With the conclusion of the recent The Strangers trilogy, I thought that, I would take a look at the film that started it, The Strangers from 2008. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman star as Kristen McKay and James Hoyt, a couple whose stay at a vacation home is disrupted by three masked intruders who infiltrate the home in the middle of the night. So, on the face of it, the plot is very similar to The Strangers Chapter 1 and the end result is much the same.
Director Bryan Bertino does a decent job, using the darkness of the setting to good effect. The first appearance of Man in Mask is jolting. But the problems stem from the shortcomings in his script. Too much is revealed in an opening voice over and first scene, and that quashes most of the suspense. Tyler and Speedman are fine but are lumbered with characters who are boring and unlikeable respectively.
Ten years later, there was a sequel that I had also not previously seen. The Strangers: Prey at Night. It was directed by Johannes Roberts, who recently made the great Primate. It stars Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison, and Lewis Pullman as a family vacationing at a secluded mobile home park where they are attacked by the three masked strangers. There is too much family drama, none of it compelling, before anything scary happens. From then on, Roberts is a safe pair of hands, providing a number of spine tingling moments, aided by another effective score by Adrian Johnstone. Madison makes a good final girl and the last 20 minutes or so represent the highpoint of the franchise.
Ratings out of 10:
The Strangers: 5.5
The Strangers: Prey at Night: 7
Whilst the quality of the five The Strangers films varied, none of them reached the heights of other modern slashers. Maybe, it is just my taste runs to something more tongue in cheek and these are all played incredibly straight. But, I think the shortcomings are mostly caused by the restrictive premise. I am probably the only person who would rank the movies in this way, and my list is no doubt skewed by the order I saw them in, but here goes:
5: The Strangers: Chapter 3 (2026)
4: The Strangers (2008)
3: The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)
2: The Strangers: Chapter 2 (2025)
1: The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018)