), Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) and other classic shockers that tapped into something deep, primal and simple. It even culls a final shot straight out of DePalma in its one false note that nearly breaks its spell.

All the classic fears are intact in The Strangers—being alone, isolated, hiding in the dark, bumps in the night, footsteps climbing the stairs—and the film excels at turning our screws with suspense. There is minimal blood, no gore, no fake scares allowing us to laugh, no computer imagery and no over-the-top heroics.

Just as in Michael Haeneke’s Funny Games, thrill killers once again descend upon a likable young couple with awful results. Jettisoning the thematic pretension and contrived humiliations of that picture, The Strangers instead focuses on scaring its couple, and us, to distraction.

The film’s excruciating closing scenes pull no punches, unblinking at faceless, indiscriminate horror. A smart coda to the carnage refuses to reveal identities, while an inspired final sequence involving a pair of young Mormons depicts total innocence corrupted by evil.

American horror films have late have abandoned real fear, degraded by forgettable remakes of better Asian techno-thrillers and Rob Zombie’s exploitation, a horror strategy piling gleeful revulsion without consequence.

But The Strangers is in a class far from those pictures and Bertino masterfully weaves a symphony of terror, reminding us just how simple a great thriller film can be. With its dark house and darker horrors, this stylish, scary surprise singlehandedly restores the fright to fright movies, and ranks with the very best of them.

Highly recommended.

- Lee Shoquist

lee@atnzone.com