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Capone Recommends Hanging Out With THE STRANGERS!!
Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
If you believe Hollywood these days (and why the hell wouldn't you?), then America's number one fear is not terrorists or space monsters or the living dead or any number of natural disasters. Nope, Mr. and Mrs. Average Joe's top fear is a random act of violence perpetrated against them either while they're on a road trip/vacation or in their own home. This isn't exactly news.
Films like THE HILLS HAVE EYES and even THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE cover the worst of what can happen while you're exploring this great land of ours. While more recent films like HIGH TENSION and FUNNY GAMES have explored more homegrown fear mongering. Last year, a truly terrifying (and largely bloodless) French film called THEM was released in this country, and it scared the wee-wee out of me. Later this summer, a movie called BAGHEAD analyzes these kinds of horror films in a fairly unique manner. The new film THE STRANGERS (said to be based on a true story) is cut from the same cloth as these works: a couple ends up in a isolated cabin in the woods, are practically scared to death by noises and lights and attempt to fight back and/or escape.
A movie about the prospect of a home invasion is hardly a new concept, but there is something darker, colder and more sinister about this new crop. These killers aren't evil monsters; they are just normal people, bored and looking for something to do. They are Class A assholes, to whom motivation means nothing. Their motivation is that they feel like it, and what could be scarier than that?
THE STRANGERS follows James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) who have just had a terrible evening at a wedding reception and seem on the verge of breaking up. They just begin to discuss their problems when a knock comes at the door. They answer it, and a young woman whose face is obscured by the dark asks "Is Tamara there?" They tell her she has the wrong house and send her on her way. Speedman leaves to buy cigarettes, and then the knocking starts again; other sounds also come from inside and outside the house and by the time he returns, Kristen is a nervous wreck.
Soon we begin to see figures and masked faces. Since I didn't know exactly how this story would play out, it did cross my mind that these three offenders were simply trying to scare the crap out of this helpless couple, but we don't get off that easily. Speedman and Tyler are both good-looking, but more importantly, they're both decent actors who never let us doubt for a second that these two are scared and confused as to why they were picked and how this evening will play out for them. First-time feature director Bryan Bertino impressed the hell out of me with the tools he uses to build tension. Sure, sometimes the evildoers seem to know a little too well what the couple's next move is going to be, but most of the time, the story seems far too plausible and the scares are well earned.
I'm not sure THE STRANGERS qualifies as a cautionary tale, since neither of these victims could be accused of doing anything that could be called "risky behavior." If anything, the film's message could be that it doesn't matter how safely you lead your life, or how much money you have or don't have or how many resources you have at your disposal because your life is just as easy to fuck with as anybody else's. The world isn't necessarily a dangerous place; but it is a place where the worst kind of behavior is random. THE STRANGERS has its flaws, but they are small. And my only real rule when it comes to scary movies is that they must scare me. This one did, and it did it without tricks. I respect that, and recommend this very strong little thriller.
Capone
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Finally???
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I could have had my first first.
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I'll proably catch this film soon but I hope it's actually decent and not another shitfest that is neither scary nor interesting. Funny Games was an interesting film but at the same time I can't say it was all that profound, though it did manage to be tense. I haven't seen THEM yet so maybe I'll nab it as well but consider me skeptical regarding this one until I see it. It looks average. I hope I'm wrong.
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If that happened at my house those people would be DRT! (Dead Right There)
I guess it wouldn't make for a very long movie if the man of the house pulled out a assault rifle and mowed down the pricks trying to fuck with them though. -
Or they all pull off there masks and it is guys from Ocean's 13.
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This movie could have learned something from Maculey Culkin.
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How different is this from THEM? Besides the masks instead of hoodies?
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I thought they were Americanizing it. Is this the film?
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So its basically a remake of 'Ils' [Them] then ? Highly recommend the French version. 'Inside' is another French thriller/horror which is pretty terrifying. Will probably watch this 'Strangers' anyway, just so i can complain that its not as good as the original...
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nothing more creepy then people in store bought/hand made mask's
remind's me of a great 1970's low budget horror flick.hopefully go this weekend! -
. . . or at least on a higher level than all the other crap horror thrown our way these days. BUT, what's w/ the run time? It's not even an hour and a half. The admission should be reduced for that. Maybe they should play a short beforehand. How bout that killer doll from Trilogy of Terror or something?
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I'll be there this weekend.
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They say he keeps his home unlocked, his pets crated up, all rooms nice and tidy, and a fully stocked fridge and pantry. Oh yeah... there's a pool out back.
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keep that busted tee bitch's nipple hard constantly?
