****MORE SPOILERS****
Quote:
Originally Posted by alkytrio666
**big spoilers cont'd**
Reverse for me.
In my opinion, they should have cut the film as Liv Tyler gets sacked by the guy in the mask.
Instead, too much is shown, and it just isn't scary anymore. Think about it- as soon as we got a full look-see at the figures, the film wasn't scary anymore but instead tedious and awkward. It's the mystery and vagueness that started the film out so well and its loss that ended it so badly.
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Yah, I think that the final death scene was pretty lame. I still go back and forth as to what the film needed. I'll have to bring up the comparison to Ils (Them) and Inside.
What made Ils (Them) so incredibly successful was its great use of suspense, isolation, and helplessness. I was at the edge of my seat for most of the film. I wonder if Strangers would have done better if there was more suspense - more chasing. I thought that the pursuit scenes definitely could have been better and I honestly did not understand why Liv Tyler kept going back to the house when she would have done so much better dragging the chase scene into the forest. Or something.
What made Inside so incredibly successful was creating a complete sociopathic Big Bad who was a true Human Monster. Inside also used blood, struggle, and gore well without truly merging into the real of Torture Porn, which, to me, is a skill. While the intruders with the masks were creepy in The Strangers, I guess I didn't get as much of a feel for them as a
threat. Maybe we saw too much of them
lurking without them actually
being threatening (imagine if Halloween consisted of Michael Myers just staring into Lorie Strode's bedroom). To tell you the truth, for most of the movie I assumed that they were just
playing with their victims and that the final reveal would be that the victims turn murderers and
they are the human monsters (but that would be far too complicated for Hollywood). I guess, if I wanted to continue with the Inside comparison, I think that adding more of a physical threat (seeing the victimizers actually cut/torture/abuse the victims) might have made it a more successful movie. Not that I'm generally a gorehound, but Inside used it exceedingly well and I think if Strangers borrowed from that formula it would have been better.