The trailer park is apparently so large thatВ screams canвЂ™t be heard in the dead of night but so small that the killers are always tucked away in just the right hiding space waiting for a family member to show up. The result is a noticable lack of suspense as an unsettling atmosphere and increasing tension are replaced with generic scenes of runnning, hiding, and runing some more. The film sees the titular killers begin the night as expected - a late night knock followed by вЂњIs Tamara home?вЂќ - but while the first film teased out the situation this one jumps right to it. One of them literally stands there as Dollface stabs them slowly and repeatedly. They make every dumb, cliched move weвЂ™ve come to expect from the genre including numerous illogical decisions and an annoying disinterest in fighting back. Their current drama involving Kinsey being shipped off to boarding school does nothing for our affection for them, and it only gets worse once the danger starts. TheВ script (by Bryan Bertino and Ben Ketai) is mostly to blame as the family members argue, sigh, and give each other grief to the point that theyвЂ™re far from likeable. The family is a frustrating bunch isnвЂ™t exactly made up of the sharpest bulbs in the drawer - dad doesnвЂ™t even know what вЂњqueefвЂќ means - and that leaves viewers caring even less about them. The filmвЂ™s first fifty minutes or so are a generic and rushed affair - albeit happily one without a reliance on music stingers for scares - but director Johannes Roberts ( 47 Meters Down) finally brings it all to life with some killer third act beats. The Strangers: Prey at Night follows the basic setup of its predecessor with protagonists on edge and at odds before the killers even arrive, but while it doubles the potential victim pool it cuts in half our empathy and concern for them.

A dysfunctional family of four arrives some time later - Cindy ( Christina Hendricks) and Mike ( Martin Henderson) and their teenagers Kinsey ( Bailee Madison) and Luke ( Lewis Pullman) - to spend the weekend with their newly deceased relatives, but what they find instead is a night of terror. It stops, and within mere minutes the trio within has terrified and presumably offed an old couple. The expected вЂњBased on true eventsвЂќ text appears onscreen as a familiar pickup truck moves slowly through a fog-shrouded trailer park. A sequel was long-rumored, and now ten years later one has finally appeared.

(Especially if, like me, you insist the film be watched with the lights off and the doors/windows unlocked.) It suffers one or two issues, but the whole is a masterwork that builds suspense, ratchets up tension, and delivers legitimate scares without the need of cheap music stingers. If you ever find yourself spending the night in a semi-remote cabin with friends asking you to pick a вЂњscary movieвЂќ to watch you can hardly do better than 2008вЂ™s The Strangers. Few slasher films are this much of a mixed bag.

Strangers prey at night