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There seem to be more and more of these unwelcome little red X's inplace of pictures at AICN. It's been going on for a while, and was most notable in the recent Watchmen posting, but can All Y'all at AICN figure out how to post pictures so that Internet Explorer can show them?
IE is only the most used web browser in the world. Yeah, yeah... buy a mac or use another web browser to visit AICN. Come on Harry and Co. Nealrly all of your avatars are little red X's! Even your animations show red X's sometimes.
Bitching complete. End of Line. -
May 30, 2008 11:17:24 AM CDT
I'm so excited by this ... then I see the dread words LIV TYLER
by jackrabbitslim
She is a vampire, sucking the pulsing lifeblood out of everything nearby, and not in a sexy-as-fuck-Vampyros-Lesbos way but in that atrocious acting kinda way. Shouldn't she be off giving her junkie daddy 3 sickly-sweet methadone shots a day or burning pictures of Royston Langdon or anything other than infecting innocent pieces of celluloid?
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Excellent Figure Skater.
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May 30, 2008 11:24:02 AM CDT
Good to hear they still make scary movies.
by stereotypical evil archer
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is I have this bizarre image of them at home practicing in their mask when there's a knock on the door and, forgetting to remove the head gear, is suddenly faced with the embarrassing situation of trying to explain to the Fed Ex guy exactly what the fuck he's doing.
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Are white businessmen. White businessmen are responsible for almost all murders that take place in the US. Don't take my word for it. Just watch a season of CSI or Law and Order.
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Me and my ol' lady fecently moved back to the U.S. after having spent the last two years living in a island nation in the west indies where the per capita homicide rate is consistently the highest in the western hemisphere. Crime was/is rampant and police corruption blatant. Let some little bored suburban douchebags fuck with a couple like me and mine in this type of fashion. They'd perish to the sound of their own limbs being hacked to pieces by machete and the smell of blood and mid-grade ganja in the air. Rodriquez could direct the screen-adaption: "Strangers come de wrong house, boi"
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this or Sex and the City?
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I will try out Firefox, but the point is, I shouldn't have to. I'm all for trying a new browser, but I'm not the only guy out there that see's little red X's everywhere I go on AICN.
But I just downloaded Firefox, so I'll let you know what I think. -
All the Rings and Grudges and Eyes and Signals, have killed my love of horror movies.
I just can't watch them anymore. -
I just had no time to watch it yet.
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DerLang, leave that DVD in the package. It has absolutely no tension, the guy acts like no guy would and the ending is retarded.
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Despite the obvious similarities, "The Strangers" is not an American re-make of "Ils/Them." Bryan Bertino is said to have finished the script over 2 years prior to "Them" being released. It's just a popular formula of the horror genre that seems to be seeing a resurrection in this current state of paranoia where every US citizen thinks their next door neighbor is either a terrorist, a homicidal maniac, or a pedophile. Or a homicidal terrorist maniac pedophile.
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...just go to the garage, get in their car and drive off? Or hell, call the cops? Oh yeah, I'm sure the car was tampered with and the phone lines were cut (like neither one of them would have cells). Lame.
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Now I MUST watch it, to see if you are right ;)
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Truly sick of slow-burn tension building horror films with 20 page scripts. If you have no dialogue then you had better be an incredibly damned good director to make a 90 second shot of someone walking up a dark hallway and unlocking a door interesting or supenseful. Followed with sitting on the couch reading a book for 2 minutes, getting up to close the window.
The french 'Inside' was the only good film of this style that ive seen in the last 5 years because it actually had a script and progressive plot. Plus it was sick as fuk. -
After discovering that he has watched every episode of Sex and the City. Seriously. From now on everything he writes is suspect.
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This looks to continue the trend. Looking forward to it.
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thus eliminating the cell phone issue.
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The trailers lead me to believe the director is very much on love with the original Halloween. The stalking and creeping in and out of the shadows. I love that. Also, the killers having no motivation at all. Awesome scary stuff. I wonder and hope that this film doesn't urn to torture porn and just does more Texas Chainsaw crap when the strangers confront the couple face to face on the couch.
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No way those brats would get such a calculated jump on that couple. It was like Solid Snake was terrorizing them.
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Hey I saw that you read IMDB as well. But since both Them and Strangers say, based on real life events are they both based on the same event? I remember Them talking about the real crime a little at the end and in the making of. Plus Olivia Bonamy > then Getting to Rehab waaaayyyy too late in life's Baby.
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Capone, that sounded like you were describing "Vacancy". A couple fighting. Knocks at the door. Then knocks from all over. Invasion. Exactly the same!!!
