Horror
1 hour and 25 minutes
Rated: R
Written by: Bryan Bertino & Ben Ketai
Directed by: Johannes Roberts
Produced by: Babak Eftekhari, Wayne Marc Godfrey, James Harris, Robert Jones, Ryan Kavanaugh, and Mark Lane
Cast:
Christina Hendricks
Martin Henderson
Bailee Madison
Lewis Pullman
Let us prey
In 2008, filmmaker Bryan Bertino unleashed upon audiences his low-budget, shocking home invasion horror film The Strangers which wound up being a surprising, but not unworthy, box-office success. Made on a budget of roughly nine million dollars, Bertino's film managed to rake in more than eighty million in profits when it was all said and done. The film's success was largely in part due to it being a movie that relied heavily on a simple storyline that effectively played off of audiences fears. This wasn't just a home invasion film about killers trying to get inside a home and murder their victims. This was a much more sinister story, where the killers didn't just want to end the lives of their victims, but also do everything in their power to express complete and total control over their victims by psychologically messing with their heads. This in effect, was also carried over onto the audience - allowing us as viewers to share in the fears and horrors of the onscreen characters as the nightmare played out. With the massive success of the film, Bertino promised almost immediately afterwards that there would be a sequel. A decade later, we've been given another chapter in this nightmarish saga.
The Strangers: Prey at Night is unquestionably a motion-picture that exists solely because its predecessor made money. There was absolutely no way that it was mapped out from the start. If Bertino had always intended there to be a sequel to his first flick, then The Strangers: Prey at Night more than likely would not have taken ten years to have been made, and Bertino would have had more control over the project than just a writer's credit. When the filmmaker of an original film steps aside for someone else to take the reins for the follow-up movie, it's usually not a good sign. Director Johannes Roberts ultimately has created a mixed-bag film that suffers from several problematic issues, but does, in fact, still manage to have some enjoyable qualities as well.
The film's storyline is both its biggest asset as well as its most problematic issue. For the entire first half of the film, Roberts seems to be attempting to remake the first film in every way possible. While there are now four victims instead of two, and the action takes place in a deserted trailer park instead of a house in the woods, Roberts tries to tap into the vein of the first movie by recreating the scares that worked so effectively in Bertino's movie, but here fall flat. The victims are toyed with in menacing fashion by their victimizers, the same obstacles are put in place (mainly phones being destroyed off-screen and victims discovering them later, total seclusion with escape seeming impossible, etc.), and even atmospherically, The Strangers: Prey at Night feels like a rehashing of The Strangers. As the victims peer outside windows we find ourselves, just like them, checking the shadows and looking for stalking figures on screen who may be watching them. This is ultimately problematic for one major reason: it no longer works. Bertino was lucky in that his film tapped into a raw and visceral horror that no one in its audience was expecting. Roberts isn't so lucky. By repeating the tones and atmospheres of the first movie in the first half of The Strangers: Prey at Night, we as an audience are ultimately ready for it and it doesn't work this time around. Ultimately, this first half - what could conceivably be called the "true horror" segment of the film - is not scary in anyway. It's a dull rehashing of something we have already experienced.
Partly to blame for helping with this rehashing - although not nearly as much as Johannes Roberts and Ben Ketai - are the film's technical decisions. Cinematographer Ryan Samul creates a dark and shadowy environment that's largely desaturated of color. It's an image that looks damn near identical to the images of the first film, and it does not help in anyway to differentiate The Strangers: Prey at Night from The Strangers. Editor Martin Brinkler allows for certain shots to linger perhaps longer than they should in attempt to create the same paranoia that the first film did. It's lazy recycling at its worst, and ultimately contributes to the first half of The Strangers: Prey at Night feeling like an unbearable revamping of The Strangers. Also, largely unimpressive, although not nearly as problematic as the already mentioned qualities, is the film's score, composed by Adrian Johnston. The piano/synth riff ultimately feels like something ripped off of a John Carpenter soundtrack or a Nox Arcana album, and although it may pair nicely with the mixing of 1980s pop tunes that work their way into the soundtrack, the score does nothing to either escalate the tension or create an atmosphere of dread.
It should be noted that it's been mentioned in this review that not only is the film's story its most problematic issue, but also its biggest asset. This essentially doesn't come into play though until right around halfway through the movie, where in an incredibly brilliant scene - one that will have you looking at swimming pools, light-up palm trees, and Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" through completely different eyes in the future - the tone of the film shifts entirely, and The Strangers: Prey at Night effectively comes into its own by shedding the influences of its predecessor and trudging down a path not taken by Bertino's film. This is where the movie announces to its audience that all bets are off, and that this is no longer the rehashed invasion/stalker movie we were expecting, but a gut-churning survivalist film instead. In the above scene mentioned - the one with the swimming pool and Bonnie Tyler - Roberts manages to create a level of tension and dread that was missing from the first half of the movie. From here going forward, The Strangers: Prey at Night embraces its new identity and manages to create some engaging and memorable moments. With its heavy-handed homage to the ending of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as well as its questioning denouement aside, the second half of The Strangers: Prey at Night is an unexpectedly fun, tension-filled, survivalist horror movie that will leave audiences smiling, but perhaps confused or even angry as to why that wasn't the overall tone of the movie from the start.
The performances in The Strangers: Prey at Night, are largely what's to be expected from actors in this kind of movie. No one really shines to the point of brilliance on the screen, and due to its short running time, we are not given enough screen time to get to relate to the victims before they're ultimately submitted to the horrors of the plot in order to feel enough real empathy with them. Bailee Madison and Lewis Pullman are perhaps exceptions to this, coming the closest to reaching those qualities, and once the film comes into its own after the tonal shift, both performers do manage to win over the audience's affection and praise - Madison especially.
The Strangers: Prey at Night manages to be one of those motion-pictures that is both completely damned by its storyline but also earns redeemable points with its audience because of it. Director Johannes Roberts unfortunately falls into the trap of trying to recreate the magic of the film's predecessor and because of this, is responsible for the first half of his movie falling completely flat. However, once the film discovers its own identity, sheds its linkage to the first movie, and takes the audience in an unexplored and unexpected direction, The Strangers: Prey at Night manages to be an engaging film that will probably leave most viewers feeling like they didn't completely waste their time and energy by seeing it.
6/10
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