THE STRANGERS

cast: Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman

directed by Bryan Bertino

So here's the deal....it is summer time and usually the kids and the big folks all are just keen to have a good time at the movies. That is why summer is known for the popcorn variety of flicks. So what is a horror flick doing in here amidst the superhero flicks...

Yes, it could be in the wrong zone but the trailer, gotta admit, does give the creeps. And actually I am ready for a good spook thriller, even if it is the wrong time of the year. Because frankly, I haven't seen a good one in a long time. So that might work in this one's favour.

Lock the doors. Assume you're safe.

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.

Champagne. Rose petals. Candlelight. It was supposed to be a night of celebration for Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman). But after leaving a friend's wedding reception and returning to the house, everything had collapsed for the happy couple.

Then came a 4 a.m. knock on the door and a haunting voice.

Is Tamara here?

Writer/director Bryan Bertino explores our most universal fears in The Strangers, a terrifying suspense thriller about a couple whose remote getaway becomes a place of terror when masked strangers invade. The confrontation forces Kristen and James to go far beyond what they thought themselves capable of if they hope to survive.
Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) in a remote suburban house who are targeted by three dangerous masked strangers. The resulting clashes force the couple to go well beyond what they thought themselves capable of in order to survive.

Hmm, on second thoughts, Liv Tyler is in here. Maybe just looking at her, we might for a moment, really buy her fears.

THE PANEL ROOM

The Strangers is not a perfect motion picture, but it's one of the horror genre's rare recent standouts. REELVIEWS 3/4

The movie is nothing more than a grisly, morally disreputable cat-and-mouse exercise that has no point beyond viscerally implicating viewers in the same sadistic game played by the villains. ONE GUYS OPINION D