Creeptober Day 12: The Strangers (2008)
Day 12 of Creeptober is all about tension and suspense.
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We picked The Strangers (2008) for day twelve of Creeptober because it is perfect for the Halloween season. For one thing, it’s about people in masks knocking on doors (and getting a lot more violent after that). It is also an unrelentingly tense movie from start to finish. So if you’re looking for something unnerving to get you ready for Halloween night, look no further than The Strangers.
Read on for our thoughts on The Strangers as well as a recap of the movie, and join the conversation on our Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram!
Reacting to The Strangers
For years now (16 years, since I’m pretty sure I saw The Strangers in theaters) I’ve proclaimed that The Strangers is one of the best modern horror movies. I remember it being fantastic, and I recommend it often.
I’ve seen it multiple times, but it had been a few years since I’d watched it last. After so much time, I was eager to see if my thoughts would change. Could I still stand by the bold statements I make about it? After watching it again for Creeptober, I am happy to say that I do still feel the same. The Strangers is a near-perfect exercise in creating suspense. It is a movie that uses the entirety of its run time to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, anxious, and tense. It grabs a hold of the audience and never lets go. I love it, and this Creeptober viewing reminded me that I should watch it more often.
I did see the remake released earlier this year, The Strangers: Chapter 1. I didn’t hate it, but having that movie in recent memory highlights how masterful Bryan Bertino—the writer and director of The Strangers (2008)—is with suspense and horror. The long moments of silence are excruciating, but the cacophony of sound is even worse. There’s no time to relax, because both extremes are used so well throughout the movie.
One of the smartest things in The Strangers is that the main characters are sympathetic from the moment we first see them, but there’s almost no moment in the movie when they aren’t tense. Beginning with a failed marriage proposal is a superb idea that gets the audience on their side right away, but it also puts them in a position of conflict immediately. Again, there’s no time in the movie when the audience feels okay. It’s always a bad time, and that’s why The Strangers is so good.
I know with some of these Creeptober reactions I’ve talked about my personal nitpicks and preferences with some of the movies, but I don’t have anything but praise for The Strangers. For what it tries to achieve, it succeeds on every level. I actually looked up negative reviews to see what people who don’t like it have to say, and none of the reasons I came across are convincing. There’s no need to justify an opinion, but a lot of things people complain about—the pace, not explaining motives, the decisions characters make—are all good in my opinion. It’s not perfect, and it’s not my favorite movie ever, but it’s in the conversation for best movie its type, and it lands somewhere in my absurdly long list of favorite horror movies. And now I want to go watch it again.
The Strangers – A Recap
The Strangers begins with text and narration telling us that what we are about to see is inspired by true events. We are informed that on February 11, 2005, a man and a woman suffered a brutally violent crime. The exact story of what happened that night is unknown. We are then shown clips of a wrecked house while we listen to a 911 call describing blood everywhere.
Flashing back, we are introduced to a couple, Kristen McKay and James Hoyt. They are staying together at a summer home owned by James’s family, which is the same house shown in the opening scene of the movie. The two of them are in an awkward place emotionally because, earlier in the evening, Kristen turned down James’s marriage proposal. It is currently very early in the morning—it’s still dark outside—and they have just returned to the house after a wedding reception where the failed proposal took place.
Suddenly, someone knocks on the door. When James answers, he sees a young woman whose face is obscured by shadows. She asks, “is Tamara here?” James says no, and the woman walks away. James and Kristen think the situation is weird, but they don’t pay any more attention to it. After a while, James leaves to go for a drive and get cigarettes. While Kristen is alone, the shadowy young woman returns. Kristen begins to get nervous, and she experiences a series of disturbances that increase in intensity. She finally realizes that someone has entered the house.
James returns, and he downplays Kristen’s concerns at first. It isn’t long before he too is confronted with the truth. Three strangers wearing masks are tormenting James and Kristen. The knocking and banging that they do to scare the couple escalates, leading to direct confrontations as time passes. James finds his father’s gun, but he accidentally shoots his friend Mike, mistaking him for an intruder. Distraught, James attempts to get to a radio in a barn near the house, but it leads to him getting captured by the strangers. Kristen is also captured shortly after.
Kristen and James wake up side by side, each of them tied to a chair. When Kristen asks why they are doing this, one of the strangers answers, “because you were home.” The strangers remove their masks and repeatedly stab James. Kristen is also stabbed as the scene cuts away. Two boys going door to door passing out religious pamphlets encounter the strangers as they drive away in a truck. As the strangers move on, the boys discover the crime scene inside the house. As one of the boys approaches Kristen, she opens her eyes and screams.
Keep Up with Creeptober!
- The entire list of 31 movies is here: Join Us for Creeptober: 31 Horror Movies in 31 Days
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