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...Y' see, Mrs. Buzz and I saw the previews before some film we saw. She asked me what I would do if the events in the trailer happened to us."Shoot 'em dead," I replied, which made the guy in front of us, who was about to tell us to shut up, turn back toward the screen."What if you couldn't reach your gun?" my wife asked.Now, that's not too likely if you know me at all, but it could happen. "I guess I'd beat them up.""All three of them? When they have knives and axes?""Well, if I was in the kitchen, we've got some big iron pots. In the dining room, one of our chairs could probably wipe out all three of them. In the living room, I'd got fireplace poker like Michael Keaton in BATMAN. How many baseball bats do the kids have now?"So my question is, why didn't the guy (and I guess Liv, if we're going to be all feminist about it, but in my experience, if yer in danger, chick's tend to want to hold onto your arm which impedes you from returning the danger to your dangerizer)just go Neandrathal on 'em?
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are tossed in the fire in the house, its in the trailer noobs, so obviously not the 70's and that answers that question, the car was probably disabled or some such
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I don't see any giant ants...
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It sucked hard. There was entirely no tension in that movie. It seemed like it wanted to shoot for a mix of supernatural tension and also wanted to be Haute Tension. But it sucked. On top of the complete utter lack of tension the characters were the epitome of one dimensional. You didn't give two shits about the stupid French chick or her lazy as fuck husband. The super low budget didn't help either. Her husband was such a pussy, especially when he (SPOILER) gets his hands smashed and kicked off the ladder by like a six year old child and dies. Really? You mean you couldn't take your hands being stomped on by like a 45 pound kid? Seriously my siblings at ages 10 and 12 have dolled out harsher beatings that I've laughed off, and I was younger and smaller than them. He also could've just freakin gone down a rung and survived. That's the kind of shit movie THEM was.
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But thanks for the review. Appreciate it.
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but without the movie parts?
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Some spoilers...The guy at first thinks they can be reasoned with. Doesn't know how many there are. Thinks they can escape instead of fighting. Then he has a good plan and carries it out...would have totally worked if not for a plot twist...puts him into a rage and goes on the hunt..the baddies are spread out in the woods in the dark and he doesn't know where they all are. You can't snake up on 3 people at once...he does a pretty good job at trying everything you could think of to escape, attack, or survive. He just doesn't have the upper hand.
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That's what I did. I walked right out of "the Strangers" and walked right into Indy to watch the last hour to clense my palate from this shit. Its the same goddamn thing for an hour straight (minus 20 minutes of bullshit, mopey domestic drama at the start) and the ending is needlessly sadistic, and basing it on "real events" (as the pompus intro goes) is fucking laughable. Trash. Indy and Iron Man were the only mainstream releases this May that didn't suck (however, they were both awesome enough to carry it). Here's hoping June is better.
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and High Tension proves to me that the French like their horror films with very sharp utensils and blood filled flesh. Ouch!
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That Mutt action figure staring me in the face is the scariest thing I've seen in years. Can't even portray bad-ass in plastic!!
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So this is Funny Games played straight, but with masks? No thanks, I have better uses for $10. I'm amazed that movie theaters are still in business.
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Look, I'm not saying no one should make these horror movies anymore, but for the love of god, do they make any good horror movies that don't leave you feeling complete despair by the end of the film? The original Halloween scared the hell out of me, but I didn't leave feeling like I wanted to kill myself. I had a good time. I don't understand how this horror has become so popular.
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takes me too long to go watch a 77 minute movie in a theater.
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May 30, 2008 8:19:23 PM CDT
Say what you like about the tenets of Nightmare on Elm St...
by ebonic_plague
...at least Freddy had an ethos.
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Then I am there. I can't wait for her in Hulk.
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Liv Tyler used her vagina dentata against them.
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I've been looking at waiting for a movie that actually scares me for years. This didn't scare me at all. I was actually pleasantly surprised that I cared about the two leads in the first half hour, but the rest of it was just cliched "scares" and nonsense. The ending was lousy, too. Another horror disappointment.
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nice.
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I thought it was a Scarecrow spin-off.
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Sucked!! The whole time I was watching this, I thought "Wow, I've seen all this before..."
What is this guy smoking? -
Because this sounds pretty similar. I was genuinely interested in 'games', but I've been burned by "horror" movies so many times, I almost never bother to see them in the theaters.
