I don’t know what is creepier than masks. They freak me out, especially the ones that are supposed to look happy. So I was pretty excited to see The Strangers, and be freaked out by some people wearing creepy masks (and I’m being serious…I really was excited). The previews for this movie had me stoked, it looked like just the kind of movie to make me jump and spill my popcorn. I ended up not spilling my popcorn, but I did jump and scream!

The Strangers starts off kind of slow as the audience is introduced to the main characters James (Scott Speedman, Felicity) and Kristen (Liv Tyler, The Lord of the Rings). Something has happened between them that have caused them to reconsider their relationship. They decide to continue with their plans for the night and stay at a secluded house that James’ family owns. Already the tension is thick as we flashback to earlier that night to find out exactly what happened between the couple. Although things are awkward between them, it’s obvious that they still love each other. Around 4:00am the next morning a knock is heard at their door. It seems to be someone who has the wrong house so the couple ignores the odd feelings they get and continue with their night. Soon enough things get down right scary as the couple begins being attacked and stalked by two girls in creepy happy masks and one man in a bag with a smile drawn on it.

I thought this movie did well with making the audience feel the tension of the entire night. Director and writer Bryan Bertino gets some help here from the wonderful soundtrack that really sets the mood. Not only is the music right, but so are all the creepy noises like the pounding on the door. At first it sounds like a normal knock, but soon turns ominous as the sound deepens and reverberates. Like Kristen, the audience doesn’t know where the sounds are coming from either and that makes it easy to believe how scared she really is. I haven’t seen a movie in awhile that has made such great use of their sound effects.

I thought that Tyler was wonderful in her role. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a thriller, and it was a nice change for her. She has a great scream for these kinds of movies, and very expressive eyes that really helped convey her fear. I look forward to seeing her do move scary movies in the future. Speedman didn’t work as well for me. I liked him at first, but his character was just so dumb that I couldn’t get over it. It seemed that as soon as his character seemed to give up, that Speedman did too. Although the strangers faces are never revealed to the audience I thought they had nice performances. It’s got to be hard to act when your face is not seen. They definitely were scary though!

I saw this movie the other night with my boyfriend. He didn’t like it as much as me, and pointed out that it had a similar plot to the movie Vacancy with Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale that we also saw together. Although I see his point, I think that The Strangers was a better made movie. It might have had a smaller budget, but it used its money to the fullest to make an actually scary movie. Vacancy was just overly predictable, and the ending was ridiculous. The ending of The Strangers was much better, but still a little laughable in the last few seconds (when you see it, you’ll know what I’m talking about).

There were really only two things that bothered me about this movie. The continuity was off in very obvious ways. At the beginning of the movie Kristen is wearing a nice dress, she changes into more relaxing clothes, but then at the end of the movie is seen wearing her dress again with no explanation. I sometimes notice little things in movies that are wrong, but they don’t bother me. This one did. There either needed to be an explanation, or someone needs a talking to. The other thing that bothered me was that the beginning of the movie a narrator talks about how this is all based on true events, but at the end you get the normal spiel about how it’s not based on real events. That just seemed unnecessary. It didn’t need to be based on true events to make it scarier, the story was scary enough as it was.

For a good thrill I’d recommend The Strangers and give it a B. It’s a nice change from most of the “scary” movies that have been popular lately that are more just about showing as much nudity as they do gore (think Hostel).