The Strangers
Encyclopedia
The Strangers is a 2008 American horror film
written and directed by Bryan Bertino
, and starring Liv Tyler
, Scott Speedman
, Glenn Howerton
, Gemma Ward
, Laura Margolis, and Kip Weeks. The film revolves around a young couple who are terrorized by three masked assailants, who break into the remote summer home in which they are staying and damage all means of escape.
The Strangers was made on a budget of $9 million and after two postponements, was released theatrically on May 30, 2008 in North America
, and grossed $82.3 million at the box office worldwide. Although it was ambiguously marketed as being "inspired by true events", writer and director Bryan Bertino stated that the film was inspired by a series of break-ins that occurred in his neighborhood as a child, as well as some incidents that occurred during the Manson killings. Critical reaction to the film was mixed.
) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman
) return to a remote summer vacation home owned by James's parents after attending a friend's wedding reception
. He had just proposed to her there, but she refused. Shortly after arriving in the middle of the night, a young blonde woman (Gemma Ward
), whose face is obscured by low lighting, knocks on the front door asking for Tamara, but leaves after James and Kristen tell her she is at the wrong house.
A short while later, James leaves to get Kristen a pack of cigarettes, and the woman returns and begins to pound harshly on the front door. Kristen refuses to open up, locks all the doors, and tries to call James on her cell phone, which she discovers to be dead. She plugs it into the wall to charge near the fireplace and calls James on the house phone briefly before the line goes dead. She returns to the fireplace to retrieve her cell phone, but it has disappeared. Kristen then hears a noise coming from the back door. She grabs a large kitchen knife and opens the curtains, seeing a man wearing a sack mask over his head. Kristen screams and trips over a record player, and it begins to skip repeatedly. The front door then opens slightly, and Kristen peeks outside, only to see the blond woman in a Dollface mask. She slams and locks the door before going to hide in the bedroom. After yelling "go away," the noises eventually stop, at which point she hears footsteps coming from the hallway, which turn out to be from James. As she explains what happened while he was gone, he tries to calm her down.
She frantically explains to James that she saw a man in a mask, and heard loud banging noises. James is not worried about the incidents, thinking that they were caused by some teenagers fooling around. He goes outside to his car, whose tires have been slashed and its windshield smashed in. As he searches the car, someone touches his back, but runs away before he is able to turn around and see who it was. Once he turns back to the car, he looks up and sees Dollface, and asks her to leave. After she runs off, James persuades Kristen that they need to escape in their car.
As they are backing out of the driveway, a large truck pulls up behind them with its floodlights on, revealing another woman, this one wearing a Pin-up mask. After she smashes the truck into the couples' car, James and Kristen run back into the house, where they find the word hello written all over the window and wall in the bedroom. James searches for and finds his father's shotgun and shells. They decide to run for it. As the couple approach the front door armed with the gun, the Man in the Mask begins breaking down the door with an axe. Terrified, the couple block the door with a piano, and James attempts to shoot him, but misses. The couple decide to hole up in a closet, facing the open doorway with the shotgun armed and ready. They hear footsteps in the house, and one of the intruders puts on a country record.
James's friend, Mike (Glenn Howerton
), who James contacted earlier, arrives at the house in his car. When he tries to call James's cell phone, it goes straight to voicemail. But while he is leaving a message, a rock crashes through his windshield, prompting him to jump out of the car. Baffled, he notices country music playing loudly from the house. He steps onto the porch and fails to notice Dollface hiding in the shadows there before entering the house. As Mike walks down the hallway, the Man in the Mask appears behind him, holding up the axe. When Mike steps in front of the closet, James fires the shotgun, thinking it is one of the masked killers, and kills Mike by shooting him in the face. After James and Kristen realize they killed Mike, James remembers an old radio in the shed and says it is their only hope.
