Today I went to see The Strangers with Martin. It was a suspense filled roller coaster ride that bubbled just under the surface.
But like Diet Coke and bacon, it just didn't seem to fit the complete bill. It reminded me of The Blair Witch Project.
BWP scared a lot of people. Not me. It had great viral marketing that made lines of people show up. It had a great back story. It had great specials on SciFi TV. But all in all it sucked. It required the viewer to be scared of the dark in order to engage in the spookiness. It requires us to be terrified of camping in the woods. I just never bought into it.
HOWEVER, BWP did have one of the spookiest things I've ever seen in a movie. It almost rates up there with the glowing red eyes in the original Amityville Horror (you know the remake was just about watching Ryan Reynolds with his shirt off, right?). The last two minutes of the Blair Witch Project scared the bejesus out of me, and I will always remember that. I am just sorry I had to sit through 9 hours of movie to get to the last two minutes.
How does that relate to The Strangers? I'm going to try to do this without a spoiler, but I might accidentally cross that line, so too bad – you have been warned. Somewhere in the middle of the film, while the two people are still alive, a third friend enters the house. He's not a stranger (and he's kind of hot). The scene that ensues from there had me on the edge of my seat. It had me completely engaged in the movie, right where the director wanted me to be. I knew what was coming and I was powerless to do anything about it. And yet it was still a surprise.
That particular part of the film was worth the price of admission. But like BWP, you had to sit through a lot of boring stuff to get there. The sad part was the money shot on BWP was at the end, so you got to get up and stumble out of the theatre in a daze (reinforcing the spookiness for the people outside who hadn't seen it yet). In The Strangers, that intense scene is in the middle. So you still have thousands of pages to go once it's over.
ewww. I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone.
2 Comments
That sounds decidedly less than "average."
the eye candy brought it back up to average. so you can tell, it must've been *some* eye candy.