How about 'dem STRANGERS?

THE STRANGERS

Real quick admission: I'm not a very big fan of the horror genre. And that's kind of ironic coming from me, the guy who always mentions murder or death or dismemberment on average of every 1.3 seconds. I don't know. They just aren't for me. I enjoy a severed head or forcible eye removal as much as the next guy, don't get me wrong. I just don't like horror films that much in general. They're often poorly made, financially and structurally; they rarely ever scare me and they're all derivative of each other. Many of them are born out of pure indulgence and exploitation. Honestly, I find most of them insulting in just about every way: Ethically, socially, narratively and artistically...if there is any art to mine from them whatsoever. And many of them are highly misogynistic in nature and those who have known me for some time know that I have nothing but respect for women....


Of course this doesn't mean that there aren't some gems out there. I love Romero's DEAD series. PSYCHO is in the top 20 list of greatest films of all time catalog. ALIEN remains one of my top 10 favorite movies ever made. Raimi's EVIL DEAD trilogy...three words: BRUCE FUCKIN' CAMPBELL. The original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is a meticulous blend of intentional (and unintentional) dark humor and the macabre. Most other horror films I could care less about.


It is admittedly my least favorite genre of motion pictures, hands down. Though, then again, of every genre of film, horror has the most sub-genres: Body horror, psychological horror, horror-thriller, monster horror, giant monster horror, slasher horror, comedy-horror, torture porn horror (i.e.: death of cinema), etc. My favorite, I guess, would have to be the psychological horror sub-genre. It's the only sub-genre with a sense of sophistication and class, where as the others are mostly about knives-in-the-foreheads and loose women who show us their naughty bits.


And what the shit is all of this torture porn shit? "Hey, let's just cut people to bits and show an incessant amount of gore for no reason!!!!!" It defeats it's purpose: First of all, violence in film has grown so extreme over the years that we've all grown de-sensitized to it. Secondly, we have a little organization in the states called the MPAA (aka pretentious cocksuckers).


Their job is to view and subsequently stamp the movie with an initial to relegate it's release to the intended audience. That means...and I'm talking to you, ya self-indulgent, amateur hack directors, that any "shocking" or "traumatizing" violence would not make it past the censors and it has to be trimmed down or eliminated from the film altogether. And's it is not scary. What's the purpose of creating stark, "graphic" violent films if they aren't at least mildly humorous or entertaining? MUTILATION NOT AS FRIGHTENING AS WHAT CAUSES HUMAN BEINGS TO COMMIT ACTS LIKE THESE.


Actually, you know where torture porn comes from? It's a gathering of burnt-out, movie screenwriters/producers/directors (who may or may not possess a collective IQ that ranges low into the double-digits) sitting around a glass coffee table, cutting up an 8-ball into tiny lines, snorting those lines of yayo and then coming up with the most "creative" ways to kill people off.


I'd go so far as to say that looking at the piss-poor quality of them, the only "shock value" to be derived is having to acknowledge that they were actually made by human hands.


Saw, Hostel, that remake-of-the-week shit. Garbage. All of 'em. Not one good thing can be said about any of these films, whatsoever. Irredeemable in every way possible.


So how was THE STRANGERS?


Ho. Lee. Shit.


This film is getting mixed to mostly bad reviews. And to the snobby, elitist critics who are completely panning it from head to toe, to you I say: Fuck you, and yo' mama. While it is certainly far from a perfect film, any professional critic with an iota of credibility will at least admit that this is a well made film, especially for a first time director. This is a great debut film, I look forward to seeing what other movies he has in store for us. The man clearly has talent for building tension and suspense and he has a wonderful eye for detail. It actually feels like a motion picture, not just an exercise in self-indulgence.


The basis of most horror films are like this: Protagonists (often unlikable assholes...keep this in mind; it comes in later) go somewhere. Add supernatural/psychotic/alien element that hunts them down and kills them all off, leaving one alive so they can run around like a horse's ass and send us on our way home so we can write a letter to the studio demanding our money back. THE STRANGERS is no different, just without the demand for a refund, okay? We need more movies like this. So write a letter to the CEO of whatever-the-fuck company made this film and tell him we need more like them. Just trust me on this. I said it so it has to be true.


