October 13: Whatever You Do...Don't Let Them In.

THE STRANGERS (Bryan Bertino 2008)

Liv Tyler eating Bluebell? Nawwww...

Admittedly, I am biased.  One of my best friends from college made this film, however with all bias aside I must still proclaim:  The Strangers scared the shit out of me.  Pure and Simple.  This is a real horror film.

This film contains painfully thoughtful cinematic techniques which prove to lend a helping hand to a new, popular, horror flick sub-genre appropriately labeled ''Torture Porn.'' Made most popular by Eli Roth in 2005 with Hostel, this genre has steadily gained massive headway with viewers perhaps because of its grizzly and dehumanizing characteristics of its anti-hero roles. In order to deal with witnessing a grown man saw his way through his own handcuffed leg,  one must appreciate those little niblets of off-setting comedy, if any.  The mere theme of Americans paying top-dollar to axe off sorority/fraternity coeds makes me chuckle, doesn't it you?

No such luck with Bertino's first horror masterpiece.  Anxiety and panic immediately take over after the first, ominous ''door-knock.'' 

Bertino directs his cast in its sole, ranch house location.

A bitter sweetened couple make their way to a summer home in the middle of nowhere, Anytown, USA after a night of an apparent wedding celebration.  Food, shelter, guns and ammo...running water, running shoes, and cell phones...nothing can prepare them for the hell they have inadvertently stepped into.  Just when they thought their relationship problems would serve as the low point of their evening, a stranger comes knocking...loudly...and. won't. stop.

For marketing purposes, this film boasts that it was ''based on true events.''  That is arguable, however, some of the actual events and motivations behind the masks do parallel to a heinously notorious crime committed by the infamous Manson gang in the 1960's in Los Angeles, California.

The Strangers provides for art house cinema buffs what Halloween has provided to horror movie cultists which includes extremely dramatic long takes and extreme long shots of impending doom, without the cheese and trite dialogue.  Liv Tyler plays a role that is quite believable, albeit annoying at times as with any scream queen, alongside seriously underrated Scott Speedman (Underworld, Adoration).

The final scene is superior to most in regards to its starkness.  A sequel is rumored, but development and production, so far, come unannounced.  I am predicting a brief cameo with Tyler and a mass-murder hospital sequence...but don't take my word for it.  Be patient, sit quietly, and for the love of God don't answer to a girl who asks for ''Tamara.'' 

Originally written for a Texas-filmed location, The Strangers was filmed in South Carolina.  Tomandandy provide the eerie score (Mothman Prophecies, Sleep Dealer).