I finally got around to watching The Strangers last night. The Strangers was directed and written by Bryan Bertino. I have to say that I think he did a fantastic job directing the movie. There are some wonderful moments where scenes aren't rushed, letting the actors breath. This lets the dread, suspense, and horror build. This movie did things that Rob Zombie couldn't do in Halloween. Granted, Rob was trying to do something different, but when you see scenes that remind you of the original Halloween that work on their own instead of being a rip off, you can't help but to wonder what would have happened if Rob had treated Michael Myers like Mr. Bertino treated his strangers.

There is a good deal of character development in the first part of the movie. Horror movies rarely do this anymore. In fact, regular movies rarely do this anymore. They just use a few devices to establish standard aka generic characters and push them into some focus group constructed plot. The Strangers is clearly not such a plot. In fact, their isn't much of a plot to the movie at all. That's not a bad thing. What was the plot to Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Some teenagers go missing around with an old house and bad things happen?

Unfortunately, there are problems with The Strangers. While the characters are fleshed out and we do get to know and care about them, somewhere near the end of the movie, they turn dumb and only seem to do things just advance the movie toward the end. I don't want to get into spoilers, but I will say that if bad things have happened, there's been a gruesome death, and somebody is heavily messing with you and your loved one, why would you leave them alone if you have a way of defending them? And there were a few times when I thought the strangers themselves were a bit on the dumb side. If you are playing with your food, you do have to play with it; not just wait for the correct timecode in the film to do something. And now for the ending. The movie had a good deal of dread build up like gunk in somebody's arteries, but it came time for the heart attack, its like the person died in their sleep instead of convulsing on the floor in agony. Yes, the ending was somewhat intense but didn't match the tone of the movie. Yes, it may have been too much to watch if it had gone further, probably have turned people away from the movie, but it built to that. Audiences knew something bad was going to happen, something horrible, something that we shouldn't see. You have to follow through and all the way through.

Flaws aside, the movie was refreshing and shows a lot promise for Bryan Bertino. I am concerned about a sequel, which is in production. I can easily see them taking the same "plot" and just doing it again like the horrid Saw movies. And I can also see them taking the strangers and making something out of them. I hope that happens. They were interesting.

One last thing, I am aware that The Strangers is just one big analogy for when relationships fall apart and everybody's baggage just tears what's left of people apart. The strangers themselves being just father, mother, and child of what could have been. But if I had started with that, you wouldn't believe it because I'm talking about a horror movie, and the consensus is that horror movies can't be that smart. Watch the movie and get back to me.  ¶ 4:49 PM