Numbing the fear

>>The Strangers is a weird, unsatisfying cross between an indie drama and a horror film

by MARK SLUTSKY

“The horrifying events that took place in the Hoyt family’s vacation home at 1801 Clark Road on February 11, 2005, are still not entirely known.” Thus, with a spooky deep-voiced voiceover, begins The Strangers, a film purportedly based on true events, though neither the movie nor the press materials nor Google seem to shed any light on what those events were, or whether anything resembling the film ever happened at all. Chalk it up to a marketing hook.

The movie, directed by first-time helmer and screenwriter Bryan Bertino is like a weird marriage of a sensitive relationship movie and horror flick. Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) return home to Speedman’s vacation cottage late one night after a wedding. They’re visibly upset, and we soon learn that their angst is the result of Tyler harshing on Speedman’s wedding proposal.

This whole section, lasting a good 30 minutes—nearly half of this short film’s running time—unfolds more like an indie drama than a thriller. The couple treat each other with wounded, guarded intimacy, trying and failing to say the right things. They’re tender, but distant. They listen to a Joanna Newsom album. On vinyl.

Then, as happens in scary movies where a couple is alone in a house, in the country, in the middle of the night, creepy things start to happen. A girl knocks on the door looking for a woman who isn’t there. Strangers with masks show up. The slow, methodical psychological baiting and torture of the victims plays out like it does in many, many other genre flicks.

The film’s slow burn might have been effective if it had built to something greater, but it plateaus. After a point, you want to see something happen beyond the endless teasing of our hapless victims. You want to see them fight back or get chased around the lake or something, anything—all the methodical creepiness just gets numbing after a while.

While you can’t fault Bertino for erring on the subtle side in a genre that lately is all about splashy, silly excess, The Strangers just needs a little more oomph to be truly scary.

The Strangers opens
this Friday, May 30

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