The Strangers (2008)

This movie is purely for the shock factor and its obvious from the lack of dialogue between the actors in the movie. For anyone that’s seen “vacancy” it might all feel very familiar but its in no way a copycat movie. At the start we are told how over 1.4 million violent crimes occur in the USA every year - this technique is borrowed from the original Texas chainsaw massacre & is used to tell us as an audience that yes this could happen & maybe it did.. Whether this impacts on most people I don’t know but I did think the movie wouldn’t creep me out in the least.. I was wrong. The main set piece is an isolated vacationing home where a young couple choose to stay for the night, during the night they receive a knick on their door & upon answering it they are met by an unknown women who easily creeps them out.. After she disappears from their doorstep the couple assume they will have no more late night callers. What follows is a night of terror as they are stalked by unknown assailants who slowly but surely terrorize them until their worst fears come true. For me I felt like the movie took a while to really take off but when it did it really proved that simple scares still work in modern cinema, feeling at times like a Friday the 13th movie I have to say the terror felt by the couple was genuine. One of the strongest points of the movie was that it was believable and realistic.. While some will argue that maybe the strangers themselves possessed almost supernatural powers I’d have to disagree. What they did possess was a passion for what they were doing & it felt at times that maybe they were doing it for some unknown reason other than being the usual slasher flick killers that Hollywood seems to endlessly churn out. I think the main theme of the movie was survival, the survival of the couple to what was happening to them - and how they dealt with the situation. If you are looking for a genuinely scary movie that will have you jumping then maybe the strangers will appeal to you, its very rare a movie actually scares or creeps me out but I will admit it happened here & it was refreshing to see a horror movie that used real terror tactics & didn’t rely on cheap gore like so many of the past few years. Its rare a movie like this comes along & if you like horror or even want a thrill then I’d recommend giving this a look, definitely worth watching especially with Halloween coming up.