James leaves the house, promising Kristen that he will return in a few minutes, but Kristen decides not to wait for him to return, and leaves to go to the shed in the backyard. There, she finds the radio, which she uses to try and contact someone for help, but when she raises her voice, Pin-Up Girl appears and smashes the radio. Kristen returns to the house to look for James. As she walks down the hall, she hears a few keys being played on the piano, followed by footsteps, and the lights suddenly shut off. The Man in the Mask enters the hallway, but does not notice Kristen, as he is looking in the other direction. Kristen hides in the kitchen pantry while the man searches the hallway. He sits down at the table a few feet away from the closet before leaving the room. Kristen peers out of the closet, only to find the blond, masked woman staring back at her. The woman breaks the pantry door in, but suddenly stops. Kristen exits the closet to find the woman waiting for her with a knife. Kristen opens a kitchen drawer to arm herself as well when James is pushed into the house by the masked man, who now has the gun. When James tells Kristen to run, she sprints for the front door, only to find Pin-Up girl blocking her way. She runs into a bedroom and slams the door before attempting to escape through the window, and suddenly the lights come back on and the door swings open. Kristen walks back toward the hall to see who opened the door, when the Man in the Mask grabs her and throws her into the wall. Barely conscious, she is dragged down the hallway.
James and Kristen wake up the next day and find themselves tied to chairs in the living room while the three strangers stand over them. Before removing their masks, Pin-Up Girl walks into the kitchen and returns with a large knife. Kristen asks, "Why are you doing this to us?" and Dollface answers, "Because you were home." Each of the strangers then takes turns stabbing James and Kristen seemingly to death.Then Kristen shortly after the strangers stab her Kristen hears James phone ringing and crawls toward the riging cell phone.But then the man wearing the sack mask comes and picks up the phone and breaks it leaving Kristen there. After they escape, Dollface shows feelings of guilt, and they stop the truck for her to ask two young Christian boys for a religious pamphlet, before continuing to drive away with Pin-Up Girl telling her that "It'll be easier next time." The two young Christian boys (Alex Fisher and Peter Clayton-Luce) are then seen entering the house only to find James and Kristen lying unmoving in the living room. One of the boys goes up to Kristen, and as he is about to touch her, she grabs his arm and screams in terror.
Director Bryan Bertino also wrote the film's script, which was originally titled The Faces. Bertino took a particular interest in the horror genre, noting how one can connect to an audience by scaring them. He also stated that he was significantly inspired by thriller films of the 1970s while writing the film.
According to production notes, the film was inspired by true events from director Bryan Bertino's childhood: a stranger came to his home asking for someone who was not there, and Bertino later found out that empty homes in the neighborhood had been broken into that night:
In interviews, Bertino stated he was "very impressed" with some of the theories circulating on the Internet about the "true events" the movie is allegedly based on, but said his main inspiration was from the true crime book Helter Skelter
; some have said that the film was also inspired by the Keddie Cabin Murders of 1981
that occurred in a small vacation community in California
's Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Canadian actor Scott Speedman was cast as James, Kristen's longtime boyfriend. Speedman was also riveted by the script: "The audience actually gets time to breathe with the characters before things get scary as hell. That got me interested from the first pages", he said.
In casting the three masked intruders, Bertino chose Australia
n fashion model Gemma Ward for the part of Dollface, feeling she had the exact "look" he had imagined. In preparing for the role, which was her first major acting part, Ward read Helter Skelter in order to gain inspiration. Kip Weeks was then cast as the looming Man in the Mask, and television actress Laura Margolis, who found the script to be a real "page turner", was cast in the part of Pin-Up Girl.
, and the 2000 square feet (185.8 m²) house interior was constructed by a set crew. Though the film takes place in 2005, the house itself was deliberately constructed with an architecture reminiscent of 1970s ranch homes and dressed in furnishings applicable to the era. During production, it was reported that star Liv Tyler
came down with tonsillitis
due to screaming so much. Despite some weather complications, the film was largely shot in chronological order.
; this trailer was released on the internet several weeks later, and can be found on YouTube. It was not until March 2008 that a full-length trailer for the film was released, which can be found on Apple's Quicktime
trailer gallery. The trailer originally began running in theaters attached to Rogue Pictures
' sci-fi film Doomsday (2008) in March 2008, and television advertisements began airing on networks in early-mid April 2008 to promote the film's May release. Two one-sheet posters for the film were released in August 2007, one showing the three masked Strangers, and the other displaying a wounded Liv Tyler. In April 2008, roughly two months before the film's official theatrical debut, the final, official one-sheet for the film was released, featuring Liv Tyler standing in a darkened kitchen with a masked man looming behind her in the shadows.
and averaging $8,514 per theater. As of June 23, 2008 the film has grossed $52,597,610 in the U.S. alone exceeding industry estimates, and is considered a large box office success considering the production budget was a mere $9 million. The film opened in the United Kingdom
later that summer on August 29, 2008, and as of September 21, 2008, had grossed £4,025,916. The overall box office return was highly successful for a horror film
earning an outstanding $82.3 million at the box office worldwide. The movie received a rating of R from the MPAA.
