Watched this after Stephen King recommended it in the 2010 forward to Danse Macabre. I thought it was pretty good. Very surprised at some of the comments here how much they hated it.
"Because you were home" is not enough of a reason. The "strangers" were not strange they were just anonymous.
The only impacting scene happens around 45 minutes in and it's a personal tragedy. An accident. It's far more horrific than anything that the "strangers" cause.
Sure, there are some creepy moments. The stranger in the sack mask lurking in the background of a wide shot within the home is effective. But really, that's about it. It's pretty light on the gore.
The ending is cruel and struck me as unmotivated and pointless. Teasing with "it will be easier next time" makes it even more frustrating. If you love or hate jump scares, there's really only one. You'll know it when you see it. And it's really dumb.
I didn't like this much. Maybe I've see too many killers-with-masks movies.
Solid home-invasion movie. The antagonists are creepy, memorable and unrelenting. You have to suspend disbelief at a few moments, but otherwise it works pretty well. It's a slow burn though, so you have to be ready for that. It's the motivation of the characters though that's most effective. There's something unsettling about it all just being a random act of violence.
overall a decent horror for its time, though there are definitely more frightening entries into the home invasion genre. mostly worth it for liv tyler's performance, and the character mike's scene, the latter of which you know what's coming but the tension is top tier regardless.
That sequence where Glenn Howerton walks slowly through the house while the Mama Tried vinyl plays, and the killer follows behind him, makes this movie worth a watch just for that. A couple of unnecessary slow sequences, but goddamn, there's some nuggets of sheer brilliance locked in this movie. A little more work on the writing would've helped, but overall, the direction and choice of music was superb. I'll be revisiting this movie just for some of the great scenes scattered throughout.
Oops..I just shot Marvin in the face
Undeniably a creepy and unsettling film. What sets it apart, and what I appreciate in a good horror movie, is its ability to tap into elements of realism. The sense of vulnerability and the feeling that something like this could happen in real life makes it all the more terrifying. It's a haunting experience that lingers long after the movie ends, and that's what makes it a standout in the horror genre.
literally nothing happened, one of the worst horror movies i’ve ever watched. A massive waste of time. It got to an an hour and ten minutes and one shocking thing had happened, that’s it.
So, just no purpose killing while banging random materials to spook the couple? Pretty pointless, but at least it was a tense watch.
Not the best but it had the creepy factor for me.
These types of movies aren't my favorites but I thought I would give it a shot with the sequel coming. This movie is super creepy. It does a good job of making you uneasy. Then halfway through I'm like "Hey there's Dennis from Always Sunny" and felt a little better but only for a couple of minutes. It takes too long for anything to really happen.
Some weird sounds(for thriller) + non sense = this movie
+Edit: if u have a flashlight, you must show flashlight's light on cameras. (a cliche. I was turn my eyes other side 4 or 5 times and i was ready for camscares)
Dumbest movie ever, with dumb characters and dumb execution.
And I watched the unrated version, I can't even imagine what the rated version looks like..
Waste of time.
"Is Tamara home?"
Simplicity done right. It's a terrifying situation being alone at night with strangers fooling around with you and this movie does an excellent job at portraying that and I find it genuinely scary. The first half hour is excellent, really sets in the atmosphere with great use of darkness, the quietness of the night, and especially the sound which is so crisp and unsettling. Gets me tense, nervous and susceptible to jumpscares—which it did wonderfully. It maintains that tension quite well in the second act as well but the movie got repetitive around the 1h mark.
The dumb decision making is inevitable unfortunately and I wish the main character was more courageous. There's an unnecessary character that shows up in the middle and what happens to him was so damn predictable, it only serves to extend the runtime. I like the villains, they're goofy-looking but still scary and intriguing. There's one gory kill but the others are uninspired. Unsatisfying ending and weird way to wrap it up.
This was a great movie overall but seriously, Kristen is one of the dumbest characters ever written. I mean, put your damn shoes on. :joy::joy::joy:
Fuck did i just watch
As a "movie", this had its creepy moments. The overall experience left me sorely disappointed, however. The story was far too plodding, too vague, too thin, and the whole "based on actual events" at the beginning begs the question, "If 'the brutal events that took place there are still not entirely known' (as announced in the opening credits), then how did they come up with a movie based on actual events?" I don't know...If your phobia is having your home invaded by mask-wearing, silent and malevolent strangers, this movie would probably terrify you. For me, it didn't do much of anything except make me keep popping the timer up across the bottom of my screen to see how much more I had to endure. Very, very, VERY plodding pace; out of a movie that is, mercifully, only 80 minutes long (film duration excluding the closing credits) you had to wait over half that before anything even started to happen. There's a backstory (of sorts) that only serves to muddy the waters more than explain anything: I still don't know what happened there.
