31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: The Strangers

The Strangers (2008)

Directed by Bryan Bertino

Starring Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, Glenn Howerton, Gemma Ward, Laura Margolis, & Kip Weeks

Kristen and James are staying in the summer vacation home of James’s parents after attending the wedding of a friend. While at the reception, James asked Kristen to marry him. She said no. the couple try talking about where their relationship will go from here and how to go on after this, when suddenly there’s a knock at the door. A girl is asking for someone who doesn’t live there. The couple closes the door and thinks nothing of it, but this is only the start. Their night will bring them closer together as three strangers enact a volley of mental and physical attacks on them.

For everything The Strangers does right, it also does something stupid. The first bad move comes right at the start of the film, when a narrator reads and an accompanying text description informs the viewer that the movie is based on real life events. Given how horror movies have used this terminology loosely to squeak extra money out of the curious and people who only want to see “realistic” horror, this is a big red flag for two reasons. First, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the original film to use this kind of line. Second, it hasn’t been topped in effectiveness or in quality.

For me, the real problem with The Strangers is just how dull it can get. For all the times Bryan Bertino allows the natural sound and his foley department create some genuinely unsettling cacophony, there’s just as many times where an unneeded musical note in the score creates jump scares out of knocks on the wall. It’s annoying how the movie switches between those two aesthetics; jump scares and quite observational terror. Bertino certainly can do one of these better than the other and it’s a shame that the movie is a near even split for styles.

There’s also the issue of character development, by which I mean there isn’t any after about twenty minutes. Kristen and James are dealing with a lot right when the movie starts and their woes as a couple are well covered. Then there are noises from outside and strangers knocking on the door, and that’s when everything character wise grinds to a halt.

Perhaps the movie is trying to establish some sense of realism and that nobody would continue that discussion after things like this go down. But everything leading up to the attack of the strangers is tense and interesting. It’s still tense when the couple has to fend for their lives, but the human drama element is sorely needed. As is, most of the psychological and physical attacks involve Tyler and Speedman standing around or crouching in the dark or fiddling with the car. The action and scares are fine, but not enough to sustain scene after scene of standing around waiting for someone to try and kill the leads.

The cast is actually pretty good all things considered. Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler are both very capable actors that elevate the material when their characters aren’t going anywhere. The pair has some good chemistry and painful tension which helps sell the dire straits of their relationship. Even the actors playing the three strangers (Gemma Ward, Laura Margolis, and Kip Weeks) are terrifying. Their body language sells who these characters are when their faces are covered. If anything The Strangers has a better cast than it deserves.

The Strangers could be a good movie with a tighter runtime or more character development, or by not being such a hodgepodge of aural styles. There’s something decent under all of the problems, it just doesn’t get the chance to show up.

5 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Venom

Venom (2005)

Directed by Jim Gillespie

Starring Agnes Bruckner, Jonathan Jackson, Laura Ramsey, D.J. Cotrona, Meagan Good, Pawel Szajda, Bijou Phillips, Davetta Sherwood, & Method Man

A creole woman driving through a small Louisiana town is carrying some sinister cargo. She’s transporting a briefcase that’s got something slithering around inside, something supernatural. When her car goes over the edge of a bridge, a local tow truck driver races to help her. His efforts are for not, as the car falls into the water below. The teens who witnessed the accident and their friends barely have time to process the event before people start turning up dead. It looks like the tow truck driver returned from the fall a different man. That briefcase was filled with snakes used in voodoo rituals that purified the souls of bad men. All their evil was retained in those snakes and now it’s retained in a tall, incredibly strong, murderous voodoo zombie.

Venom got a bad first weekend because it had the unfortunate luck of being 1) a late summer release, and 2) a movie set in the swamps of Louisiana right after Hurricane Katrina. It’s not some long hidden gem or a movie robbed of its place in horror history, but it’s pretty entertaining for the most part. I like that Venom is following the Friday the 13^th model of an undead murder machine based near a body of water, but with a distinctly regional twist. The setting makes the idea seem slightly less stale and even makes the movie a little fun. The bayou and voodoo make the unstoppable supernatural slasher movie model a little more flavorful.

The movie uses a good deal of special effects and for the most part they look good. The practical and makeup effects are good enough. They even get to showcase some gnarly deaths, like a lady getting crushed by a car and then having her face sand-blasted into the next scene. The look of Ray Sawyer, the voodoo zombie antagonist, is very grimy and gray. It’s a bit minimalist by slasher movie standards, but it works. The only problem with the effects comes from the CGI snakes that appear occasionally. The age and cost of the graphics are very noticeable, but luckily the snakes don’t slither by all that often.

The cast of young, pretty people does a good job with the material. The only standout is Meagan Good, who shows a pretty good range as the granddaughter of the old woman and the source of the film’s voodoo exposition. Good has made a career of turning in decent performances in occasionally sub-par movies only to (spoiler alert) get brutally offed before the credits. Method Man also has a slightly funny and very brief turn as the town Deputy.

Overall, Venom is an okay little slasher movie. There are parts that drag and it’s not going to be remembered as a great movie, but it is mostly entertaining without doing anything really wrong. Consider this a solidly lukewarm endorsement.

6 out of 10

31 Horror Movies in 31 Days: Cut

Cut (2000)

Directed by Kimble Rendall

Starring Molly Ringwald, Kylie Minogue, Tiriel Mora

Australian horror movie Hot Blooded experienced a few legendary production problems. The actor playing the film’s killer, Scar Man, was publicly humiliated by the director. Experiencing a psychotic episode, the leading man murdered the director with the same pair of modified garden sheers Scar Man used in the film. His co-star, a young American actress, killed him before the rampage could continue. Now, the only known prints of Hot Blooded are said to be haunted. A group of film students have ignored the warnings and the stories about the people who tried to finish the movie. They’re dead set on finishing Hot Blooded, and they’ve even convinced the former leading lady to appear in their additional shots. So a bunch of college kids go to a remote filming location with a cursed print of film thoroughly convinced nothing bad could ever happen.

You know a movie is bad when its 82 minute runtime feels interminable. Cut tries to be a meta commentary and homage to 80s slasher movies but fails to be any fun. The kills are gory, the story is all about putting annoying characters in bad situations, and the killer is kind of interesting. Unfortunately none of that matters when the script is dumb, the characters aren’t entertaining, and the novelty of seeing Molly Ringwald wears off.

The special effects are mostly decent, making them the only enjoyable part of Cut. The kills are in true 80s slasher form. They’re gross and painful while aiming for a sense of sick satisfaction. The giant, gnarly garden sheers make for an interesting signature weapon and adds a unique visual spin on every kill. They’re not the greatest effects in the world, but they are probably the best part of this movie.

The cast has two notable surprises and a bunch of people who aren’t that good. The surprises come in pop singer Kylie Minogue and John Hughes muse Molly Ringwald. Minogue doesn’t necessarily do anything bad; it’s just a surprise to see her in a very brief role in a slasher flick. Ringwald on the other hand has a substantial part where she seems to enjoy chewing scenery as a stuck up, washed up movie star. The rest of the cast manages to get through their lines without many hints of emotion, nuance, or humor.

Cut has a cool premise for a killer that was done slightly better in 2008’s Midnight Movie. So if you want to see a slasher flick centered on cursed film, see that movie. If you want to see Molly Ringwald slum it in an Australian horror comedy that manages to be neither scary nor funny, perhaps you should reevaluate what you want from your entertainment.

2 out of 10