, based on 146 reviews; a rating of 50% amongst Top Critics and a 57% rating based on the reviews from low critics. Metacritic
reported an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 27 reviews. Among the positive reviews, Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times
said The Strangers is "suspenseful," "highly effective," and "smartly maintain[s] its commitment to tingling creepiness over bludgeoning horror." Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter
called the film a "creepily atmospheric psychological thriller with a death grip on the psychological aspect." James Berardinelli
of ReelViews said, "This is one of those rare horror movies that concentrates on suspense and terror rather than on gore and a high body count." Scott Tobias of The Onion
's A.V. Club
said that "as an exercise in controlled mayhem, horror movies don't get much scarier."
Among the moderate to negative reviews, Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
said, "The movie deserves more stars for its bottom-line craft, but all the craft in the world can't redeem its story." Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News
said that "Bertino does an excellent job building dread" and that the film is "more frightening than the graphic torture scenes in movies like Hostel and Saw
," but criticized the "undeveloped protagonists" for being "colossally stupid and frustratingly passive." Stephen Hunter
of the Washington Post panned the film, calling it "a fraud from start to finish." Mick LaSalle
of the San Francisco Chronicle
, said the film "uses cinema to ends that are objectionable and vile," but admitted that "it does it well, with more than usual skill."
Additional positive feedback for the film came from Joblo.com
reviewer Berge Garabedian, who praised director Bertino for "building the tension nicely, with lots of silences, creepy voices, jump scares, use of songs and a sharp eye behind the camera, as well as plenty of steady-cam work to give it all more of a voyeuristic feel." Empire Magazine remarked the film's retro
-style, saying "Like much recent horror, from the homages of the Grindhouse gang through flat multiplex remakes of drive-in classics, The Strangers looks to the '70s.", and ultimately branded the film as "an effective, scary emotional work-out." Slant Magazine
's Nick Schager listed The Strangers as the 9th best film of 2008. Also, the film was ranked #13 on "Bravo's 13 Scarier Movie Moments" television piece.
Despite the fact that the film had acquired an average number of positive reviews, it was listed as the 30th Worst 2008 Film at Times Online.
and Blu-ray in the United States on October 21, 2008. Both the Blu-ray and DVD feature rated and unrated versions of the film, with the unrated edition running approximately two minutes longer. Bonus materials include two deleted scene
s and a making-of featurette. The DVD was released in the UK on December 26, 2008. The film was available on Universal VOD (Video on Demand
) from November 19, 2008 through March 31, 2009.
. The soundtrack was distributed by Lakeshore Records
.
The album was received with generally positive reviews by critics. "It's a creepy score for what appears to be a movie that will make you jump as well as make sure that the doors are locked at night," writes reviewer Jeff Swindoll. "This is an impressive score and adds a tremendous chill-factor to the film," says Zach Freeman, grading it with an A.
' producers confirmed to Variety
that a sequel
is in the works, tentatively titled The Strangers: Part II. The film will be written by Bryan Bertino
and directed by Laurent Briet. Shock Till You Drop reported that Realitivity Media put The Strangers: Part 2 on hold because they found that the movie might not be in their interest, even though Universal Pictures
is willing to release it. However, Rogue Pictures confirmed in January of 2011 that the sequel is now in production, and will begin filming as early as April 2011. The plot follows a family of four who have been evicted from their home due to the economy, and are paid a visit by the same three strangers from the first film. It is not known whether the sequel will receive a theatrical or a straight-to-DVD
release. Liv Tyler
will return as Kristen McKay while the original three masked villains are also set to return, however, in an interview Tyler had announced that she would only have a minor role.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
written and directed by Bryan Bertino
Bryan Bertino
Bryan Michael Bertino is an American film director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Bertino was born in Crowley, Texas. He studied cinematography at the University of Texas at Austin...
