Movie Review: The Strangers

            Before I begin, I'd like to address a phenomenon that occurs in horror film-making. Why is the word "The" in every horror title? "The Woods", "The Machinist", "The Bone Collector", "The Gingerbread Man" (have yet to confirm this is an actual movie), and so on. This movie follows that tradition, and so well.

            Everyone wants a good scare when they go to see a horror film. People want to clutch their chests and gasp in fright, or cling to their partner's arm in trepidation while something is creeping in the dark shadows, and you just know, you just KNOW something is going to "get fucked up" (while simultaneously stealing the popcorn your partner is holding). Some horror films can do the "stalking" feeling quite well. One film that can't is... oh, come on, you can guess. COME ON, GUESS! DO IT!!

            The Strangers.

            This film is some piece of shit movie with no plot that Bryan Bertino thought would be... hot... or something. At least, I assume he did it because he gets off on torture porn. Yeah, "torture porn," that's what they call movies like this, either because the characters are getting tortured, or you fucking are because the movie is so boring.

            To be a tiny bit fair, James and I did view the unrated "director's cut," although it did seem like the original theatrical version was anything BUT theatrical. Bryan Bertino claims to have "based this on real events" which he totally did not. It's very, very, very, very, very *sigh* VERY loosely based on a short event that took place in his childhood, where some "strangers" came to his house and asked him if so-and-so was home, then left. Actually, I would have preferred THAT to this piece of trash. If the movie opened that way, I would have been more curious about who the strangers were and why they spoke to some kid than I would have been watching people in ridiculous masks stalking a screaming, wailing couple. Also, for effect, he says it's also based on the Manson murders. I don't know why he couldn't just make a movie about that, then, if that's the case.

            Like any self-respecting reviewer would, I'm going to tell you about the end of the movie first. Your entire reason for why this movie happened was, and I quote, "because you were home." You think I'm kidding? Look at this.

            For starters, what is a big mistake any horror movie-maker could make? Have an incredibly mundane and miniscule cast. Not counting the extras and "strangers," you spend the entire movie looking at the same two retards, and for what feels like countless hours, too. They spend most of the film hiding, screaming, opening and closing doors, and running. If that sounds like a wild roller coaster ride of a film, then please, by all means, go see it. I guarantee you'll be more than satisfied!

            How is a good way to start out your movie? Oh, with a bunch of bull shit facts and 911 phone calls to get people "in the mood." Yeah, that's what I came to the theater (or in this case, rented from the library) to see. Some words on a screen talking about burglaries and homicides. Oh is the movie starting? Okay.

            Kristen and James, yeah, James of all things, attend some friend's wedding reception (I didn't even know that's what they attended until I read Wikipedia. That's how vague this movie can get) and once they leave, begin their trip to a vacation home in the middle of the boonies to go have hot sex in. Oh... they don't? Fucking hell. What's odd here is, this isn't even how the movie begins. We begin with these two individuals on-screen looking very somber and depressed, moping around the aforementioned vacation home. Meanwhile, you're wondering if something, anything, will be explained to you, and as you sit in confused silence, they just walk around avoiding each other, looking as if they had each been crying several hundred quarts of tears. As the movie continues to drag, I could feel my foot starting to twitch, as it often does when I become impatient. So, James (character) calls up his buddy to tell him he'd like to get picked up because things didn't go how he planned that they would. James (the real one) and I kept asking "are these two just friends and he tried to put a move on her?" Like, what is going on?

            So finally the movie decides to explain that James proposed to Kristen and she turned him down flat like a tire to road kill, and he's a little more than unhappy about it. We kept asking each other why Kristen (who, by the way, is played by Liv Tyler. What kind of name is "Liv" even as a nickname, anyway?) turned him down. We frequently came up with reasons, such as the following: They're not in a relationship and they're just friends, and he came off as a super-creep; She wouldn't put out; He proposed in a weird way (Will you marry my penis? I mean, me?); She's a flat-out bitch; Or, they've only been dating for three months. Turns out she just "wasn't ready" or some nonsense like that. Sure, whatever. That's what every woman says in the movies unless they're pregnant.

            All arguments against female independence aside, Kristen decides to further hurt and confuse her would-be-husband by making out with him and making it known she would like to have a cucumber-sized penile spear thrusted into her vagina, and our hero-man obliges by beginning to pull her panties down. She accepts this action, but not without saying "don't think this means I'm going to marry you, you idiot." Hah, okay, she didn't say that, but I can have fun, too, all right? I mean, come on, this movie felt as if it was already half over.

