Running time: 85 minutes
Starring: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman
Rating 5 out of 10
A thriller that promises much but ultimately fails to deliver, The Strangers has been a minor box office success in the United States over the summer. First-time director Brian Bertino shows clear signs of talent but lets himself down by eventually settling on a resolution that been seen many times before. A committed Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler play a young couple returning to an isolated house in the country after a wedding reception. It's the middle of the night and they are not in the best frame of mind: his own marriage proposal to her has been rejected. Tension builds nicely in the first half-hour: the demise of their relationship sets a sombre tone. Suddenly there are strange knockings at the door, a visitor who asks perplexing questions and - most unsettling of all - glimpses of masked intruders. It's a clever and suspenseful introduction which promises a chilling descent into Haneke-like terror.
But an overuse of sudden sound effects, which cheaply manipulate the audience, as well as some inexplicable choices by the central characters and we appear to be in standard Hollywood horror territory. The type of character motivation on show here is usually associated with straight-to-video thrillers: the group splitting up, for example, so that the weakest member (or the one least important to the plot) can be chopped up.
The disappointment only increases: the overuse of the mask as a horror aid has recently become hugely prevalent in films of this sort, but here it serves to lessen the terror as the story progresses.
It's something of a missed opportunity: the director's talents are compromised by some run-of-the-mill choices. It could have been an excellent thriller-cum-horror, but these strangers are all too familiar.
Paul Hurley