, and starring Liv Tyler
Liv Tyler
Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...
, Scott Speedman
Scott Speedman
Scott Speedman is a British-born Canadian film and television actor. He is best known for playing Ben Covington in the coming-of-age drama television series Felicity and Lycan-Vampire hybrid Michael Corvin in the gothic horror/action Underworld films.-Early life:Speedman was born Robert Scott...
, Glenn Howerton
Glenn Howerton
Glenn Franklin Howerton III is an American actor of television and film. He is best known for his role as Dennis Reynolds on FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia...
, Gemma Ward
Gemma Ward
Gemma Louise Ward is an Australian fashion model turned actress.-Early life:Gemma Ward was born on 3 November 1987 in Perth, Western Australia, the second of four children of Gary Ward, a doctor, and Claire, a nurse. She has an older sister, Sophie , and younger twin brothers, Oscar and Henry...
, Laura Margolis, and Kip Weeks. The film revolves around a young couple who are terrorized by three masked assailants, who break into the remote summer home in which they are staying and damage all means of escape.
The Strangers was made on a budget of $9 million and after two postponements, was released theatrically on May 30, 2008 in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, and grossed $82.3 million at the box office worldwide. Although it was ambiguously marketed as being "inspired by true events", writer and director Bryan Bertino stated that the film was inspired by a series of break-ins that occurred in his neighborhood as a child, as well as some incidents that occurred during the Manson killings. Critical reaction to the film was mixed.
Plot
On the night of February 11, 2005, Kristen McKay (Liv TylerLiv Tyler
Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...
) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman
Scott Speedman
Scott Speedman is a British-born Canadian film and television actor. He is best known for playing Ben Covington in the coming-of-age drama television series Felicity and Lycan-Vampire hybrid Michael Corvin in the gothic horror/action Underworld films.-Early life:Speedman was born Robert Scott...
) return to a remote summer vacation home owned by James's parents after attending a friend's wedding reception
Wedding reception
A wedding reception is a party held after the completion of a marriage ceremony. It is held usually as hospitality for those who have attended the wedding, hence the name reception: the couple receives society, in the form of family and friends, for the first time as a married couple. Hosts...
. He had just proposed to her there, but she refused. Shortly after arriving in the middle of the night, a young blonde woman (Gemma Ward
Gemma Ward
Gemma Louise Ward is an Australian fashion model turned actress.-Early life:Gemma Ward was born on 3 November 1987 in Perth, Western Australia, the second of four children of Gary Ward, a doctor, and Claire, a nurse. She has an older sister, Sophie , and younger twin brothers, Oscar and Henry...
), whose face is obscured by low lighting, knocks on the front door asking for Tamara, but leaves after James and Kristen tell her she is at the wrong house.
A short while later, James leaves to get Kristen a pack of cigarettes, and the woman returns and begins to pound harshly on the front door. Kristen refuses to open up, locks all the doors, and tries to call James on her cell phone, which she discovers to be dead. She plugs it into the wall to charge near the fireplace and calls James on the house phone briefly before the line goes dead. She returns to the fireplace to retrieve her cell phone, but it has disappeared. Kristen then hears a noise coming from the back door. She grabs a large kitchen knife and opens the curtains, seeing a man wearing a sack mask over his head. Kristen screams and trips over a record player, and it begins to skip repeatedly. The front door then opens slightly, and Kristen peeks outside, only to see the blond woman in a Dollface mask. She slams and locks the door before going to hide in the bedroom. After yelling "go away," the noises eventually stop, at which point she hears footsteps coming from the hallway, which turn out to be from James. As she explains what happened while he was gone, he tries to calm her down.
She frantically explains to James that she saw a man in a mask, and heard loud banging noises. James is not worried about the incidents, thinking that they were caused by some teenagers fooling around. He goes outside to his car, whose tires have been slashed and its windshield smashed in. As he searches the car, someone touches his back, but runs away before he is able to turn around and see who it was. Once he turns back to the car, he looks up and sees Dollface, and asks her to leave. After she runs off, James persuades Kristen that they need to escape in their car.
