The Strangers |  | Director: Bryan Bertino
Actors: Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler, Gemma Ward, Glenn Howerton, Kip Weeks
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $12.98
Buy Used: $0.81
as of 2/10/2010 08:59 EST details
You Save: $12.17 (94%)
New (32) Used (98) Collectible (2) from $0.81
Seller: superpawn
Rating:  178 reviews
Sales Rank: 4707
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 86 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.7
MPN: 62033302
UPC: 025193330222
EAN: 0025193330222
ASIN: B001D2WU9I
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: October 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
A lean, briskly paced and exceptionally creepy thriller, The Strangers earns its scares the old-fashioned way: through atmosphere, sound design, and a simple yet undeniably upsetting central premise that allows for maximum tension throughout its running time. Attractive young lovers Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are already having a bad day--she's turned down his marriage proposal--before a knock on the door in the middle of the night announces a full-fledged siege on their remote vacation home by a trio of masked assailants. The film's first third delivers the most consistent shivers as the visitors make their presence and intentions known to Tyler; the second half grows more frantic and bloody before a gruesome finale that may leave viewers either rattled to their core or bothered by its empty nihilism. Speedman is fine as the downtrodden male lead (who's seen tucking into a carton of ice cream after being rejected), but it's Tyler who impresses the most by shouldering the lion's share of the terror. First-time writer/director Bryan Bertino impresses by forsaking the current passion for over-the-top violence (save for the finale) in favor of more traditional means of generating fear, and if his project borrows heavily from other films, most notably the French chiller Them (which shares its "inspired by a true story" origin) and Michael Haneke's Funny Games, at least he's taking from the best. The sound design is among the many technical standouts, and the unsettling score by tomandandy (The Hills Have Eyes) pleasantly evokes Ennio Morricone's fuzztone-heavy work for Dario Argento in the early '70s. On a completely unrelated note, LP fanatics should appreciate how both the film's heroes and villains share an affinity for folk and country music on vinyl. --Paul Gaita
Product Description
A young couple staying at a summer retreat are faced with a night of psychological terror. As the night goes on the reality of what will come is more terrifying than anything both could have imagined. Inspired by true events Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 10/21/2008 Starring: Liv Tyler Scott Speedman Run time: 91 minutes Rating: R
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 178
 The Best Scary Movie February 7, 2010
Strenman
If you like to be scared, then you will love this movie. I suggest watching it without a pause, and probably best not to eat. Just sit back and get into the movie and it will take you for an exciting ride.
Could have been better, but could have been so much worse. December 11, 2009
Robert P. Beveridge (Cleveland, OH)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Strangers (Bryan Bertino, 2008)
I know it's not a rational thing to consider where The Strangers is concerned, given that the movie was written in the early 2000s (according to IMDB, it was written two years before the release of Ils, to which it is often compared; that would put the writing date at 2003), but I kept thinking to myself that this is basically a remake of Funny Games that was released in the same year as Haneke remade his own movie for an American audience. Yes, there are some surface differences between the movies (and I do mean surface, e.g. the terrorists in this movie wear masks, where Haneke's don't), but the movie gives so many nods to Funny Games that it can't be a coincidence. I should probably give Bertino props for the subtlety of some of those nods (for example, the use of dissonant music that doesn't fit with the rest of the soundtrack; Haneke drops Boredoms into the main title of his 1998 flick, while Bertino tosses in a wonderful bit of Joanna Newsom), but it kept bringing home the similarity underlying the two movies. I can't imagine either Bertino or Haneke knew they would be releasing their two films so closely together, and it's not like this sort of Hollywood anti-magic doesn't happen on a regular basis (think Red Planet and Mission to Mars being released a month or so apart in 2000, for example), but the whole time I was watching this movie, fairly or not, I was comparing it not to Ils, but to the 1998 version of Funny Games. (I haven't seen Haneke's 2008 remake yet.)
If you've seen Funny Games, the plot of this flick will be very familiar to you; a couple, James (Underworld's Scott Speedman) and Kristen (The Lord of the Rings' Liv Tyler), are in their remote vacation house when they are terrorized by a band of thugs (supermodel Gemma Ward, Glory Road's Kip Weeks, and Dirty Sexy Money's Laura Margolis). The rules of this game seem simple enough: get out of the house or die.
It's not a bad movie, especially the first half; Bertino understands, as few American directors in the Hollywood machine do, that atmosphere and character are two of the key components you need to work with if you're going to scare the living daylights out of your audience. And the first half of this movie does achieve fat stacks of scary, as the terrorists don't actually do anything other than stuff that can still be (kind of) construed as harmless. (This is the major way in which the movie does remind me of Ils; that's one of those movies where I was wondering whether anything was actually going to happen right up until it did.) Once the terrorists ratchet up the terror, however, Bertino himself seems to lose his way, and the movie drives straight into cliché territory on one too many occasions. In the film's defense, Bertino does know how to take those clichés and make them effective in the scope of his film. Yes, every horror movie has that scene with the killer just suddenly appearing in the background without the characters noticing, and the disappearing again, but I haven't seen it done this effectively in a while. And I give Bertino major points for the terrorists' answer to Kristen's repeated "why are you here?" imprecation. (If you don't know the answer yet, I won't spoil it for you, but I think it's the worst-kept secret about this movie.) Yes, it's another of the movie's possibly-unconscious nods to Funny Games, but it still hasn't been used enough to not have power.
A couple more deviations from the norm and this could have been one of the best horror movies of the decade. As it is, it's still worth checking out, but it's ultimately empty calories, especially if you're an aficionado of this kind of film. ** ½
Leave your lights on.... November 15, 2009
Kiki (Santa Barbara, California)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Based on true events", this film will keep you awake. There is nothing supernatural here...just a gruesome and taunting murder, and that is what is so scary about it. The masks were brilliant. I slept with the lights on for days.
 Modern Horror Film in the Classic Style November 6, 2009
C. Clay (St Paul Minnesota)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The Strangers reminds me of the basic horror movie, and that's a good thing. Think of the original Halloween from 1979. Imagine 2 people intending to enjoy a romantic evening in a home alone, far from civilization in the countryside. Now add a marraige proposal gone wrong, and well, neighbors who would prefer you not be around. With the premise of a simple home, this film weaves in classic scary elements. It appears to sample other horror movies, including the "closet scene" from Friday the 13th (the original 1980 version), and elements of The Shining (also from 1980). There is a fair amount of blood and gore, but not what is commonly seen in most modern horror movies. Like the classic films, it has elements that makes you scream out to the characters in the movie. How anyone could possibly rate this a 1-star movie is beyond me. My young friend jumped on multiple occasions, so if you want to be scared, watch this film.
 A very strange film indeed October 31, 2009
Sebastian Sanjurjo (Miami FL)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1I3J6FITA146S
Showing reviews 1-5 of 178
|
|
|