            Before any nudity or cucumbers could happen, there is a knock on the door. What makes this creepy is that they are both in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere (not that I could go "nowhere" talking about butt-fucking), and from the looks of things, very much alone in the middle of the thickest, most Evil Dead looking woods ever. Why, or more accurately, how, is someone knocking on the door (Later I discover that a back road is only a few feet away from the house, and this took away a lot of the "alone in the woods" feeling, and thus, made it not scary. Who am I kidding? It was never scary. Silly me)?

            James (character) opens the door, and some woman with a face that is dampened by pure blackness is standing there, and she asks for a "Tamara," and does so in what sounds like a drug-induced trance full of slurring English. No Tamara here, bitch, get lost. We were about to fuck for the first time in three years. Weird Girl vanishes and James (character) screws in the bulb on the mounted outdoor fixture, which for some (unexplained) reason, was unscrewed. And then begins the case, at least in my mind, of Who Unscrewed the Light Bulb? *Sleazy trench coat-wearing detective music plays* Apparently, I was watching a completely different movie... but can you blame me? I was incredibly bored. How can you use some chick knocking on the door as a plot point?

            James (character) wants to go buy booze, cigarettes, and possibly cyanide, so he goes to run an errand to do just that. I would do anything to get away from this movie, too, to be honest. Weird Girl returns and knocks again, and like an idiot, Kristen approaches the door. Tamara is mentioned again, and Kristen bursts out of the house and kicks the shit out of Weird Girl, screaming, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!!! Oh, different movie again? Shit. Still would have been ten times better than this garbage. The girl seeking the infamous Tamara apparently leaves, or we assume she does, Kristen didn't really open the door. I'm assuming this is because the director didn't want to give the audience a chance to see the actual face of this woman, which would totally ruin everything he was working for!!

            Even after Kristen says "fuck you" to the Door-ok the Tamara Hunter, only in a far wimpier fashion, the psycho begins pounding repeatedly on the door. Damn, she really wants Tamara. Quick, build a makeshift doll out of a bag of flour and write "Tamara" on it, maybe she'll leave then. Or, better yet, call your boyfriend and whimper. Yeah, that's what I would do. Also, her cell phone happens to be dead. How convenient for the purposes of the film. Who carries a DEAD cell phone to a party, and then later, to the middle of the fucking woods. Maybe it's just me being extremely over-precautious, but wouldn't you want your phone to NOT be dead under those circumstances in case something like, I don't know, THIS would happen?

            My next complaint should be obvious. After she plugs her dead cell phone into the wall, she goes for the only other working telephone, the landline, and who is the first person she calls? THE POLICE! Oops, I mean her boyfriend. As I was busy palming my face with frustrated rage, I explained to James (the real one) that if I was ever this stupid, I deserved what was coming to me. If I thought my life was in danger, and if James was away, I am not going to call JAMES first. What's he going to do, come back home and perform some Parappa the Rapper style "Kick-Punch?" No, you call the fucking cops!! So what happens, naturally, while she's in the middle of her conversation with James? Yes, typically, the phone goes dead. Should have called the cops, you moron. But honestly, I don't think calling the cops would help if the cops were anything at all like all of the cops in other horror movies. Someone makes a 911 call and screams that their life is in danger and they're going to be killed, and the cops in the films always send out ONE SINGLE POLICE OFFICER to the scene. Like, what?

            The "strangers" then make their appearance to Kristen. They are wearing some plastic masks they got from Halloween USA to hide their faces, even though there are no other witnesses nearby, they are in the middle of nowhere, and there are no security cameras. I guess their single purpose was to hide their identities from the audience, which becomes very clear as the movie continues to drag, with "strangers" pounding, shattering glass, starting and stopping records on the record player, and walking around in the house "looking creepy." They don't do ANYTHING ELSE FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE. Yeah I just told you about two-thirds of the entire film in this whole paragraph. The "strangers" just stalk the characters and "look creepy." THAT IS ALL THEY DO. THEY DON'T EVEN KILL ANYONE!!!!

            So like a crying, bumbling school girl, Kristen tries to barricade herself in the bedroom. Oh, no she doesn't, she just walks in there, sits down and cries. I guess I'm satisfied that she was smart enough to grab a knife, at least, but she doesn't go anywhere near the strangers, at least close enough to stab them or anything, she just carries it. As she stares at the door, James (character) comes home and sees her freaking out, and like any good boyfriend does in the movies, he treats her like she's nuts, that is until he goes outside to see his car is destroyed. Oh, guess she's not nuts, then... damn.

