I too am looking forward to this. :up:

anyone see an advance of this? i would like to hear some seen opinions...

There are now 47 reviews in at Rotten Tomatoes and the film is at 43%. Even some of the negative reviews don't sound too harsh. I hope to see this today or tomorrow.

Most reviews from people I listen to are quite positive on it, Ebert of course gave it a 1.5 out of 4, but he's known to hate these kinds of movies. To the director's credit, Ebert says it's a very well made movie, especially for a first feature.

Wow! What a well told creepy little thriller.

Well i just came back from the late show with my wife and a friend of ours. Holy crap! What a great horror flick. Ok, I mean there's no real plot here but pound to the wall scarefest. If your looking just to get scared this is a good bang for the buck. Just don't expect a real story or explanation and you should be pleaseantly surprised.

On a side note. the friend of mine that went with us, and the nut that he is, he wants to go out and buy a similer mask take it to another showing then put it on halfway through the movie, maybe even tap on a scared woman shoulders sitting next to him to say hello. :eek: I told him, he's out of his mind but knowing him he just might do it.

While I thought this was pretty well-handled and suspenseful, the number of moments that break the tension increase rapidly as the movie progresses simply because this chain of events does have to reach an end eventually. The strangers begin appearing more frequently and in all the expected places, dragging ever-popular "shock" music cues with them... something which I found especially disappointing, since the first half is filled with such an effective ambient soundtrack. And although I can appreciate the bleak nature of the film, studio meddling (brought on perhaps by unfortunate test audience opinion) is painfully apparent in those final seconds. I still think Ils was a much stronger effort; remake or not, the similarities are too numerous to completely forgo comparison between the two. The Strangers just felt like it expanded the idea somewhat.

As an aside, the casting of as James' friend really pulled me out of the movie. Granted, this has been on the shelf for a fair amount of time and he may not have been as recognizable back when it was filmed, but I couldn't stop wondering when the rest of the gang would show up. ;)

That doesn't sound promising, Ils went south the second they left the house. Which is sadly a good chunk of the movie (actually a few minutes before that when they're running through the uh plastic?)

Thumbs up from me. I enjoyed it. A few thoughts:

EDIT: Forgot to mention...about five minutes in, a trio of teen girls came in nice and noisy. Upon sitting down right behind me, one said, "What just happened?" In a rare moment, I actually spoke back, saying, "You walked in."

My friend and I felt exactly the same. I was waiting for Danny Devito or the Green Man to pop up.

This movie has plenty of cheap jump scares

Fantasy Moguls has early projections up and says The Strangers earned nearly $7 million on Friday and will finish with $18+ million for the weekend.

Very nice, esp. considering the $9m budget.

Agreed. I have read a lot of reviews that felt otherwise though. Once I stopped feeling claustrophobic and the terrain opened up, the movie felt less scary to me. Also the final reveal didn't help either.

Seeing this tonight with a handful of friends. Thanks to everyone for the early impressions!

i am shocked it is doing so well. this was an insipid movie with no creativeness whatsoever. i guess two credible stars is helping this. but the bunch that saw this movie just laughed and was shocked at what we just saw in how bad and ludicrous this movie was. predictability would be an understatment.

I understand where your coming from. It's not the most ingenious movie ever created but as a quick balls to the wall horror film i think it delievers plus (and this is just my opinion) that people are sort of hungry for a R slasher scarefest. We been bombered with watered down PG-13 horror films the past few years. I personally loved this film strictly as a slasher film.

I will note two things that didn't fit right with me.


Besides those nitpicks. I may just go see it again tonight.

What a piece of crap!

It wasn't scary at all and there were so many cliches!

Why wouldn't their friend, who could see that there was trouble in the house,

#1 - take the record off, so that he could hear any trouble

#2 - call out their name, because what happened to him was so obvious.

It's like the writer/director wrote things in to the movie, just to try to make it suspenseful.

And her fiance! What a wimp! Why didn't he use his car as a weapon when he was being attacked?

I was really hoping that I would finally be scared by a movie that has been made in the last 10 years or so, but most of the movies that I have seen in the last 20 years are pretty much crap!

At least I only paid $6 for the early show.

Chris

I am shocked some people don't like it.

See how that works? Opinion.

I for one, loved it.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty damn good, too.

yes, i stated my opinion. and your being a jerk because?

It should be "you're" ...

Didn't know I was. I simply pointed out, that while you are stating it was a terrible film, I feel otherwise. It's all personal opinion.

Maybe you shouldn't be so sensitive on a message board?

Scott Speedman???

As long as he keeps trying to push spray-o-naise with Wes Bentley, he's credible in my book.