The Strangers Prey At Night Review (Film, 2018) #31DaysofHorror
content warning: gore, violence against women, violence against children
A family travels to a trailer park owned by their relatives. They’re preparing to settle their teenage daughter into boarding school to help her improve her behavior. Too bad the Strangers are prowling the grounds and they choose to open the door.
The Strangers Prey At Night is the long-awaited sequel to the breakout home invasion horror film The Strangers. It’s one of those simple horror film concepts that shook up what was commercial in the industry. A trio of masked strangers randomly walk up to a remote house in the middle of the night. A young woman knocks on the door, waits for someone to answer, asks for someone she knows isn’t there, and walks away. That’s all the invitation they need to get into the house and torment the residents until they ultimately take their lives.
The difference in The Strangers is one of intention. Writer/director Bryan Bertino put so much effort into developing the characters who would be stalked that you are invested in their survival long before the first scare happens. This is especially important since The Strangers pulled from the hidden in plain sight style of scares. You’d watch a scene of everyday life happen where the only thing wrong was a person in a mask standing perfectly still in the corner of a room they should have never been in, waiting to be noticed.
The Strangers Prey At Night is no exception to this formula. Bertino returns as a screenwriter, joining director Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) and writer Ben Ketai (Beneath) for the sequel. We learn everything about this new family that is going to be victimized by the Strangers. The Strangers behave in the same way, leaving messages and toying with their targets long before they start to strike.
The sequel adds some interesting new layers to the formula. There’s a cold open showing off another set of victims right when the attack starts. The family arrives much later than expected, meaning the killers with the motivation of “because you answered the door” are already attacking. Right before their nightmare starts, the teenage daughter and son find the mangled corpses of their relatives who own the trailer park. Soon, everywhere they turn has evidence of an attack. The Strangers have only gotten bolder in the 10 years since we last saw them.
A lot can happen in decade of horror. In 2008, a home invasion film like The Strangers could only be so gory and aggressive. While there was blood, it was largely a psychological horror film with very few direct attacks shown onscreen. The success of The Strangers can be linked to a rise in psychological home invasion/torture hybrid films like The Purge and You’re Next that only grew bolder over time. The Strangers Prey At Night comes out of the gate with the knife already brandished and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
The Strangers Prey At Night makes smart choices for a sequel so long after the original film. It does not attempt to continue the original story in a linear way. It takes the concept and the villain design and tells a brand new story. Fans of the original will recognize the masks and mayhem, while viewers going in cold will have a brand new story in the same universe that doesn’t depend on watching one specific film for context.
The Strangers Prey At Night is streaming on SyFy and available to rent on all digital platforms.
