The Strangers: Clichés at Night

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                                                                               By Tom Pacak
10 years ago, a home invasion horror film called “The Strangers” was released on a summer weekend. It wasn’t well received with critics or viewers but still made a boatload of money. Grossing over $82.4 million against its $9 million budget.

The whole premise of the film was a group of sociopaths who wear doll masks stalk and murder a couple at a vacation home because the couple was there. Lazy screenwriting or terrifying motive? You decide!! I thought the movie was mostly fun but it didn’t change my life. “The Strangers” had its flaws with its script and unnecessary jump scares.  

Now 10 year later, a sequel titled “The Strangers: Prey at Night” has been released. The sequel is a step down from the original (which isn’t saying much) and the home invasion genre in general. Dumb, lazy, and uninspiring, the sequel takes the same premise of the first one and moves it to a trailer park.

Set sometime after the original, “The Strangers: Prey at Night” follows a family of four who travel to a deserted trailer park for a family vacation. The family consists of the mother Cindy (Christina Hendricks), the father Mike (Martin Henderson), troublemaker daughter Kinsey (Bailee Madison), and the favorite child Luke (Lewis Pullman). The family is traveling to the trailer park to get one last family vacation in before the parents send their daughter off to boarding school. The writing in this movie is so full of clichés I lost track of count of how many I can spot. Kinsey’s reasoning for being such a trouble child was, “I’m a teenager, and teenagers do stupid stuff.” I’ve never heard of a lazy excuse for being a troubled child. There wasn’t even a back-story to why the parents were sending Kinsey to boarding school. I couldn’t care less either way.

Once the family gets to the park to settle in, they start getting harassed by The Strangers. The film became unbelievable after a while to how they find the protagonists hiding. Whether it’s just guessing which trailer to drive a truck in or just hiding out in an old tunnel, none of it made sense. Our protagonists are no better either. Almost every protagonists is either dumb, hasn’t seen a horror movie, not worth rooting for, or all of the above. They commit every horror cliché in the book. When you hear a creaking noise in the dark, DON’T INVESTIGATE IT.

I must give director Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) for adding some nice touches to the film. I liked the ironic 80s soundtrack the killers use to troll the family and the 80s metro opening for the film. Other than that, the film seemed like a rather unnecessary sequel and a step down from the horror genre, which has had several great films come out in the past years. My advice, stay home and watch the Oscar Winning “Get Out” or wait later this month for Steven Soderbergh’s psychological horror film “Unsane” or John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place”, which was a hit at the South by Southwest film festival. Those films will added be added to the time capsule of memorable horror films. “The Stranger: Prey at Night” will not.


1.5 out of 4 stars


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