A couple drives out to the house in the country which belonged to the guy's father in order to spend a quiet night together, until strange people who wear doll masks show up and terrorize them. There's the plot. Like the recent "Vacancy," a horror film does not need much more than that.
The film builds a lot of tension and, for the most part, avoids jump-in-your-seat scare tactics. If you are expecting torture and gore in the line of "Hostel," you won't really find it. Are the silent, mask-wearing villains sinister? Yes, at times they are. But what actually gives the film its effect is not so much its goings on as its conclusion, which is depressing, hopeless, and contains no redeeming value.
What I mean by no redeeming value is that the kind of final "tie in" most of us have come to expect by the end of a movie ("Ah, so that was the villain's motivation") never comes. All the horror visited upon the hapless couple is unexplained, as if it came from a dark void in the human character. What I dislike about this is that it implies this darkness is somehow inherent, and merely to be accepted at face value. Save for the cases of a few highly disturbed individuals capable of something like that (i.e. Ted Bundy), I do not think most people will find this assumption realistic.
But hey, it's only a horror film, right? We watch it to laugh at the "plot holes" (don't you know pointing out a horror film's logical "inconsistencies" makes you a genius?!) and shake our heads in obnoxious smugness when a character runs in the "wrong" direction. Better yet, let us simply laugh out loud at the most harrowing displays of human suffering because we are too immature to enjoy the film for what it is--to let it do its job without interfering because we're too busy trying to bolster a non-existent American ego at the expense of a film.
People at my theatre laughed as well, but that had more to do with the general character of the audience than with the movie itself. The movie is, indeed, frightening, albeit leaves one distraught and unsatisfied. But is it frightening enough to be a masterpiece? I would hesitate to compare it to the likes of certain other classics.
"The Strangers" is a good horror film, done in classic style (no moron teenagers, sex-crazed teen whores, happy-go-lucky interracial gatherings of high school friends, alternarock soundtracks or contrived plot twists) which, save for its depressing conclusion about human nature, works well. Viewers who enjoy this will also enjoy "Vacancy," "Cabin Fever," and the "Hostel" films.
Now on we go to the hordes of intellectual midgets who will point out why this movie was either a) "funny," b) illogical or c) "the best, sickest, coolest movie ever."
The film builds a lot of tension and, for the most part, avoids jump-in-your-seat scare tactics. If you are expecting torture and gore in the line of "Hostel," you won't really find it. Are the silent, mask-wearing villains sinister? Yes, at times they are. But what actually gives the film its effect is not so much its goings on as its conclusion, which is depressing, hopeless, and contains no redeeming value.
What I mean by no redeeming value is that the kind of final "tie in" most of us have come to expect by the end of a movie ("Ah, so that was the villain's motivation") never comes. All the horror visited upon the hapless couple is unexplained, as if it came from a dark void in the human character. What I dislike about this is that it implies this darkness is somehow inherent, and merely to be accepted at face value. Save for the cases of a few highly disturbed individuals capable of something like that (i.e. Ted Bundy), I do not think most people will find this assumption realistic.
But hey, it's only a horror film, right? We watch it to laugh at the "plot holes" (don't you know pointing out a horror film's logical "inconsistencies" makes you a genius?!) and shake our heads in obnoxious smugness when a character runs in the "wrong" direction. Better yet, let us simply laugh out loud at the most harrowing displays of human suffering because we are too immature to enjoy the film for what it is--to let it do its job without interfering because we're too busy trying to bolster a non-existent American ego at the expense of a film.
People at my theatre laughed as well, but that had more to do with the general character of the audience than with the movie itself. The movie is, indeed, frightening, albeit leaves one distraught and unsatisfied. But is it frightening enough to be a masterpiece? I would hesitate to compare it to the likes of certain other classics.
"The Strangers" is a good horror film, done in classic style (no moron teenagers, sex-crazed teen whores, happy-go-lucky interracial gatherings of high school friends, alternarock soundtracks or contrived plot twists) which, save for its depressing conclusion about human nature, works well. Viewers who enjoy this will also enjoy "Vacancy," "Cabin Fever," and the "Hostel" films.
Now on we go to the hordes of intellectual midgets who will point out why this movie was either a) "funny," b) illogical or c) "the best, sickest, coolest movie ever."