As they are backing out of the driveway, a large truck pulls up behind them with its floodlights on, revealing another woman, this one wearing a Pin-up mask. After she smashes the truck into the couples' car, James and Kristen run back into the house, where they find the word hello written all over the window and wall in the bedroom. James searches for and finds his father's shotgun and shells. They decide to run for it. As the couple approach the front door armed with the gun, the Man in the Mask begins breaking down the door with an axe. Terrified, the couple block the door with a piano, and James attempts to shoot him, but misses. The couple decide to hole up in a closet, facing the open doorway with the shotgun armed and ready. They hear footsteps in the house, and one of the intruders puts on a country record.
James's friend, Mike (Glenn Howerton
Glenn Howerton
Glenn Franklin Howerton III is an American actor of television and film. He is best known for his role as Dennis Reynolds on FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia...
), who James contacted earlier, arrives at the house in his car. When he tries to call James's cell phone, it goes straight to voicemail. But while he is leaving a message, a rock crashes through his windshield, prompting him to jump out of the car. Baffled, he notices country music playing loudly from the house. He steps onto the porch and fails to notice Dollface hiding in the shadows there before entering the house. As Mike walks down the hallway, the Man in the Mask appears behind him, holding up the axe. When Mike steps in front of the closet, James fires the shotgun, thinking it is one of the masked killers, and kills Mike by shooting him in the face. After James and Kristen realize they killed Mike, James remembers an old radio in the shed and says it is their only hope.
James leaves the house, promising Kristen that he will return in a few minutes, but Kristen decides not to wait for him to return, and leaves to go to the shed in the backyard. There, she finds the radio, which she uses to try and contact someone for help, but when she raises her voice, Pin-Up Girl appears and smashes the radio. Kristen returns to the house to look for James. As she walks down the hall, she hears a few keys being played on the piano, followed by footsteps, and the lights suddenly shut off. The Man in the Mask enters the hallway, but does not notice Kristen, as he is looking in the other direction. Kristen hides in the kitchen pantry while the man searches the hallway. He sits down at the table a few feet away from the closet before leaving the room. Kristen peers out of the closet, only to find the blond, masked woman staring back at her. The woman breaks the pantry door in, but suddenly stops. Kristen exits the closet to find the woman waiting for her with a knife. Kristen opens a kitchen drawer to arm herself as well when James is pushed into the house by the masked man, who now has the gun. When James tells Kristen to run, she sprints for the front door, only to find Pin-Up girl blocking her way. She runs into a bedroom and slams the door before attempting to escape through the window, and suddenly the lights come back on and the door swings open. Kristen walks back toward the hall to see who opened the door, when the Man in the Mask grabs her and throws her into the wall. Barely conscious, she is dragged down the hallway.
James and Kristen wake up the next day and find themselves tied to chairs in the living room while the three strangers stand over them. Before removing their masks, Pin-Up Girl walks into the kitchen and returns with a large knife. Kristen asks, "Why are you doing this to us?" and Dollface answers, "Because you were home." Each of the strangers then takes turns stabbing James and Kristen seemingly to death.Then Kristen shortly after the strangers stab her Kristen hears James phone ringing and crawls toward the riging cell phone.But then the man wearing the sack mask comes and picks up the phone and breaks it leaving Kristen there. After they escape, Dollface shows feelings of guilt, and they stop the truck for her to ask two young Christian boys for a religious pamphlet, before continuing to drive away with Pin-Up Girl telling her that "It'll be easier next time." The two young Christian boys (Alex Fisher and Peter Clayton-Luce) are then seen entering the house only to find James and Kristen lying unmoving in the living room. One of the boys goes up to Kristen, and as he is about to touch her, she grabs his arm and screams in terror.
