STRANGERS, THE - Blu-ray review

"The Strangers" writer and director Bryan Bertino worked as a gaffer in Hollywood before gaining recognition for his horror story script which is supposedly based on true events. While the transpired events was centered around a stranger knocking on his door as a youth and the murderous elements purported to be based upon the Manson family murders, "The Strangers" is an inventive little comedy that can be applauded for tinkering with the horror genre and providing a mildly amusing film on a relatively limited budget of roughly nine million dollars. While I dare call "The Strangers" a good film, Bertino shows hints of talent in his freshmen turn as film director as the former electrician moves away from gore and tries to inject more terror into his film than horror.

In "The Strangers," nearly forgotten Liv Tyler stars in her highest profile role since the Peter Jackson "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and the decade old "Armageddon" from 1998. Relatively unknown Scott Speedman stars alongside Tyler and masked supporting actors rounds out the thin cast of eight. Tyler's role is that of Kristen McKay and Speedman portrays her boyfriend James Hoyt. The film's beginning title card states "On the night of February 11, 2005 Kristen McKay and James Hoyt went to a friend's wedding reception and then returned to the Hoyt family summer home. The brutal events that took place there are still unknown." This pair of sentences is where ‘based upon a true story' is completely false, but you can't exactly make a film on the premise of empty houses being robbed.

Providing more detail than the opening moments of the film, "The Strangers" finds Kristen and James coming home on very uneasy terms. Apparently, Kristen rejected James wedding proposal and the two are unsure of how to continue with their relationship. The summer home was adorned and prepared for celebration, but only loneliness, heartbreak and a stranger that comes knocking on the door in the middle of the night looking for somebody that does not live there await James and Kristen. James leaves to take a drive, clear his mind and pick up cigarettes for Kristen. Meanwhile, a trio of masked strangers begins to terrorize Kristen and force her into a state of panic as she waits for James to return to what is no longer a happy home.

The first half of the film is relatively pedestrian and uses the tension between the lead characters to build suspense. Once the mysterious stranger begins to knock on the door, Bertino introduces layers of terror to supplant the tension between the former lovers. "The Strangers" isn't about gore and death count as a very small number of people actually die in the film. There is some blood here and there, but most of the film's thrills come from forced point-of-view and the unknowing of what is going to happen next. This is a movie about two people being stalked in an isolated house and being terrorized by three complete strangers who hide their identity behind masks and have no readily apparent motive behind terrorizing the couple.

While "The Strangers" isn't as minimalist as on-screen action as "The Blair Witch Project," it is nothing like the formulaic horror film we've been subjected to over the past dozen years. The antagonists are visible throughout the film, but the audience is not able to fully keep track of their whereabouts. The main characters cannot find sanctity and safety in the ranch home and the late night invaders are shown to have made numerous entries into the house. Kristen and James have no safety and they are unprepared for what is happening to them. There is a lot of running, crawling and slowly evading capture or death and it is this constant attempt at escaping that provides the primary horror element that Bertino considers to be more terror than horror.

All of the crawling and failed escape while three crazed killers are toying with their prey is where the film begins to break down. It is quite apparent that the strangers mean to do harm to the couple. The strangers are shown in the house and in one instance one of the female strangers is shown directly behind a crawling Liv Tyler. Yet, the strangers show absolutely no haste or inclination to end the nightmare of the couple in a timely manner. All of this dilly dallying around becomes tedious and tiresome. Watching somebody slowly crawl away in terror gets mundane and dull after so many minutes on-screen and I found myself just hoping that one of the masked strangers would kill the character of Kristen before I had to endure more of her panic stricken flight to freedom.

"The Strangers" isn't all bad, but it is far from good. I did find myself feeling some of the tension as the film started to build to the point where the three strangers became a pivotal part of the story. I really didn't know where the film was going and what was going to unfold and that was unsettling. I didn't want Kristen to open the door and I hoped James would get back in time to protect the woman who broke his heart. Bertino succeeded in ramping up his story, but once the villains breeched the home's walls the story took too many missteps. When the chips hit the table and Bertino needed to introduce actual elements of terror to supplant the suspense of the early going, the story began to unravel. It began on the right foot with a nice style, but the substance just wasn't there. This was Bertino's first outing and for that I give him a barely passing grade.

Video:

Universal Pictures presents "The Strangers" in its theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The Blu-ray disc is mastered at 1080p resolution and uses the VC-1 codec to bring the picture to the small screen. With most of the film taking place at night and in poorly lit situations, I was surprised at how good the picture looks and just how strong the black levels are. There is a stunning amount of detail in this film and the picture holds up through the entire experience. I'm going to be completely honest and state that I can't think of any other film that is this dark and this detailed. Colors are dull by design and you'd be hard pressed to find anything other than a few rose petals that are brightly colored. There are tons of browns, blacks and off-whites in "The Strangers." The high level of detail is strongly aided by a very clean set of source materials. There isn't a blemish to be found and I'm still stunned at how incredible this low-budget film looks.

Audio:

Audio for "The Strangers" is delivered by an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that begins with a strong .1 LFE bass presence in the opening titles and then effectively uses its minimalistic sound to provide tension and this is most effective during the first half of the film. The heavy knocks on the door reverberate very nicely and you can hear things such as wind chimes in the distance. Screams and shrill sounds are terrifying in sound and that is impressive. There is a lot of depth to this mix and the soundtrack is as impressive as the film's visuals. The musical score by Tomandandy is very effective and carries through all channels to add even more character to the film. While the story isn't all that impressive, the sound quality is and part of my enjoyment of the film definitely stems from the sound design.

Extras:

The packaging states that "The Strangers" is really "2 Movies in 1" and this references the fact that the Blu-ray disc contains the Unrated Extended Edition of the film and the Theatrical Version. Upon booting the disc, a menu is provided to select either version of the film, but the interactive menu allows you to switch at your convenience after making this selection. There is roughly five minutes of additional footage and the only thing I could find during a cursory search was additional footage near the ending. I won't spoil what I found. The disc is also equipped with BD-Live functionality, and will allow for downloading of trailers and other promotional footage. I admittedly have not had much luck with the BD-Live and am beginning to miss the way HD-DVD handled this type of content.

The film itself has two bonus materials attached to the disc. The first are two Deleted Scenes. "James Reflects at the Bar" (2:38) finds the lead character having more hard ships at the fact that his girlfriend rejected his marriage proposal and I'm assuming this took place before they came home. "Bathroom Discussion" (2:13) spends a little more time between the main characters once they got home from the wedding reception. The quality of these scenes is quite bad and looks like it came from a VHS tape. Finally, The Elements of Terror (9:18) is a promotional fluff piece that tries to push the new ‘terror' approach to the genre and tries to advertise the film as being far more capable and original than it really is.

Closing:

The best part of "The Strangers" is how incredible it sounds. The director and his team of sound editors and designers have crafted together one of the best sounding horror films ever. The visuals are also very impressive given the low lighting. This is a tour-de-force in audio and visual presentation and that about makes up for the shortcomings in the story. There aren't many bonus materials to add to the value and given the ‘middle-of-the-road' nature of the film, this is one of those titles that is hard to recommend as a purchase. However, if you love horror films and have a home theater setup that can produce killer sound, then "The Strangers" might just be worth checking out. I fell in love with the sound of this film, but not the film itself. I give it a passing grade, but not by much.