The Strangers: Prey at Night ** (2018, Christina Hendricks, Bailee Madison, Martin Henderson, Lewis Pullman) – Movie Review

Johannes Roberts’s pretty scary, pretty nasty, pretty average slasher horror movie sequel is an homage/ ripoff throwback to the Seventies/ Eighties classics, and is deeply indebted to Halloween and Friday the 13th. Once it gets going, after around half an hour, it is commendably full on and intense in the way of threat and terror for the remaining 55 minutes. But then it kind of runs out of ideas and steam, and just stops, leaving you wondering if they lost the last reel, or are just keeping it as the first reel for part three.

And so, a family of four typical American horror movie idiots set out in an old mini-van and end up arriving late, ie at night, in a secluded mobile home park where the old relatives they are supposed to be staying with have mysteriously disappeared, though bizarrely leaving a ‘see you in the morning’ note. Well, not so mysteriously actually, because we have seen the nice old folks killed off in the film’s prologue.

The family are bickering. Mom and dad (Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson) are a bit controlly, while the teen kids (Bailee Madison, Lewis Pullman) are a bit rebellious and annoying. The usual stuff. This tends to go on too long, testing the actors skills with some naff dialogue. Reasonable though all four are, it is hard for them to make their characters sympathetic, let alone intriguing of involving. So, you have no interest in whether they live of they die.

Finally, three masked psychopaths, Dollface (Emma Bellomy), Man in the Mask (Damian Maffei) and Pin-Up Girl (Lea Enslin) turn up – for no reason at all – and stalk, hunt and terrorise them relentlessly. Some of the ensuing sequences are actually quite good, and really well done, however derivative, so the movie packs quite a bit of punch in places. It looks quite stylish, too, and uses the old tunes to eerie advantage.

Do screen monsters have to have reasons? I think these ones do. In any case the screen-writer raises the issue and begs the question: ‘Why?’, one of the killers is asked. ‘Why not’ comes the infuriating reply. Because this family are less than charismatic, it is easy to be on the side of the Creeps and want to hurry up and finish them all off. But that wouldn’t happen, though, would it? With the Creeps being so, er creepy, you’d think they would have no problem despatching just four empty-headed folks, but someone’s got to survive for the sequel – think Laurie Strode.

There is a lot of horror violence, terror and extreme gore, which may appeal to some diehard horror buffs but actually only really serves to spoil the fun. Do we have to watch people dying in agony? Not, really we do not.

Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers (2008).

It is a sequel to writer-director Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers (2008) and, though credited for the original screenplay for The Strangers: Prey At Night, he has no involvement with the film, with Ben Ketai credited for screenplay.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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