Cast
- Liv TylerLiv TylerLiv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...
as Kristen McKay - Scott SpeedmanScott SpeedmanScott Speedman is a British-born Canadian film and television actor. He is best known for playing Ben Covington in the coming-of-age drama television series Felicity and Lycan-Vampire hybrid Michael Corvin in the gothic horror/action Underworld films.-Early life:Speedman was born Robert Scott...
as James Hoyt - Gemma WardGemma WardGemma Louise Ward is an Australian fashion model turned actress.-Early life:Gemma Ward was born on 3 November 1987 in Perth, Western Australia, the second of four children of Gary Ward, a doctor, and Claire, a nurse. She has an older sister, Sophie , and younger twin brothers, Oscar and Henry...
as Dollface - Kip Weeks as Man in the Mask
- Laura MargolisLaura MargolisLaura Margolis is an American actress. She grew up in the city of Chicago located in Illinois. She acted in her first ever film, 2008's horror release The Strangers and starred as the Pin-Up Girl. She will star in the sequel The Strangers: Part II along with the co-star Liv Tyler, Gemma Ward, and...
as Pin-Up Girl - Glenn HowertonGlenn HowertonGlenn Franklin Howerton III is an American actor of television and film. He is best known for his role as Dennis Reynolds on FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia...
as Mike - Alex Fisher as Christian Boy #1
- Peter Clayton-Luce as Christian Boy #2
Screenplay and inspiration
According to production notes, the film was inspired by true events from director Bryan Bertino's childhood: a stranger came to his home asking for someone who was not there, and Bertino later found out that empty homes in the neighborhood had been broken into that night:
In interviews, Bertino stated he was "very impressed" with some of the theories circulating on the Internet about the "true events" the movie is allegedly based on, but said his main inspiration was from the true crime book Helter Skelter
Helter Skelter (book)
Helter Skelter is a true crime book by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. The subject of the book is the 1969 Manson Family murders and Bugliosi's own prosecution of Charles Manson and his followers....
; some have said that the film was also inspired by the Keddie Cabin Murders of 1981
The Keddie Murders
The Keddie Murders is an unsolved 1981 American quadruple-murder that took place in Keddie, a former resort town in the foothills of Northern California's Sierra Nevada mountains. The murders took place in cabin 28, during the late evening of April 11, 1981 and/or early morning of the 12th...
that occurred in a small vacation community in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
's Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Casting
When casting the two leads in the film, Bertino sought Liv Tyler for the part of Kristen; Tyler, who had not worked for several years due to the birth of her son, read the script out of a stack of others she had been offered; "It spoke to me", she said. "I especially liked Bryan's way of saying a lot, but not saying everything. Often in movies, it's all spelled out for you, and the dialogue is very explanatory. But Bryan doesn't write like that; he writes how normal people communicate—with questions lingering. I knew it would be interesting to act that."Canadian actor Scott Speedman was cast as James, Kristen's longtime boyfriend. Speedman was also riveted by the script: "The audience actually gets time to breathe with the characters before things get scary as hell. That got me interested from the first pages", he said.
In casting the three masked intruders, Bertino chose Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n fashion model Gemma Ward for the part of Dollface, feeling she had the exact "look" he had imagined. In preparing for the role, which was her first major acting part, Ward read Helter Skelter in order to gain inspiration. Kip Weeks was then cast as the looming Man in the Mask, and television actress Laura Margolis, who found the script to be a real "page turner", was cast in the part of Pin-Up Girl.
Filming
On a $9 million budget, filming for The Strangers began on October 10, 2006 and finished in early 2007 – the movie was filmed on location roughly ten miles outside of Florence, South CarolinaFlorence, South Carolina
-Municipal government and politics:The City of Florence has a council-manager form of government. The mayor and city council are elected every four years, with no term limits...
, and the 2000 square feet (185.8 m²) house interior was constructed by a set crew. Though the film takes place in 2005, the house itself was deliberately constructed with an architecture reminiscent of 1970s ranch homes and dressed in furnishings applicable to the era. During production, it was reported that star Liv Tyler
Liv Tyler
Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...
came down with tonsillitis
Tonsillitis
Tonsillitis is an inflammation of the tonsils most commonly caused by viral or bacterial infection. Symptoms of tonsillitis include sore throat and fever. While no treatment has been found to shorten the duration of viral tonsillitis, bacterial causes are treatable with antibiotics...
due to screaming so much. Despite some weather complications, the film was largely shot in chronological order.
Marketing and promotion
In late July 2007, director Bertino and stars Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman attended San Diego's annual Comic-Con event to promote the film; all three were present for a questions-and-answers panel session, as well as a screening of the film's official teaser trailerTeaser trailer
A teaser campaign is an advertising campaign which typically consists of a series of small, cryptic, challenging advertisements that anticipate a larger, full-blown campaign for a product launch or otherwise important event. These advertisements are called "teasers" or "teaser ads"...
