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RATING:   
SINGAPORE : Guys on the verge of proposing to their girlfriends should watch this movie, if only to learn one crucial lesson. If a girl turns you down, it might be a sign for you to close shop and go home.
The Strangers is a chilling tale of what happens otherwise.
Aready turned down by his lovely girlfriend Kristen (Liv Tyler), James (Scott Speedman) still insists on bringing her to his dad’s isolated summer house, simply because it’s already been decked out. But what was supposed to be a quiet night to think things through changes when someone knocks on the door at 4am.
Newbie director Bryan Bertino’s promising debut starts off as a suspenseful story that relies on creepy atmospherics.
While other thrillers introduce shock tactics barely 10 minutes into the movie, Bertino allows silence itself to growinto the scariest monster in the room: An ominous, palpable entity that has swallowed these two unwitting lovebirds.
Unfortunately, The Strangers makes a detour into slasher flick territory. Suddenly, the house gets too crowded for our tastes. As the unknown killers engage in a prolonged cat-and-mouse game, we found ourselves mentally urging them on — if only to get it over and done with.
Despite a disappointing second half, it is clear that Bertino is a director seeped in horror flick lore.
Sure, there are ’80s clichés in every corner (the swing in the garden, the masks, the requisite shotgun), but most of it doesn’t come off as contrived.
He also has a gem of an actress in Tyler as a convincingly vulnerable woman who shifts from worrying about a dejected boyfriend to worrying about bloodthirsty neighbours.
For the most part, viewers are left in the dark. We’re never told why Kristen rejected James and neither do we know the killers’ motives — and that’s a good thing. The Strangers brings back something we’ve sorely missed: The unknown. - TODAY/ra
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