Horror movie fans who are sick of gore-fests may be tricked into thinking that this movie will be a breath of fresh air. While this movie does make a return to suspense over graphic violence, the whole experience is extremely shallow and predictable.
The fist and more obvious issue is the lack of any real plot. But, hey, it's a slasher, so most people will be able to get over this one. Two people get assaulted while home alone in the middle of nowhere. It's not original, but it's worked before.
Since there's no plot, the film has to rely on its use of suspense to make it interesting. Unfortunately, this is where the movie really falls flat. The director's methods of building suspense are extremely obvious and overbearing. Again, this might not be so bad, except that the point of suspense is to keep building and building until a single moment, preferably the climax. In "The Strangers," the suspense is broken about 50 times during the movie. Early on, there are a few "false scare" where you don't see the killers and two good moments when you do. After that however, I was tired of seeing these "pop-out" scares. They became very predictable, and because you could see them coming, the movie couldn't build up suspense anymore.
Bottom line, this movie isn't really that scary. It tries (very hard) to be scary, but it's just too predictable and repetitive. If there's any bright spot in this one, it's that the acting isn't horrible.
If you're looking for a good horror movie that uses suspense well, you can't go wrong with The Changeling, The Shining, Alien (if you like the sci-fi bent), the original Halloween.
The fist and more obvious issue is the lack of any real plot. But, hey, it's a slasher, so most people will be able to get over this one. Two people get assaulted while home alone in the middle of nowhere. It's not original, but it's worked before.
Since there's no plot, the film has to rely on its use of suspense to make it interesting. Unfortunately, this is where the movie really falls flat. The director's methods of building suspense are extremely obvious and overbearing. Again, this might not be so bad, except that the point of suspense is to keep building and building until a single moment, preferably the climax. In "The Strangers," the suspense is broken about 50 times during the movie. Early on, there are a few "false scare" where you don't see the killers and two good moments when you do. After that however, I was tired of seeing these "pop-out" scares. They became very predictable, and because you could see them coming, the movie couldn't build up suspense anymore.
Bottom line, this movie isn't really that scary. It tries (very hard) to be scary, but it's just too predictable and repetitive. If there's any bright spot in this one, it's that the acting isn't horrible.
If you're looking for a good horror movie that uses suspense well, you can't go wrong with The Changeling, The Shining, Alien (if you like the sci-fi bent), the original Halloween.
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