The Strangers (2008 film)

The Strangers
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bryan Bertino
Produced by	Doug Davison Roy Lee Nathan Kahane Sonny Mallhi
Written by	Bryan Bertino
Starring	Liv Tyler Scott Speedman Glenn Howerton
Music by	tomandandy
Cinematography	Peter Sova
Edited by	Kevin Greutert
Production company	Vertigo Entertainment Mandate Pictures Intrepid Pictures
Distributed by	Rogue
Release dates	May 30, 2008 (2008-05-30)
Running time	85 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$9M[2]
Box office	$82.4M[2]

The Strangers is a 2008 American home invasion horror film written and directed by Bryan Bertino and starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman as a young couple who are terrorized by three masked assailants.

The film opens with the statement: "What you are about to see is inspired by true events. According to the FBI, there are an estimated 1.4 million violent crimes in America each year. On the night of February 11, 2005, Kristen McKay and James Hoyt left a friend's wedding reception and returned to the Hoyt summer home. The brutal events that took place there are still not entirely known". According to director Bryan Bertino, the film is loosely based on an incident he experienced as a child. One evening, a stranger came to his door, asked for someone who wasn't there, and left. Later, Bertino found out that other homes in his neighborhood had been broken into that night.

Produced on a budget of $9 million and after two postponements, the film was released theatrically in North America on May 30, 2008. It grossed $82.4 million at the box office worldwide. Although a commercial success, it received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot

Audio of a woman's frantic call to 911 is overlaid on video of two young boys with bicycles standing before a house, where something bad has clearly happened. There is the smoldering remains of a car in the front yard and the front door to the house is severely damaged and open. The woman in the call is confused and panicking, telling the operator that there is blood everywhere, while the boys walk up to the house; among other things inside, there is a bloody knife on the floor, a blood splatter on the wall, and a shotgun on the kitchen counter. The 911 operator asks the woman what happened, and the scene fades to black.

James (Scott Speedman) and his girlfriend Kristen (Liv Tyler) arrive at James' childhood summer home, tired and irritable after a long evening at a friend's wedding reception. It is revealed that while they were there, James proposed to Kristen and she refused, claiming she is not ready for marriage yet. James calls his friend Mike to come pick him up in the morning.

Shortly after 4 a.m., there is a knock at the door, surprising since the house is so remote and far from any civilization. A young blonde woman, whose face is obscured by low lighting, asks for Tamara. When told that she is at the wrong house, she leaves with the casual caveat that she will "see them later".

Due to the tension between them, James leaves to go for a drive. Alone in the house, Kristen hears another knock at the door; she refuses to open it after realizing it is the same woman from earlier. She then starts hearing strange noises outside and her cell phone goes missing. She arms herself, knowing somebody has been inside. When she hears a noise from the backyard, she opens the curtains to find a man wearing a sack mask, staring at her. Panicked, she hides in the bedroom until James returns.

When James arrives, she explains what has happened. He finds his car ransacked and the blonde woman, now wearing a doll mask, watching him from afar. His phone has had its battery stolen and he realizes the house has been breached. The couple attempt to leave in James's car but a third masked stranger drives a pick-up truck into the car, forcing them to flee. Back in the house, Kristen and James find a shotgun and wait for the intruders.

Mike arrives and realises something is wrong after seeing the smashed car. James, mistaking him for one of the intruders, shoots him dead. A devastated James remembers an old radio transmitter in the backyard shed. He leaves and encounters the blonde woman. When James tries to shoot her, the masked man knocks him out. Kristen hears the shot and runs to the shed. She finds the radio but Dollface smashes it. Kristen rushes back to the house, where she is incapacitated by the masked man. Both James and Kristen are now unconscious.

When James and Kristen wake up, it is morning, and they are tied to chairs in the living room with the masked strangers before them. Kristen asks them why they are doing this and the blonde woman replies "because you were home". The strangers then unmask themselves to the couple (not to the audience) and slowly stab each of them several times before leaving. They drive past the two young boys from the opening, who are distributing religious tracts. Dollface asks for a tract. The boy asks if she's a sinner and she replies, "sometimes". The strangers drive off, as the Pin-up girl states "it'll be easier next time".

The two boys come to the house and discover the chaotic scene, including the bodies of Kristen and James inside. One boy approaches Kristen's body, and as he reaches out to her, she wakes up and screams.

