The Strangers
You know how if you see the same commercial enough times you start to get convinced even if you have absolutely no reason to be interested in it at all?
The NBA Playoffs are strongly encouraging me to see “The Strangers”.
I don’t normally see horror movies in theaters for several reasons. 1) they are almost never worth $10. 2) they are the most disposable films ever and come out on DVD so soon after their theatrical release that it makes no sense to spend $10 to see something Friday that I could have via Netflix by August or September barring 3) that it isn’t the WORST MOVIE EVER as many horror movies are.
To put things into perspective, the last 3 horror movies I saw in theaters were: 1) “Disturbia” (which was an entertaining take of Rear Window) 2) “The Amityville Horror” (the Ryan Reynolds one) 3) “Hostel” (and I was rooting for the protagonists to get brutally murdered because listening to them talk and watching them interact made me hate them…easily the worst movie I’ve ever spent $10 on/made me want to sue Tarantino for putting his name on it). 
I’ve never seen any of the “Saw” movies, I wanted to see the Rob Zombie “Halloween” remake but just never did. Generally speaking, I’m not a huge horror movie fan. I loved them when i was a kid and not allowed to watch them. Now that I can do whatever I want, I find a lot of other things more entertaining.
Still there’s something about the camerawork or the use of Joanna Newsom in the extended trailer that makes me feel like I might end up wasting money on “The Strangers”.
It looks like a poor man’s “Funny Games” (the original, not the 2008 remake which I haven’t seen but see no need for). “Funny Games” tells the story of a family on vacation who are held hostage in their own vacation home by two twenty-something men who torture (not in a “Hostel” kind of way, more in a “Knife In The Water” kind of way) the family and kill them in game-like fashion.
“Funny Games” is essentially about how messed up horror movies are, how horrible human beings are for watching them and it might be the only movie capable of outsmarting even the most intelligent viewer.
“The Strangers” seems like it has probably eliminated the meaning and therefore entire purpose of “Funny Games” and just made an exploitative movie “inspired by true events”.
The whole inspired by true events part is annoying for a few reasons. 1) this movie isn’t specifically inspired by any one true event. It might be inspired by true events in the sense that there have been some seemingly random and/or random unsolved home invasion murders throughout the course of the last 2000 years. But whenever something is advertised as being a true story people eat it up like that makes it instantly important.
Look at James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces”. The book most likely benefited form its “being true” moreso than the stories contained within. As soon as it was “not completely true” people wanted his head on a platter. This concept of fiction vs. nonfiction is absurd. Somehow though, something being a true story makes it more valuable than something that someone spends extensive time creating.
The fact that ”The Strangers” is “inspired by true events” will garner it more attention than it deserves. I hate everything about it.
But I’ve seen the advertisements so many times!!!!! And the masks!!! THE MASKS!!!!!!
There is no way that I will go see that movie, as you know. I really find no value or entertainment in being scared sleepless for months, which you also know will happen to me.
But here’s what disturbs me the most about scary movies: The stories they tell are really, really tragic. They take the most upsetting, terrible aspects of humanity and glorify them. It’s all under the guise of “Oh, these are the BAD guys.” Voyeuristically speaking, though, the movie is successful because he is so BAD and we want to watch them do terrible things. And tragedy becomes adventure.
It’s like that “How to Catch a Predator” show, or Fox News. Tragedy as entertainment & the process of voyeurism/identification with the BAD guy & the thrill of his hunt.
I like the idea of “Funny Games.” I would hate watching it, obviously, but it sounds like a movie that, conceptually, I can get down with.
I recently saw the Strangers and loved, loved, loved it! It was not a waste of ten dollars at all and is probably one of the best horror/thriller movies i have ever seen. With only 6 main characters (and 2 boys in the end) and 1 main setting it kept me screaming, twitching, and plugging my ears even though it did not much blood. I have to say..if it weren’t for the masks it wouldn’t have been as scary but for a first time director, he did amazing!