Also, watch for the glaring blooper (how this got past the editors/screen review I still don't know) at 1:04:55. Early in the movie, the despondent husband/fiance/boyfriend/still not sure what he is guy sits down at the dining room table, peels the lid off a brand-new half-gallon of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream (Texas residents will appreciate that; if you've never had Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream, you won't understand.) and peels a spoonful off the top. He then (not necessarily in this order) builds a fire in the fireplace, gets interrupted in the middle of having sex, drives to the store for cigarettes and comes back, checks the entire house out with his terrified bride/fiance/girlfriend/still not sure what she is girl, fends off attackers, finds his father's hidden shotgun, learns how to assemble the shotgun, then learns how to load and fire it, goes out to the yard to investigate, gets attacked, tries to hide inside a barn, girl - now frantic - chases him out to the barn, gets attacked, runs back to the house, hides in pantry, and after all of this happens one of "The Strangers" slowly enters the kitchen, stares (of course) right at the door which she is hiding behind, then said Stranger sits down at the same dining room table where the aforementioned ice cream still sits - directly across from the still-roaring fireplace, with nary a drop of the ice cream melted, and the almost unblemished surface of the half-gallon tub still completely intact.
The ending left much, much, MUCH to be desired and I suppose (since there's a movie of the same title from ten years later) they made a sequel. But although there was plenty of "terror" in this movie, this was not what I would consider a "horror" movie. Was it "scary"? No. Was it creepy? Yes. Did it have its moments of evil and malevolence? Absolutely. This is the kind of movie (much like the entire Saw franchise, Hostel franchise, and others) that leave me personally wondering how there can be such cruelty in the world. "Because you were home"...as lame a line as that sounds, that - to me - was the scariest part of the whole thing: there are people who will be evil towards other human beings "simply because". Because something is twisted in their sick minds, and driven by jealousy, greed, bias, or just some sick, perverted craving to cause pain to others, they will inflict their torment on people..."just because they were home". Whatever.
The whole movie, albeit mercifully short, did not seem short. It was undoubtedly the LONGEST 80-minute movie I've sat through. I kept wishing it would end; I got up and walked outside to check the mailbox in the middle of the film. I got up and lowered the blinds in my living room at another point in the film. Point being, even being as short as it was, this film did not retain my attention. NOTHING about it did. This film does not contain any torture porn (if that's your thing), so don't wait for it. There's only one scene (maybe two, depending on your tolerance level) that is "graphic"; apart from that, it's "terror". It will scare the bejabbers out of those people who have a phobia of their home being broken into, but apart from those few, I can't see this movie truly being "scary" to anyone.
Too many wrong decisions and absurd scenes for my test. I totally get that the ideas was to submerge the audience into this psychological horror story, but I will never understand why most of the times filmmakers treat us like idiots. Especially in a movie about a story nobody knows what happened and they could create a more believable film.
3 Thoughts After Re-Watching ‘The Strangers’:
Classic examples of characters making stupid decisions. I’m sorry, but they just did not try hard enough. Homegirl may as well have had a bell tied to her pants.
Standard home invasion fare here. Super simple story with creepy elements that rely heavily on the “look behind you!” mentality. It wasn’t awful, but it could’ve given us something a bit more memorable.
I love Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler. If they weren’t the leads, I may have given this a lower score.
No depth to the film whatsoever. Character development was minimal, but I guess that’s to be expected for a horror film taking place over a single night, and I doubt depth was the aim.
More obtrusive, however, were some of the characters’ seemingly improbable decisions.
Annoyingly, jump scares were arguably depended on for a few scenes. But despite this, the film was still effectively scary and increased my heart rate through anticipation and creepiness alone. Jump scares were unnecessary - the heart-in-mouth moments should have been capitalised on instead.
Boring.
Like a bad version of funny games or clockwork orange. Without the intelligent parts.
A waste of time.
This movie is Eh at best the whole movie I was like blue bell must have paid alot of money for advertisement.
Slow burn is not aomet
it's slowly slowly but creeping me.
One of them boring slow burners.
One of the worst movie I've ever seen. Totally non-sense.
For fuck sake it was The Purge all over again. Film turned out much worse than expected.
What I imagined this would be, was way better than it turned out to be.
I liked the idea of this movie more than I liked the execution of it.
The trailer seems to be incorrect.
Shout by SandraBlockedParent2021-10-03T07:54:40Z
The film features two protagonists with whom you don't really empathize. Most of the plot is made up of the characters walking around the house and freaking out over nothing (fake jump scares with increased music volume). Nothing really interesting happens until the last 30 minutes.