Strangers: The Director is his Own Worst Enemy

I didn't have to read the IMDb.com profile page for director Bryan Bertino to realize it was his first time directing. The movie told me that. He has a great first act, and it is easy to see how he convinced the studios to give him the greenlight. But after the initial set-up, some decent chills, and great potential, the movie lost its climax and I started counting how Bertino was using the same methods to try to get me to jump out of my seat. Some people behind me jumped time and again. I laughed after the first time.

The Strangers follows twenty-something couple James and Kristen (Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler) as they stay at a friends summer house in the woods after a wedding reception. They go there alone for a romantic night, even if the plans didn't work out, for romance or safety. It starts with a knock on the door with a creepy girl asking who's home. Then Kristen sees someone out the window. Then there's more of them. Like so many movies before, they have no way to communicate and no way to run. (Movies before being The Shining, Evil Dead, and The Ruins to name a few.)

The advantage to Strangers is Bertino (who also wrote) knows he has only two victims and giving them hope is a cliche thing to do. There's no cops to pass by or neighbors to reach. The struggle is kept between them and those they've never met. The game is kept to cat and mouse for the most part, with minimal violence except for the end. The strangers tease their prey, let them crawl around and hide, move about and attempt to find a way to escape. And for this part, when Bertino is keeping away from the cliche stab-then-luck-gets-you-away, the movie is effective and creepy.

But regrettably it loses itself in the second act. I started counting the times a white mask slowly appeared behind the shadows, telling us something the character is later going to find out or jump at. The first problem with this is it would be more effective if the story followed the characters instead of the camera. Don't show us the masked man sneaking around while Kristen's back is turned, him stealing her phone. Instead, let us see the shock on her face when she sees the phone burning. If someone is on the other side of the window, ready to jump out at her, don't show us them before they jump at her, wait until he jumps for us to see them. In short, why Bertino let us be the third party in the house when the scariness is being Kristen and James. Let us have the ride from their eyes, like it was delivered in Cloverfeild, a slightly more scary movie that did win my approval.

The second problem is he repeats this. The ironic scare of us seeing whats coming before the victims do gets tired quickly. Even more, it loses its effect when there isn't a follow-through. Why show us someone behind them if they're going to back away? That just teases the audience with they already know could be off-screen. That's what the camera is for, so we can wonder if the camera is actually the POV of a killer (The Shining's steady-cam), unknown off-screen noises to freak us out (they do that well in this movie), or sudden realization when the characters see what their predators have already done (like disabling the radio in The Shining or the phone ringing in the recent The Ruins).

The first act, the first 40 minutes of the movie, are still great. Dialogue and lines are kept to a minimum, trusting the audience to understand Kristen's guilty look at the decorative rose pedals and James eating a bucket ice cream by himself straight from the bucket as clear signs about their relationship, not needing extra dialogue. The isolation, Kristen's utter helplessness alone, and the presence of knives and guns that the initial prologue scene let's us glimpse, covered in blood warning of what is to come.

This is a brilliant start to a movie which doesn't end, but merely stops. We're left without a message, a meaning behind the killings. No Country for Old Men established a death figure or reaper, such that Anton kills because he is Anton, and watching Anton act and think is intriguing. There is nothing intriguing here, as almost anyone could stalk like the predators do in The Strangers. In the end, the killers unmask themselves, but we never see their expression. Did they enjoy doing this? Would they look like they were obligated to kill them? Is there a satisfaction from them in how everything ends?

These questions don't get answered. The movie doesn't answer, nor does it necessarily develope or become itself. It merely inspires us wonder about killers, or to go to the movies from an atttractive trailer where the killers respond to "Why are you doing this?" with a cold "because you were home."

I have faith Bertino, who could think up such a great idea could find a way to make his delivery as great as his initial imagination.

Is it entertaining? No. Its lack of climax prevents it from getting direction in its second-half and the repeated methods to make us jump in our seats stop working.

Is it for everyone? No. The movie is boarding torture-porn with emphasis on the cat-and-mouse aspect, which is way better than gory torture-porn.

Is it memorable? No.