; this trailer was released on the internet several weeks later, and can be found on YouTube. It was not until March 2008 that a full-length trailer for the film was released, which can be found on Apple's Quicktime
QuickTime
QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
trailer gallery. The trailer originally began running in theaters attached to Rogue Pictures
Rogue Pictures
Rogue is a subsidiary of Relativity Media. The company has about 25 titles in its library.- Background :In 1997, Rogue Pictures was formed as a division of PolyGram Pictures but the name was dropped in 2000 after Universal Pictures bought PolyGram...
' sci-fi film Doomsday (2008) in March 2008, and television advertisements began airing on networks in early-mid April 2008 to promote the film's May release. Two one-sheet posters for the film were released in August 2007, one showing the three masked Strangers, and the other displaying a wounded Liv Tyler. In April 2008, roughly two months before the film's official theatrical debut, the final, official one-sheet for the film was released, featuring Liv Tyler standing in a darkened kitchen with a masked man looming behind her in the shadows.
Theatrical release
The producers originally planned for a summer release in 2007, which was eventually postponed to November 2007. It was pushed back yet one more time, and officially opened in the United States and Canada on May 30, 2008; in its opening weekend, the film grossed $20,997,985 in 2,467 theaters, ranking #3 at the box officeBox office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
and averaging $8,514 per theater. As of June 23, 2008 the film has grossed $52,597,610 in the U.S. alone exceeding industry estimates, and is considered a large box office success considering the production budget was a mere $9 million. The film opened in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
later that summer on August 29, 2008, and as of September 21, 2008, had grossed £4,025,916. The overall box office return was highly successful for a horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
earning an outstanding $82.3 million at the box office worldwide. The movie received a rating of R from the MPAA.
Critical reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics. It holds a rating of 45% on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, based on 146 reviews; a rating of 50% amongst Top Critics and a 57% rating based on the reviews from low critics. Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reported an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 27 reviews. Among the positive reviews, Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said The Strangers is "suspenseful," "highly effective," and "smartly maintain[s] its commitment to tingling creepiness over bludgeoning horror." Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter
Formerly a daily trade magazine, The Hollywood Reporter re-launched in late 2010 as a unique hybrid publication serving the entertainment industry and a consumer audience...
called the film a "creepily atmospheric psychological thriller with a death grip on the psychological aspect." James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
of ReelViews said, "This is one of those rare horror movies that concentrates on suspense and terror rather than on gore and a high body count." Scott Tobias of The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
's A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
said that "as an exercise in controlled mayhem, horror movies don't get much scarier."
Among the moderate to negative reviews, Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
said, "The movie deserves more stars for its bottom-line craft, but all the craft in the world can't redeem its story." Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
said that "Bertino does an excellent job building dread" and that the film is "more frightening than the graphic torture scenes in movies like Hostel and Saw
Saw (film)
Saw is a 2004 American independent horror film directed by James Wan. The screenplay, written by Leigh Whannell, is based on a story by Wan and Whannell. The film stars Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, Ken Leung, Whannell and Tobin Bell...
," but criticized the "undeveloped protagonists" for being "colossally stupid and frustratingly passive." Stephen Hunter
Stephen Hunter
Stephen Hunter is an American novelist, essayist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic.-Life and career:Stephen Hunter was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. His father was Charles Francis Hunter, a Northwestern University speech professor who was killed in 1975....
of the Washington Post panned the film, calling it "a fraud from start to finish." Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, said the film "uses cinema to ends that are objectionable and vile," but admitted that "it does it well, with more than usual skill."
Additional positive feedback for the film came from Joblo.com
JoBlo.com
JoBlo.com is a website primarily focused on the film industry.JoBlo.com was started in 1998 by Berge Garabedian , a movie reviewer who is known for critiquing movies from the perspective of an average movie-goer. The website's name is, in fact, a play on the term Joe Shmoe, and registered users of...
reviewer Berge Garabedian, who praised director Bertino for "building the tension nicely, with lots of silences, creepy voices, jump scares, use of songs and a sharp eye behind the camera, as well as plenty of steady-cam work to give it all more of a voyeuristic feel." Empire Magazine remarked the film's retro
Retro
Retro is a culturally outdated or aged style, trend, mode, or fashion, from the overall postmodern past, that has since that time become functionally or superficially the norm once again. The use of "retro" style iconography and imagery interjected into post-modern art, advertising, mass media, etc...