Cast

• Liv Tyler as Kristen McKay
• Scott Speedman as James Hoyt
• Gemma Ward as Dollface
• Kip Weeks as Man in the Mask
• Glenn Howerton as Mike
• Laura Margolis as Pin-up girl
• Alex Fisher and Peter Clayton-Luce as Mormon boys

Production

Screenplay and inspiration

Director Bryan Bertino also wrote the film's script, which was originally titled The Faces.^[3][4] Bertino took a particular interest in the horror genre, noting how one can connect to an audience by scaring them. He also stated that he was significantly inspired by thriller films of the 1970s while writing the film.^[3]

According to production notes,^[3] the film was inspired by true events from Bertino's childhood: a stranger came to his home asking for someone who was not there, and Bertino later found out that empty houses in the neighborhood had been broken into that night:^[5]

As a kid, I lived in a house on a street in the middle of nowhere. One night, while our parents were out, somebody knocked on the front door and my little sister answered it. At the door were some people asking for somebody who didn't live there. We later found out that these people were knocking on doors on the area and, if no one was home, breaking into the houses".^[3]

In interviews, Bertino stated he was "very impressed" with some of the theories circulating on the Internet about the "true events" the movie is allegedly based on, but said that his main inspiration was the true crime book Helter Skelter about the Manson Family murders; some have said that the film was also inspired by the Keddie Cabin Murders of 1981 that occurred in a small vacation community in California's Sierra Nevada.^[6][7][8] The French horror film Them (2006) has a very similar plot.

Casting

When casting the two leading actors in the film, Bertino wanted Liv Tyler for the part of Kristen. Tyler, who had not worked for several years after the birth of her son, agreed to participate in the film after reading its script:^[9] "I especially liked Bryan's way of saying a lot, but not saying everything. Often in movies, it's all spelled out for you, and the dialogue is very explanatory. But Bryan doesn't write like that; he writes how normal people communicate—with questions lingering. I knew it would be interesting to act that."^[3] Canadian actor Scott Speedman was cast as James. Speedman was also impressed by the script, stating that "the audience actually gets time to breathe with the characters before things get scary as hell. That got me interested from the first pages".^[3]

In casting the three masked intruders, Bertino chose Australian fashion model Gemma Ward for the part of Dollface, feeling she had the exact "look" he had imagined. In preparing for the role, Ward read Helter Skelter for inspiration. Kip Weeks was then chosen as the Man in the Mask, and television actress Laura Margolis, who found the script to be a real "page turner", was cast in the part of Pin-Up Girl.^[3][10]

Filming

On a $9 million budget, filming for The Strangers began on October 10, 2006, and finished in early 2007. It was shot on location roughly 10 miles outside of Florence, South Carolina, and the 2,000-square-foot (190 m²) house interior was constructed by a set crew.^[11] Though the film takes place in 2005, the house itself was deliberately constructed with an architecture reminiscent of 1970s ranch houses and dressed in furnishings applicable to the era.^[10] The property was located on the outskirts of Timmonsville, South Carolina. During production, it was reported that Liv Tyler came down with tonsillitis due to the extensive screaming the role required her to do.^[3] Despite weather complications, the film was largely shot in chronological order.^[3]

Marketing and promotion

In late July 2007, Bertino, Tyler and Speedman attended San Diego's annual Comic-Con event to promote the film; all three were present for a questions-and-answers panel session, as well as a screening of the film's official teaser trailer;^[12] this trailer was released on the internet several weeks later, and can be found on YouTube.^[13] It was not until March 2008 that a full-length trailer for the film was released, which can be found on Apple's QuickTime trailer gallery.^[14] The trailer originally began running in theaters attached to Rogue Pictures' sci-fi film Doomsday (2008) in March 2008, and television advertisements began airing on networks in early-mid April 2008 to promote the film's May release. Two one-sheet posters for the film were released in August 2007, one showing the three masked Strangers,^[15] and the other displaying a wounded Liv Tyler.^[16] In April 2008, roughly two months before the film's official theatrical debut, the final, official one-sheet for the film was released,^[17] featuring Liv Tyler standing in a darkened kitchen with a masked man looming behind her in the shadows.

Release

The producers originally planned for a summer release in 2007, which was eventually postponed to November 2007. It was pushed back yet one more time, and officially opened in the United States and Canada on May 30, 2008; in its opening weekend, the film grossed $20,997,985 in 2,467 theaters, ranking #3 at the box office and averaging $8,514 per theater.^[2] As of June 23, 2008 the film has grossed $52,597,610 in the U.S. alone exceeding industry estimates,^[18] and is considered a large box office success considering the production budget was a mere $9 million. The film opened in the United Kingdom later that summer on August 29, 2008, and as of September 21, 2008, had grossed £4,025,916.^[19] The overall box office return was highly successful for a horror film earning an outstanding $82.3 million at the box office worldwide. The movie received a rating of R from the MPAA.