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Brunomac:
So, because this film is not "escapism" it is less worthwhile than "Speed Racer"? You have to be kidding. -
boring, slow, cheap "jump" scares that only work on idiots. don's see this crap
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*SPOILER: I was so pissed at the ending that I felt like someone had kicked me in the balls with a steel toed boot. They spend nearly the entire hour and twenty minutes making you care and fear for this charming/in-love couple only to shove their dismal, sad and tragic end right down your movie-going throat. After the immense Indy IV letdown, I'm taking a break (until Hulk, that is!!)
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last scene of the movie implies someone survives. This is only a theatre date movie because after seeing it I doubt any of the scares will transfer . The gun plan was smart . The plan after that the outside plan not so much. Once that incident happened the rest was sort of like watching a snuff film. The lack of plot and the ridiculous bit effective way the strangers kept getting in the house from a section with no doors too they kept getting in.
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I love the way you assocaite "man of the house" with owning a gun. If you're so habitually frightened that you keep an assault rifle then it pretty much disqualifies you from describing yourself as a "man".
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Strangers has one of the best posters for a movie yet. They could have a class about posters like that and why it works. I think it does a large part to help sell the movie. It's very creepy and very eery, and shocking actually. Cause this is a beautiful woman, and she's drenched in blood crawling on the floor obviously from something and for her life. It's really troubling poster. It makes me interested in watching the movie. Just for that alone.
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I am Dr. Remulak
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Every time I see a commercial on tv for a home alarm system, the intruder is always a clean cut white guy in a ski cap and black turtleneck. Stop the racism! No Justice, No Peace! Clean cut white guys in ski caps and black turtlenecks unite!!
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Is that the protagonists are generally mild mannered people, which is why the badguys can so easily take control.
You wouldn't see a movie like this with gun toting hillbillies or hood thugs as the protagonists. The whole point is baddies intruding upon a safe, complacent existence. -
= Flames on Optimus
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I'm SO tired of these kinds of horror films. Way back in a certain other decade, horror was imaginative and fierce, unforgiving and way-cool, with villains who were both frightening and iconic, indelible in our memories and bad dreams. We used to have the likes of Jason, Freddy, Michael Meyers, and Pinhead. And now what've we got? Nothing but a bunch of random shitheads who torture random people in various ways ... for no real reason. All of the above "Greats" of horror villainy had specific motives, specific modus operandi, and specific choices in victims. Nowadays, its all just about some random fuckhead torturing some other random fuckhead, and I couldn't care less about either of said fuckheads. What few "imaginative" horror films we've had have been nothing but "The Ring," "The Grudge," and "Final Destination" just rehashed and rehashed, over and over. So c'mon Hollywood. I want REAL horror back, with REAL villains and REAL victims with some actual, thought-out reasoning thrown in there too, if you can get off your fat, overpaid asses and perhaps -- just perhaps -- give money to filmmakers who know what the fuck they're doing. Over and out.
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Pretty people, Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale (kinda looks like Liv Tyler, but Kate's sexier.) -check
House/motel -check
Crazy multiple people trying to kill pretty couple -check
Screaming, trapdoors, mysterious entrances -check
Someone needs to be sued for plagiarism -
a tense and terrific little nail-biter. It's well acted and well made.
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That would be a good one.
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WATCH THE 2007 FOREIGN FILM "THEM". SAME EXACT PREMISE, BEAT BY BEAT, BUT WAAAAAY MORE COMPELLING, AND SCARY. HASN'T ANYONE CALLED FOUL ON "STRANGERS" RIPPING OFF FROM "THEM"?
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Only if you've never seen a "horror" movie before. The "scares" were cribbed from other movies. I predicted every minute of this. I jumped more at the high-pitched shrieking of the teeny-boppers three rows behind me than I did at each of these "scares."
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The facts don't support that. The Strangers screenplay was sold to Rogue Pictures in 2004. Writer was signed to direct in '06 and the film was completed in early '07. It was delayed in release for over a year. Strangers came first...and most likely, since the screenplay was used in writing competetions around '04, someone snagged a copy and THEM is likley a rip-off of The Strangers.
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didn't know that. though it it interesting to observe how the French just make things more intense. Alexandre Aja, for example, along with films like "THEM" and "BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF". the french can really make things really freaky and scary =0)
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It's an odd coincidence though...in the back of my mind I wonder if someone at Rogue or Universal didn't cook the timeline a bit to dispel any cries of stealing the plot from "Them"?
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Maybe you're going to have to reclarify that... I guess maybe you mean they're just plain CRAZY??? Anyway saw it tonight. It has its moments but I don't think anyone's missing anything...
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from someone who has seen this piece of shit, is the hook the same as THEM? someone just post a little spoiler message for me will ya?
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