-style, saying "Like much recent horror, from the homages of the Grindhouse gang through flat multiplex remakes of drive-in classics, The Strangers looks to the '70s.", and ultimately branded the film as "an effective, scary emotional work-out." Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
's Nick Schager listed The Strangers as the 9th best film of 2008. Also, the film was ranked #13 on "Bravo's 13 Scarier Movie Moments" television piece.
Despite the fact that the film had acquired an average number of positive reviews, it was listed as the 30th Worst 2008 Film at Times Online.
Home media
The Strangers was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray in the United States on October 21, 2008. Both the Blu-ray and DVD feature rated and unrated versions of the film, with the unrated edition running approximately two minutes longer. Bonus materials include two deleted scene
Deleted scene
In Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
s and a making-of featurette. The DVD was released in the UK on December 26, 2008. The film was available on Universal VOD (Video on Demand
Video on demand
Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...
) from November 19, 2008 through March 31, 2009.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack of this film was released on the May 27, 2008. The album consists completely of 19 scores composed by score producer tomandandyTomandandy
tomandandy are American composers and producers in transmedia. While they are best known for their work in film, they have produced music for most media contexts including record projects, videogames, art installations and fashion shows, etc....
. The soundtrack was distributed by Lakeshore Records
Lakeshore Records
Lakeshore Records is the independent music division of Lakeshore Entertainment . They started out as WILL Records.Will Records were started by Skip Williamson in the early 90s...
.
The album was received with generally positive reviews by critics. "It's a creepy score for what appears to be a movie that will make you jump as well as make sure that the doors are locked at night," writes reviewer Jeff Swindoll. "This is an impressive score and adds a tremendous chill-factor to the film," says Zach Freeman, grading it with an A.
Sequel
Rogue PicturesRogue Pictures
Rogue is a subsidiary of Relativity Media. The company has about 25 titles in its library.- Background :In 1997, Rogue Pictures was formed as a division of PolyGram Pictures but the name was dropped in 2000 after Universal Pictures bought PolyGram...
' producers confirmed to Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
that a sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
is in the works, tentatively titled The Strangers: Part II. The film will be written by Bryan Bertino
Bryan Bertino
Bryan Michael Bertino is an American film director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Bertino was born in Crowley, Texas. He studied cinematography at the University of Texas at Austin...
and directed by Laurent Briet. Shock Till You Drop reported that Realitivity Media put The Strangers: Part 2 on hold because they found that the movie might not be in their interest, even though Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
is willing to release it. However, Rogue Pictures confirmed in January of 2011 that the sequel is now in production, and will begin filming as early as April 2011. The plot follows a family of four who have been evicted from their home due to the economy, and are paid a visit by the same three strangers from the first film. It is not known whether the sequel will receive a theatrical or a straight-to-DVD
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...
release. Liv Tyler
Liv Tyler
Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting. She made her film debut in the 1994...
will return as Kristen McKay while the original three masked villains are also set to return, however, in an interview Tyler had announced that she would only have a minor role.
See also
- Them (2006 film)Them (2006 film)Them is a 2006 French horror film directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud.Olivia Bonamy plays Clementine, a young teacher, who has recently moved from France to a remote but idyllic country house near Bucharest, Romania with her lover Lucas played by Michael Cohen.- Story :The film opens with a...
– a 2006 French film with a similar premise. - Funny Games (1997 film) – an Austrian film with a similar premise and its American remake of the same name, both directed by Michael HanekeMichael HanekeMichael Haneke is a German born Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work...
. - Manson Murders
- The Keddie MurdersThe Keddie MurdersThe Keddie Murders is an unsolved 1981 American quadruple-murder that took place in Keddie, a former resort town in the foothills of Northern California's Sierra Nevada mountains. The murders took place in cabin 28, during the late evening of April 11, 1981 and/or early morning of the 12th...