Many of them are cautionary tales. Messages vary from: "Hey, don't be a dick or some maniac will cut your head off" to "Hey, don't be a dick or a monster will eat your head." What can I say? The horror genre is a versatile one. And if THE STRANGERS could be seen as a cautionary tale, its message is this:


"YOU SHOULDN'T SMOKE. IT MAKES YOU A DICK. PLUS, IF YOU SMOKE, OR LEAVE YOUR HOUSE LATE AT NIGHT TO PICK UP SMOKES, THREE MASKED MANIACS WILL COME TO YOUR HOUSE, BANG ON YOUR DOOR ASKING FOR SOME GIRL WHO DOESN'T EXIST AND PROCEED TO TORMENT YOU UNTIL DAWN ."


This film was a bit more expansive on the themes of comeuppance. I don't know. That's the way I saw it, at least.


In other horror films, you want these people to get sliced the fuck up. Doesn't matter the sin: Fuckers, drinkers, stoners, smokers, etc. Whatever the sin is, they're gonna be punished for it 'cause to Hollywood, murder is a victimless crime. And it's goddamn great entertainment. Watching unlikable people hit the bucket is a universal fantasy, one we sadly can't live out in real life 'cause modern day forensics are so advanced we'd eventually go to jail for commiting these acts, regardless of how meticulous we'd be carrying them out. And it's a damn shame, really. The government has sucked all the fun out of life, I tell ya.


That's not THE STRANGERS. From the very get-go, there is a tension and atmosphere not inherent in many other horror films. This film builds upon it's characterizations by injecting raw emotion instead of cheap plot devices to make these victims appear to be more than one-dimensional. Instead of wishing them harm to appease our sadistic fantasies, it puts us in their shoes and we begin to root for them to survive. It's a psychological horror film; one that draws on the, "bump-in-the-night" aspect of fear and it's highly effective.


The cinematography is stunning. The "kitchen" scene (you've seen it in the trailer and commercials I'm sure) had the audience screaming unlike anything I've ever seen before in my life. For one thing, what makes this scene so frightening is that the perpetrator of terror (killer, for short) is a bit obscure, out of focus. But when I heard the screaming I thought there was a cobra or some shit loose in the theater and it was slithering up and down the aisles but then I looked harder to see what was going on and I saw that it was some dude in a cheap Scarecrow-wannabe costume chilling out, stalking an unsuspecting Liv Tyler from a distance as she smoked a cigarette in her kitchen. To each their own, I guess.


When I saw the trailer attached to DOOMSDAY and this scene in the trailer flashed on-screen....well. I'm not one to get frightened, scared or spooked very easily. While I thought it was a brilliant scene in the way it was shot and put together, it pissed me off 'cause I was there to see a movie about Rhona Mitra's sports bra, not nearly piss myself in a crowded theater.


Well, it's three in the morning, I can't cut and paste this shit to my computer, so...I'm gonna wrap it up real quick. Plus, I'm not used to making positive comments about anything or anybody whatsoever, so maybe I should just stick with what I know.


In a nutshell, here is the rest of the review I was intending to write but I passed out instead:


Watch for the cameo of Dennis from IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA as the victim of a shotgun blast to the face; his career is going places...The end sucks...alot of buildup with no genuine pay-off...dialogue and performances are good but the director and screenwriter clearly didn't know how to wrap up his story so several instances of deus ex machina plagued the film towards the anti-climatic finale...not alot of blood...it is scary...it builds upon the tension real well...the "strangers" are menacing and grounded in reality...evidently they were students at the same ninja university Bruce Wayne attended in BATMAN BEGINS...The first and second appearance of The Scarecrow-poser are both frightening, even if one of them is predictable...Editing: Good...Cinematography: Fan-fuckin'-tastic...Would've been nice to have had a theme as the glue of every movie is the theme...Skipping record player was a nice, haunting touch...could become a classic in a few years...undeniably a better definition of horror than that gay-ass torture porn shit...I won't sleep for a week I'm so scared...yada, yada, yada.


So until next time: Fuck you, yo' mama, etc. I'm tired.


--Don't die in a fire.--


RFB