Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 15, 2008, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Writer/director Bryan Bertino doesn’t talk about what happened after the production of his debut feature The Strangers on its Universal Studios DVD edition, but if he did, he might relate a tale of nail-biting suspense equivalent to anything in the movie. Delayed a full year, and then sent into theaters in the midst of a busy summer season (a period that has proven fatal to numerous fright flicks this decade), The Strangers persevered and became a surprise hit, making the cinema scene a little bit safer for R-rated horror. And it did so not by gratuitously pushing the boundaries of that rating, but by telling a basic, character-oriented story that doesn’t pull its punches at the key moments when the going gets rough.
Even before their terrorization by a trio of masked intruders at a remote vacation house, James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) are already in the midst of an emotionally stressful situation, thanks to a marriage proposal that didn’t elicit the response James had hoped for. There’s a quiet maturity to the way Bertino and cast handle the early scenes in which the couple deals with the aftermath of that rejection—until there’s a knock at the door in the middle of the night, and things go from bad to very, very worse. Isolated from any hope of assistance, James and Kristen are forced to deal with a malevolent assault that is as relentless as it is inexplicable. “Dollface” (Gemma Ward), “Man in the Mask” (Kip Weeks) and “Pin-Up Girl” (Laura Margolis) don’t have robbery in mind; they simply seem to be tormenting the helpless pair because they’re there.
For a first-time filmmaker, Bertino demonstrates a sure hand a building tension and timing the jolts that pay it off. There are moments where the endpoints of suspense sequences can be seen coming, and, as in all films like this, points where the viewer might question the rationality of James and Kristen’s actions. In large part, however, their behavior is entirely believable as that of people under extreme stress, and like all good movies of this type, The Strangers will have you putting yourself in their places, wondering how you might deal with a similar situation. With such an identifiably realistic basis, Bertino proves you don’t need extreme torture to get under an audience’s skin, and raises hackles simply via a skipping old-time record or a face-shrouded figure slowly creeping in from the background. Peter Sova’s cinematography is a significant asset, combining the jittery use of widescreen (where something scary might slip into the edges of the frame at any time, and frequently does) from Halloween and the handheld grit of Them (Ils), two of The Strangers’ most direct forebears.
His images are given their full due in the DVD’s 2.35:1 transfer, and just as importantly, the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround audio—threatening noises coming at James, Kristen and the viewer from all directions, combined with a truly creepy score by tomandandy—is fully and frighteningly immersive. The disc includes the theatrical cut as well as a two-minutes-longer version that’s “Unrated With More Pulse Pounding Terror,” though it contains only a pair of added scenes. One is a quick bit in which James fruitlessly attempts to get a car started in an attempt to escape, and the other is a two-minute addendum to the conclusion. It can’t be discussed in any detail without giving away significant plot points, but suffice to say that it adds just a brief, largely superfluous frisson to the ending, rather than the aforementioned “Pulse Pounding Terror.”
The deleted scenes visible separately among the extras also amount to just two: a bit more of a flashback to the couple in happier times earlier in the day, and a dramatically meaty exchange between the two in the midst of their plight, which might have tempered the pacing but adds a little extra depth to their characters. The only other supplement is a nine-minute making-of segment that packs in enough cool details—about the complete house mockup constructed in a warehouse, the use of on-set, prerecorded sound FX that kept Tyler convincingly freaked out during shooting and the creation of the sparing but grisly special makeup—to make one wish we got more of them, either in a full-length documentary or a commentary. Bertino’s a well-spoken guy, and both his achievement with The Strangers and the patience its release situation no doubt necessitated should have been rewarded with more speaking time.
