A couple of days ago, I finally got around to watching the 2008 horror film, “The Strangers,” and I have no problem ranking it among the creepiest movies that I’ve ever seen.Released in May 2008, “The Strangers” is about a boyfriend-girlfriend couple that is spending the night in an isolated farmhouse after a wedding reception. Late that night, around 4 a.m., there’s a knock at the front door and things go down hill fast from there.
They answer the door to find a young woman who asks if a girl named “Tamara” is home. When the couple tells her that she has the wrong house, she leaves only to come back later with a couple of friends, and they’re all wearing extremely creepy masks. They proceed to terrorize the couple on into the next day before a pair of young boys on bikes find the farm house’s front door wide open.
Written and directed by Bryan Bertino, “The Strangers” stars Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, Glenn Howerton, Gemma Ward, Laura Margolis and Kip Weeks.
Liv Tyler, the daughter of Aerosmith vocalist Steven Tyler, is the movie’s main character and many of you will be familiar with her from her appearances in such films as “Armageddon” and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
Many of you will also be familiar with Glenn Howerton, who is a former Montgomery, Ala. resident and graduate of Jefferson Davis High School in Montgomery. He is best known as Dennis Reynolds on the TV show, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”
Marketed as having been inspired by true events, “The Strangers” was a huge financial success. Shot on a budge of $9 million, the movie went on to post gross revenues of $82.3 million.
Based on what I’ve read, this movie was inspired by at least two separate “true events.” Bertino admitted in a 2008 interview that the movie was partly based on an experience he had as a child in which a group of strangers knocked on the door of his family’s isolated home when his parents were out. His sister answered the door, and the strangers asked for someone who wasn’t there. They left, but the next day they learned that the group had been going around to houses and breaking into those where no one opened the door.
Bertino was also inspired by the best-selling true crime book, “Helter Skelter” by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. “Helter Skelter” was published in 1974 and details the 1969 Manson Family murders and the ensuing prosecution of Charles Manson and his accomplices by Bugliosi.
“The Strangers” definitely ranks high on my list of the creepiest movies I’ve ever seen. It will have you looking over your shoulder and you won’t want to watch it alone in a dark room. You’ll probably also find yourself checking the locks on all your windows and doors a little more closely before you go to bed, and you’ll definitely approach the door a little more cautiously the next time someone comes knocking unexpectedly after the sun goes down.
In the end, how many of you have seen this movie? What did you think about it? What was your favorite part? What would you have done had you been in the victims’ shoes? Let us know in the comments section below.
No comments:
Post a Comment