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. It holds a rating of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 151 reviews.^[20] Metacritic reported an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 27 reviews.^[21] Among the positive reviews, Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times said The Strangers is "suspenseful," "highly effective," and "smartly maintain[s] its commitment to tingling creepiness over bludgeoning horror."^[22] Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter called the film a "creepily atmospheric psychological thriller with a death grip on the psychological aspect."^[23] James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying that, "This is one of those rare horror movies that concentrates on suspense and terror rather than on gore and a high body count."^[24] Scott Tobias of The Onion's A.V. Club said that "as an exercise in controlled mayhem, horror movies don't get much scarier."^[25]

Among the moderate to negative reviews, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and said, "The movie deserves more stars for its bottom-line craft, but all the craft in the world can't redeem its story."^[26] Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News said that "Bertino does an excellent job building dread" and that the film is "more frightening than the graphic torture scenes in movies like Hostel and Saw," but criticized the "undeveloped protagonists" for being "colossally stupid and frustratingly passive."^[27] Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post panned the film, calling it "a fraud from start to finish."^[28] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, said the film "uses cinema to ends that are objectionable and vile," but admitted that "it does it well, with more than usual skill."^[29]

Additional positive feedback for the film came from Joblo.com reviewer Berge Garabedian, who praised director Bertino for "building the tension nicely, with lots of silences, creepy voices, jump scares, use of songs and a sharp eye behind the camera, as well as plenty of Steadicam give it all more of a voyeuristic feel."^[30] Empire Magazine remarked on the film's retro-style, saying, "Like much recent horror, from the homages of the Grindhouse gang through flat multiplex remakes of drive-in classics, The Strangers looks to the '70s.", and ultimately branded the film as "an effective, scary emotional work-out."^[31] Slant Magazine's Nick Schager listed The Strangers as the 9th best film of 2008.^[32] Also, the film was ranked #13 on "Bravo's 13 Scarier Movie Moments" television piece.^[33]

Home media

The Strangers was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on October 21, 2008. Both the Blu-ray and DVD feature rated and unrated versions of the film, with the unrated edition running approximately two minutes longer. Bonus materials include two deleted scenes and a making-of featurette. The DVD was released in the UK on December 26, 2008. The film was available on Universal VOD (Video on Demand) from November 19, 2008 through March 31, 2009.^[34]

Soundtrack

A soundtrack, consisting of 19 scores composed by score producer tomandandy, was released on May 27, 2008 and was distributed by Lakeshore Records.

The album was received with generally positive reviews by critics. "It's a creepy score for what appears to be a movie that will make you jump as well as make sure that the doors are locked at night," writes reviewer Jeff Swindoll.^[35] "This is an impressive score and adds a tremendous chill-factor to the film," says Zach Freeman, grading it with an A.

Possible sequel

Rogue Pictures' producers confirmed to Variety that a sequel is in the works, tentatively titled The Strangers: Part II.^[36][37] The film will be written by Bryan Bertino and directed by Laurent Briet.^[38][39] Shock Till You Drop reported that Realitivity Media put The Strangers: Part II on hold because they found that the movie might not be in their interest, even though Universal Pictures is willing to release it.^[39] However, Rogue Pictures confirmed in January 2011 that the sequel is now in production, and was supposed to begin filming as early as April 2011. The plot follows a family of four who have been evicted from their home due to the economy, and are paid a visit by the same three strangers from the first film.^[39][40] It is not known whether the sequel will receive a theatrical or a straight-to-DVD release.^[41] Liv Tyler will return as Kristen McKay while the original three masked villains are also set to return, however, in an interview Tyler had announced that she would only have a minor role.

Tyler claimed that Part II would be released in 2014,^[41][42][43] but this did not occur.

In January 2015, it was stated the sequel was back on track.^[44]

Relativity Media and GK Films originally scheduled the film for an December 2, 2016 release.^[45] However, it was later taken off the schedule.

See also

• List of films featuring home invasions

References

External links

• The Strangers at the Internet Movie Database
• The Strangers at Box Office Mojo
• The Strangers at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Strangers at Metacritic