Flash back for a moment to late 2008. The second Bush White House is in its final stages, the Marvel Cinematic Universe only has a couple films under its young umbrella, and a young man, having recently finished his undergrad studies, has landed a job at Blockbuster to earn some scratch until he heads off to grad school the following year. I remember it well. The best perk of the job for a cinephile like myself was the weekly employee rental program, where we could take home five films per week (ten during the winter holidays!), including the offerings that wouldn’t go on the wall until the next week. I chose with one of these rentals the original The Strangers. At the time, I thought it was well-executed and creepy.
Since then, though, I’ve cooled on the flick. I can’t say it’s necessarily bad, but I’ve grown to notice the flaws a lot more than back then. I mean, the constant teleportation of the maniacal threesome, the overt conveniences, the ultimately pointless nature of the story, it all increasingly got to me. Moreover, the marketing really soured me: Every bit of advertising I saw for the film included the line “Inspired by True Events”, so I did a bit of research and found some comments from writer/director Bryan Bertino stating that the advertising was true … to a point. He had been inspired by a pair of minor news articles, both unrelated to one another, neither involving masked lunatics or anything of that sort. It may not be much, but it rankled me something fierce, as though the only way they could drum up some interest for the film was to be as misleading as possible.
Imagine my surprise, then, when, after nearly a decade had passed, I saw posters for a damn sequel. Somehow I never got a trailer for it, but the posters were in damn near every theatre I visited. My expectations couldn’t be much lower, especially considering that Bertino wasn’t involved, and his replacements didn’t inspire much confidence in me: Director Johannes Roberts was previously responsible for The Other Side of the Door, an especially uninspired and pathetic horror flick, and 47 Meters Down, which I also didn’t much care for. (And there’s apparently a 48 Meters Down coming next year!?) Meanwhile, writer Ben Ketai is most known for The Forest, a massive waste of talent and time, and the straight-to-video 30 Days of Night sequels. I was ready to be decidedly bemused at best.
I was shocked to find myself actually kinda digging this thing. The story isn’t too far removed from the original, with the same trio (played by different actors, as if it matters) terrorizing a new family, who are vacationing at an otherwise abandoned trailer park. Though there is nothing entirely special or noteworthy going on, just a fairly standard slasher flick, complete with the seemingly requisite set of trite and tired fake-outs and whatnot, I was struck by the surprisingly moody atmosphere. Roberts and DP Ryan Samul (who did a great job with We Are What We Are, by the by) employ a slight fog and a sparsely-lit area to great effect, and their well-staged shots allow the eye to take in more than one might imagine, simultaneously evoking senses of claustrophobia and helpless isolation. Though a couple can be found sprinkled here or there, the jump scares are kept to a relative minimum and don’t rely too heavily on extra-loud sound cues for help. (Funnily enough, one particular scare actually succeeds where the endings of the Insidious films have continuously failed. Gotta love it.) There is also an 80s-inspired vibe to the whole endeavor, including plenty of decade-appropriate synth-rock and -pop and a score that blends traditional strings with occasional flourishes of neo-synth. Honestly, I’m personally not much of a fan of this aesthetic, and I feel it’s been dramatically overused of late, but its use here, aside from the songs, is it least slightly restrained. The acting doesn’t really give much to write home about, with Bailee Madison delivering her lines a bit broadly, but everyone else (primarily Christina Hendricks, Lewis Pullman, and Martin Henderson) does well enough with the limited range expected of them for this particular affair. Best of all, the film is pretty short, sporting a mere 85-minute runtime, keeping the action and suspense fairly trim.
I think maybe the worst thing about this film is its marketing. Like father, like son, I guess. Once again, we get a statement on the posters and title screen telling us this thing is “Based on True Events”. As of this writing, I haven’t been able to find any source, leading me to believe this is still referencing the original pair of unrelated newspaper clippings. Regardless, it’s also, by dint of the title and the masked folks, still connected with the 2008 original, and there isn’t any real reason for this that I can see, aside from banking on name-brand recognition. We don’t learn anything new or interesting about the trio, there’s no solid connection between the events here and those from ten years ago, frankly there’s no reason this couldn’t be its own standalone thriller. Gotta love the lack of faith on the studios’ part, eh?
Even with that connection, though, this is a surprisingly alright film. It’s got enough to distinguish itself from the original, while still returning the supernatural nature of the trio (they’re conveniently popping around like late-sequel Jason Voorhees, dammit!) and the nihilistic nature of the events. The stark, minimalist nature of the original, probably that film’s primary strength, is replaced by a more stylized approach, which certainly helps it in my eyes. If you’re down for a fairly solid slasher, give it a go: I don’t think you’ll be all that disappointed.
Allusions of Grandeur 