31 Nights of Halloween Horror - Night 15 - Strangers: Prey at Night
Strangers: Prey at Night
85 mins
Dir. Johannes Roberts
USA/2018
I liked the first Strangers film, though very similar to the French film Them, which I liked even more, Strangers was still a pretty solid film on its own. Left open for a sequel at the end, it took them ten years to make it and this is what they came up with? Too little too late.
The premise of the Strangers is a terrifying one. A home invasion, the safety of your home being violated by strangers with no other motive then wanting to kill you. Nowhere is safe. The sequel completely removes that notion. In this a family of four, Mom, Dad, teenage Son and delinquent teenage Daughter who must have done something because they are shipping her off to boarding school are heading to a trailer park. Brother and sister don't get along, Daughter thinks she is outcast and the family doesn't like her. We know she is a troublemaker because she wears one of those rebellious Ramones shirts throughout the film. So the whole family is taking the daughter to boarding school and making a trip out of it. For whatever reason they stop off at a trailer park that is mostly closed for the season, because an uncle is giving them a free trailer to stay in. That's where they run into The Strangers.
Seems the trailer park is empty save for one older couple still there, but they get killed in the opening of the flick. Anyway the family arrives at the trailer park, daughter gets pissy and runs off, brother goes to find her and they stumble upon the dead couple in an open trailer. Parents go looking for the kids, kids tell them what they found and genius dad sends the mom and daughter back to their trailer to call the cops while he and the son go to investigate. Upon returning to their trailer mom and daughter find all of their cell phones busted. Now who in this day an age, especially a teenager leaves the house without their phone? First major dumb thing of the movie and it is all down hill from there. Anyway The Strangers show up, same three from the first film. Mom is the first to get it with a knife in the back as she and the daughter try and escape through the bathroom window. Meanwhile dad and son encounter sack head stranger. They make their way back to their trailer to find mom dead and daughter missing. They hop in the family mini van and head out looking. Dad bites it next of course and the rest of the movie, brother and sis are running around the trailer park trying to hide and escape from the strangers who always seem to know exactly where these two are and casually pop out of the shadows.
All of the tension and suspense of the first film is absent from the sequel. Why would the Strangers be stalking around an empty trailer park to begin with? So much of this movie does not seem well thought out. It is all run and hide through this film, on the plus side the brother and sister fight back and actually kill some of the strangers ensuring us there won't be another sequel using these ruined characters. However, how some of these people recover from the violence seems a little unbelievable. And like I said, this whole giant trailer park at night with people running and hiding everywhere, everyone seems to know exactly where everyone else is. It is like they all have GPS trackers on. And then there is the end. How lame.
It is obvious this movie is set in reality, and though some perhaps unbelievable things happen, we know this is all basic true to life. So when the explosive ending happens and the movie should come to a close, they actually try to hang on to that one last scare and the killer is not really dead. If that wasn't stupid enough, in the epilogue there is a knock on the door insinuating perhaps the it is not the end. Total lame ass slasher movie cop out ending, they might as well wore hockey masks and raised the body count because this movie had about the same equivalent as one of those boring ass films. Maybe if there was a creative kill or an extra gory scene or two this film would have some redeeming value. But nothing, total shit show. You people need to warn me about these things ahead of time, or is that my job for you? You have been warned. Perfect Strangers this is not.
Strangers: Prey at Night
85 mins
Dir. Johannes Roberts
USA/2018
I liked the first Strangers film, though very similar to the French film Them, which I liked even more, Strangers was still a pretty solid film on its own. Left open for a sequel at the end, it took them ten years to make it and this is what they came up with? Too little too late.
The premise of the Strangers is a terrifying one. A home invasion, the safety of your home being violated by strangers with no other motive then wanting to kill you. Nowhere is safe. The sequel completely removes that notion. In this a family of four, Mom, Dad, teenage Son and delinquent teenage Daughter who must have done something because they are shipping her off to boarding school are heading to a trailer park. Brother and sister don't get along, Daughter thinks she is outcast and the family doesn't like her. We know she is a troublemaker because she wears one of those rebellious Ramones shirts throughout the film. So the whole family is taking the daughter to boarding school and making a trip out of it. For whatever reason they stop off at a trailer park that is mostly closed for the season, because an uncle is giving them a free trailer to stay in. That's where they run into The Strangers.
Seems the trailer park is empty save for one older couple still there, but they get killed in the opening of the flick. Anyway the family arrives at the trailer park, daughter gets pissy and runs off, brother goes to find her and they stumble upon the dead couple in an open trailer. Parents go looking for the kids, kids tell them what they found and genius dad sends the mom and daughter back to their trailer to call the cops while he and the son go to investigate. Upon returning to their trailer mom and daughter find all of their cell phones busted. Now who in this day an age, especially a teenager leaves the house without their phone? First major dumb thing of the movie and it is all down hill from there. Anyway The Strangers show up, same three from the first film. Mom is the first to get it with a knife in the back as she and the daughter try and escape through the bathroom window. Meanwhile dad and son encounter sack head stranger. They make their way back to their trailer to find mom dead and daughter missing. They hop in the family mini van and head out looking. Dad bites it next of course and the rest of the movie, brother and sis are running around the trailer park trying to hide and escape from the strangers who always seem to know exactly where these two are and casually pop out of the shadows.
All of the tension and suspense of the first film is absent from the sequel. Why would the Strangers be stalking around an empty trailer park to begin with? So much of this movie does not seem well thought out. It is all run and hide through this film, on the plus side the brother and sister fight back and actually kill some of the strangers ensuring us there won't be another sequel using these ruined characters. However, how some of these people recover from the violence seems a little unbelievable. And like I said, this whole giant trailer park at night with people running and hiding everywhere, everyone seems to know exactly where everyone else is. It is like they all have GPS trackers on. And then there is the end. How lame.
It is obvious this movie is set in reality, and though some perhaps unbelievable things happen, we know this is all basic true to life. So when the explosive ending happens and the movie should come to a close, they actually try to hang on to that one last scare and the killer is not really dead. If that wasn't stupid enough, in the epilogue there is a knock on the door insinuating perhaps the it is not the end. Total lame ass slasher movie cop out ending, they might as well wore hockey masks and raised the body count because this movie had about the same equivalent as one of those boring ass films. Maybe if there was a creative kill or an extra gory scene or two this film would have some redeeming value. But nothing, total shit show. You people need to warn me about these things ahead of time, or is that my job for you? You have been warned. Perfect Strangers this is not.
This movie is a shit show. Don't watch it.
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