            Once James (character) becomes aware that shit is fucked up, he finds his father's shotgun. As the creeping and stalking continues, he complains that he forgets how to use a gun. He finds shells (which he calls "bullets") in the closet nearby and loads the weapon very quickly and with ease, especially and suspiciously for someone who "forgot how to use a gun." James' (character) friend comes by the house, you know, the character you forgot about, and James (character) hears him coming down the hallway inside the house, thinking it's one of the strangers. Just as I predict would happen several minutes before it occurred, he accidentally shot his best friend in the head. Again, his aim was SPOT ON for someone who "forgot how to use a gun." Then again, I've only used a gun a handful of times and shot a small beer can off of a tree stump from several feet away, but that was a rifle. Doesn't count.

            They whimper and cry that good ol' James (fail) was reliant on the hair-trigger-pulling and shot his own friend. By now, the strangers have done NOTHING and yet have managed to kill an interfering party in their endeavors to make two people piss their pants.

            The rest of this long, LOOOOOONG movie involves the couple trying various methods of escaping. Shouldn't this movie have been called "Grape Escape"? Shouldn't it have at least thirty minutes of Yakity Sax music in the background? Strangers chase you. You run. You dodge. They chase you. You run. You dodge. They pop up in your face and make you jump, and you piddle your panties and squeal like a stuck pig and run and hide. James (still pretty fail) gets conked on the noggin and dragged away through the woods, so it's up to Kristen to try to save the day. She hides in a nearby shed and tries to use the CB radio. Oh, wait, no she doesn't, she just presses the button and whimpers nonsense into the transceiver, something along the lines of "bluuuhBLUUH THHHGGGG NUUUUHHH!" I guess the day is doomed.

            So one of the strangers, a woman in particular, was stalking Kristen in the shed, soooo... you guessed it... more running. *Hilarious sax music* I wasn't kidding when I told you this was the movie in its entirety. James (not fail) and I were a tad upset, and practically yelling that we wanted to know one single thing: WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!?! WHY are these people walking around this house sneaking up on people?! We just wanted to know WHY. WHY?!?!?

            More sneaking, more running, more screaming, blah blah blah blah blah. You don't need me to go into details, you really don't. You've practically seen this whole movie just by looking at the pictures.

            Eventually Kristen gets knocked out, and when she next wakes, her and James (unattractive) are tied to kitchen chairs and the three masked droogs are standing before them. James (tard) asks the question on our minds: Why did they do it?

            "Because you were home."

            Wait. What? No. No, you can't fucking do that. It's lazy, it's a cop-out, and it's the stupidest reason to do anything. You can't just give us an ENTIRE movie filled with vacant plot points, chase scenes, ominous identities which are never revealed, even at the end, and just go the lazy route and say "Well... it happened... because... uh... well... JUST BECAUSE. There, accept it." No!!! I'm not going to accept that!!! How can you do that as a director/screenplay writer/whoever made this piece of fuck?!?!? That's like saying the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey happened "uh, just because." If HAL 9000 had said "I killed Frank because he was home," we'd think it was a piece of shit. THIS IS A PIECE OF SHIT.

            What's even funnier is, I actually thought they said "because you were IN OUR home," which left more to explain, but then I asked James what they said, and he told me. Wow. Retarded.

            So, the "strangers" stab the couple to death. Well, we assume to death, Kristen later wakes to try to crawl pathetically over to a cell phone their dead shot-in-the-head-thanks-to-their-retard-shotgun-wielding-buddy happens to have, but one of the strangers comes and steals it before she can get to it. So she gives up and passes out.

            Meanwhile, the strangers, whose faces are STILL never revealed, see some evangelist kids who try to give them some bible shit and ask if they've ever sinned. Of course they have, and so have you. You're eleven or twelve, you probably masturbate on a frequent basis to soft-core porn and burn ants with small mirrors. So the strangers drive away, probably singing a celebratory version of Jingle Bells or something. The young boys find the trashed vacation home and go in to investigate, and upon seeing three dead bodies lying there, they seem awfully calm, especially when Kristen grabs one of them by the arm and wails like a banshee.

            Oh, it's over? That's... that's the end of the movie? You can't be serious. YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS.

            -5 out of possible score of 10 for being bored out of my skull, and for a lazy cop-out ending.
            This film had received mixed reviews from critics. Some people think it's genius and other people think it's garbage. Guess which group I'm a part of? It got a 45% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_strangers) and a 47 on Metacritic (http://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-strangers). The film has been lambasted by Roger Ebert and Elizabeth Weitzman for having a slow plot and idiotic characters. People who positively critique the film say it "builds tension and suspense." Really? Were we watching the same thing, because I didn't feel tension or in suspense, just annoyed and frustrated. Really, Bertino, make a better one.