The basic outline of The Strangers is absolutely nothing new: bad guys attack people in a house. Doesn’t go well. Scary people do scary things to people who make bad decisions. Doesn’t go well.
Buy The Strangers (2008) 4K UHDWhat is new, or at least well done, is how it establishes the victims as people. The Strangers gives us James and Kristen at a point of personal crisis. With minimal use of dialogue and maximal use of cinematic storytelling, we get the point.
Right after a friend’s wedding, James proposed. Kristen said no. They get back home to the roses and champagne celebration James had already planned. Even before the psychos show up, we’ve got tension.
The couple, after some very deliberate not arguing, are about to cut that tension with break-up sex. That unfortunately gets interrupted by some unreasonably loud knocks at the door. There’s a girl out there, probably stoned and lost, asking for Tamara. No Tamara here. She leaves… but a sense of foreboding remains.
From that point we have one of the better films of pure suspense of the last 15 years. The strangers of the title are a trio of masked weirdos who systematically destroy this couple’s peace with increasingly invasive intrusions.
This film has one of my favorite shots in a suspense movie. It’s so good, they use it for this release’s cover. Kristen (played by Liv Tyler in one of her best performances) is unnerved. The weird girl comes back, knocks again, asks the same question. Other small things convince Kristen someone is in the house. She goes to get a glass of water, and as she walks across the room, a man in a mask appears in the background. There’s no music sting or sound effects. He’s just there, watching her. It’s a beautifully done shot.
As pure suspense, this movie is dynamite. It even alleviates some of the problems that are common in suspense and horror films: why are the characters doing stupid things? It’s clear from the beginning these are nice, middle-class people completely unequipped to deal with the threat the strangers represent. They’re not dumb, but they’re not quick on their feet either. They do the best they can with what they have. They just don’t have that much.
Thematically, I think the interesting thing here is that the movie answers the non-suspense question it raises at the beginning of the film. That is… why doesn’t Kristen want to marry James? From the beginning, she seems heartless and capricious. But little by little, throughout the film’s crisis, James shows himself not to be quite up to the task. He’s not incompetent, he’s just a step behind, all the time.
The strangers themselves are not at all physically intimidating. Two women and a man, apparently a family, they wear cheap masks to hide their identity. The women wear different cupie-doll styles masks. The man has the creepiest covering: a sack with eye slits and a mouth that curves slightly upwards. Even when he’s wielding a knife, he’s always smiling.
It’s part of the film’s aesthetic that there’s nothing over-designed about the masks. They look like things some rural psycho could pick up or make themselves, in a pinch.
Filmed almost entirely at night, this 4K release looks remarkably good, with dark, inky blacks. Stylistically, the film looks subdued, but it’s subtly dynamic. There’s camera movement in almost every shot, even if it is never swooping or dramatic. The entire thing has a down-to-earth grit that emphasizes the mundane terror the three lone murderers represent.
Emerging from the ’00s sludge of torture porn, The Strangers holds up remarkably well. It has some aspects of that school of horror since the entire story is essentially an exercise in casual cruelty. But there are no elaborate murder machines or theatrical sadism. This is a simple suspense-horror story distilled to the basics, with a surprisingly interesting personal dynamic from the main characters/victims. It spawned a sequel about which I’ve heard nothing good, and earlier this year the beginning of a trilogy directed by Renny Harlin, which does not bode well. But this film is one of the scariest and most suspenseful of the first quarter of this century. This 4K release is a beautiful rendition of a superior realistic horror film.
The Strangers has been released on 4K UHD by Scream Factory, a division of Shout Studios. The release includes 3 discs: a 4K with the Unrated edition, and two Blu-rays: one with the theatrical edition, and one with the unrated.
There are no extras on the 4K. On the theatrical edition of the Blu-ray, video extras include “The Element of Terror” (9 min), an EPK featurette; “Strangers at the Door” (10 min), an archival featurette; deleted scenes (5 min); and promotional material. The unrated edition archival extras include “Defining Moments: Writing and Directing The Strangers” (30 min), an interview with director Bryan Bertino; “All the Right Moves: Kip Weeks on Playing the Man in the Mask” (12 min), an interview with Weeks; “Brains and Brawn: Laura Margolis on Playing Pin-Up Girl” (14 min) an interview with Margolis; “Deep Cuts: Kevin Greutert on Editing The Strangers” (21 min), an interview with editor Greutert; and a still gallery.
