The Strangers - Go watch it!

Hello my freaky darlings!
Yesterday I went to see this groovy new horror flick you may have heard of called The Strangers.

Off the bat I want to tell you guys that I really liked this movie. I am really hoping that this Bryan Bertino fella who wrote and directed it will make more in this style and hopefully reinvigorate the entire genre.
Now I don't want to give anything major away, because the plot was so simplistic (and it was to its benefit) that it would be very easy to just give you the whole story.
Let me instead explain why this movie was so refreshing.
I'll start of by saying that I am sick and tired of the whole new movement in the horror genre of trying to replace tension and paranoia with blood and guts. I am not even really against blood and guts, they have their place. The issue is that being grossed out is not the same as being scared, and I think a lot of the directors now ::coughEliRothcough:: just don't get that.

The Strangers is all about atmosphere and tension in this wonderful old school 70s style. It made me hearken back to the the first time I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre and John Carpenter's Halloween.
And as I explained in my previous post there was something really scary in the simplicity of those films. I was discussing what it is that makes a film like that so scary, and I don't just want to completely reiterate what I said in the other post, but the randomness of it is a big part of it. The lack of motive, the feeling of "I could be next." The reality of "This is not so far from reality that it couldn't happen to me." And yes I acknowlage that Michael Myers did have some motive and was also unrealistically superhuman, but I was talking more about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in that respect.
But getting back to my point.
Why is Jaws so scary? Why does it hold up as one of the most terrifying films of all time? Because it could really happen. It has happened. You could be swimming in the ocean and a shark could swim up and bite you in the ass. In the same way you could be attacked by an assailant who's only real motive is to terrorize and murder you. There is such insanity and instability in the world.
Now I am not saying that films like Hostel and Saw don't in some ways also work on that principle, but again are more concerned with being gruesome than being genuine to the emotions of such a situation, or at least in my opinion thats what they seem to do.

And quick side note, what the hell was up with Cary Elwes's performance in Saw? I have always liked him as an actor, and I recognize the fact that he is usually pretty smarmy, but there is just something way off about him in that movie. Severe overacting or something. Everything he said just sounded so soap opera. I dunno, maybe its just me, but let me know if any of you guys noticed that.

So anyway. The Strangers. Liv Tyler, oh my did she just make the most wonderful little scream queen, the perfect little victim. Again, reminiscing about the 70s style classic stalker horror genre. She was by herself for the majority of the movie, barefoot too I might add. She was teary eyed and panicked and her face just held every expression of fear you could imagine. Her reactions to each creak and rustle made for the most palpable tension I have seen in years.
And thats what this movie was really about, build up, tension, paranoia, atmosphere, sound, absence of sound. It wasn't some hack and slash, to be perfectly honest there were only 2 or 3 scenes of actual violence in the whole thing, depending on your definition. And of that violence it was nothing more gruesome than what you might see on CSI or Law and Order, which again is pretty tame by today's standards. But I am not saying tame in a derogatory sense. I absolutely appreciate that Bertino didn't go for gore over scare. And this film was legitimately scary. The idea that you think you are safe and its all torn away and you are in more danger than you can possibly handle.
One scene I do want to talk about is the first reveal of the Man in the Mask.
Liv Tyler is alone, her male having gone out for a drive. It's after 4:00A.M. There is a strange girl who keeps knocking on the door, "Is Tamra Here?" someone who doesn't live there. Liv(or Kristen in this case) becomes more and more paranoid. Her cell phone as well as the house phone don't seem to be working. She has a cigarette to calm down, and goes into the kitchen for a glass of water. As she is at the sink, we see a man in a white mask walk out from the shadows of the doorway far across the room. He is completely obscured from her line of sight, but WE know he is there, and he is watching her. He lingers for a moment then fades back into the shadows.
It was terrifying. The notion that he was standing there and she was being watched and didn't know it. That the horror had already begun and she didn't yet know.
It was eerie as all hell, but it was subtle. It set up the entire unease of the movie.
And the sound, OH GOD THE SOUND! It was the most amazing horror scoring. The Sound effects where impeccable. There was one point when Liv Tyler was hiding in the back yard and there was this sound like a metal garbage can being dragged across concrete, in that situation it was absolutely bone chilling.
I just don't think a lot of directors have the patience to write a horror movie like that anymore, mostly because I don't think a lot of audiences have the patience for horror like that anymore, which is sad.
One of the things that I actually didn't like about the movie, but was easy for me to overlook in the bigger picture was the fact that it starts off with a whole prologue about how it is"Based on true events". Now whatever, this may be true, this may not be true. There is no law against slapping on a "Based on true events" label when something isn't, but I haven't found any real evidence of this being a true story. A lot of people online say that it is loosely based on the Manson family murders, but that would sort of go against the point because people who really do know about those murders know that they weren't really as "random" as people think they were. And the prologue, as well as what is being shown in the commercials, claims that what this is based on happened in 2005.
But anywho. My real point is that there have been a lot of horror movies that have been tacking on a "Based on true events" label. Correct me if I am wrong but I believe even the remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes both have claimed to be true stories. And yes we obviously all know that Leatherface is loosely based on Ed Gein and the feral family in Hills is loosely based on the story of Sawney Bean and his clan, which is debatable as being true in of itself. But once again both of the remakes I recall claiming that such things happens much more recently than either of the incidents they are based on.
So why the deception? Why stretch the truth? Does tricking you into thinking it really happened make it more terrifying? Is it like I said before that the reality of the thing makes the fear greater?
I think I am going to leave this blog with that question for you guys and come back and do a follow up specifically on that topic. So gimme your opinions, is truth scarier than fiction?

P.S. I know I got way off track with this blog. My original point, go see The Strangers.