Movie Review: The Strangers

9 our of 10

LETTER TO THE DIRECTOR

Dear Bryan Bertino,

I just wanted to say thank you for making such an enjoyable film. Although most of the time I try to avoid reviews until after I’ve viewed the movie, I read a handful for The Strangers in order to wet my pallet since it would sometime before I could venture to the cinema for a viewing. The critics that I perused had me set up for a film with a powerful beginning that slowly unravels into the ridiculous and the bazaar: just another horror film falling victim to the pitfalls of the genre. I went into the film with my doubts and left thoroughly entertained. You delivered a film with a solid and unwavering tone. The reality and rules of the world you set up were never broken, and therefore, the audience never felt betrayed. Not a single laughable moment. Not a second of boredom. Just an hour and half of on the edge of your seat viewing.

You set up the film with characters on the brink with a back story that drew us in. Beautifully dressed beautiful people with tears makes them human, makes them us. We wanted to know why these love birds have broken wings, and we wished to mend them. In such a short time you created characters we cared about, identified with, and feared for.

The rhythms you created with the ambient music, the score, the dramatic irony propelled the film forward without a moment to catch our breath before the final scare. With only one predictable, but still effective sequence (the arrival and departure of Mike), your film is the best horror film since The Descent. Pulling from the various subgenres of the horror genre as well as sticking to conventions of the beloved genre as a whole, you created a truly original freight fest.

The parallels between your well orchestrated film and the debauched attempt Vacancy are undeniable; however, you pulled off what was believed to be an unsalvageable story arch. But no one can criticize your script as being a “rip off” of the similar work since there are so many inherent differences, most importantly the third act. And in your deference and in all those that create films in the collective unconscious, all films are the same and are films are different. With each release, all is new and nothing is new.

I am sure you are proud of your work and you should be. Your directorial choices were intellectual (never showing the faces of the killers, even unmasked) and seemed to come from a much more mature filmmaker (the nonlinear 1st act). All those years of working as a gaffer, a PA, and “random task boy” must seem worth it now having finally made your first (and a successful) feature film. I look forward to your sophomore film.

Sincerely,
Vincent Banzaca

9 our of 10

Breakdown:
+3 for being a first time filmmaker, +3 for characters we relate to and care about, +3 for flawless acting, +2 for honest scares, -1 for a predictable death