The Strangers

Vous allez vous régaler avec Funny Games USA et une brindille vous chatouillera la main avec The Strangers. Recyclage de clichés réchauffés, intrigue sous-développée avec une résolution nulle, effondrements clés dans la logique et la probabilité. Bryan Bertino ne sait même pas ce que signifie un plan sur une bougie avec une flamme penchée. Sans valeur sur le plan scénaristique et de la réalisation, cet objet rapidement oubliable est vendu habilement avec une bande-annonce attrayante et une distribution d'acteurs connus. (20/11/2008)

A relatively sympathetic hour and a half of terror, which probably won't admit its inspiration from the French film Them, but I won't take points away for that. The film deprives itself of them (unnecessarily). The promisingly sketched plot loses steam before the halfway point, only to end up on a miserable flywheel of long-worn clichés, which then culminates in an ending that is a great celebration of correctness. Unfortunately, this also brings down the well-sketched relationship of the main characters, which the director manages with a few shots, and the successful build-up to the "action," when the pounding on the door freezes the blood... it’s too bad because even watching it at midnight with my laptop in bed didn't help. (12/06/2009)

I appreciate the idea of making a horror film for a change, in which people are not being hunted by supernatural freaks, but by ordinary mortals. Along with Liv Tyler's character, however, this was the only thing that ultimately attracted me to The Strangers. The film was boring, I wasn't scared during it, although I like to be scared in horror films, often if I have a reason to be, and the only thing the story made me do was marvel at the stupidity of the screenwriters. One example of idiotic character behavior - the main character's thought process, loosely paraphrased by me: "Gee, look honey, someone's trying to chop through our front door with an axe. Then I'll shoot them from the inside with a shotgun. So what if I punch a huge hole in the door? Maybe he will get scared and run back to the neighbors and kill them for a while." As I said - a waste of an hour and a half (it was still quite long for a short film), during which I just got the urge to watch Peckinpah's perfect Straw Dogs.___P.S. By "Liv Tyler's character" I really don't mean her role.___P.P.S. The only thing that really creeped me out was a terrible country song playing from the record player. Ugh, I'm gonna dream about it, I know it. (06/03/2011)

A film exactly to my taste. A couple of likeable (!!!) heroes in a house, a trio of masked strangers near the house (with a bit of luck, those characters have a big chance of starting a good horror franchise), slow pace, thick atmosphere… great, really. The tension can be felt throughout, the direction is more than decent for a debut and the ending in truly chilling. The Strangers can appeal to everyone who enjoyed the French film Them, it actually gives its European sibling a good run for its money. 75% PS: I see that I’m probably the only one who didn’t like the trailers but liked the film proper. :D (19/08/2008)

The Strangers weren't bad at all. If I'd never seen a film with this theme, I'd definitely rate this higher. This way it was just another one of the many similar efforts which, although well-made, didn't offer anything new. It was pretty obvious from the start how the story would turn out. I just didn't expect the evil to be so perfectly depersonalized - I didn't really find out who or why. I guess these questions just weren’t meant to be answered. (17/04/2018)