Review #83: The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018)

This review was originally written in October 2019.

October Horror Movie Review #31: The Strangers: Prey at Night

It took me a while to decide what I wanted to do on Halloween; I felt like it should be more special than the other days, but I couldn't figure out how. In the end I decided to just watch several movies- and Lisa requested that I write about this one. (It wasn't the best one I watched today; I would recommend Await Further Instructions if you haven't seen it. It's on Netflix.)

The Strangers: Prey at Night is the (boringly-named) sequel to the home invasion slasher The Strangers, which I remember really liking when it came out. This one has a similar-enough premise- a family arrives at a vacation home out in the sticks and while there, a group of maniacs attempts to murder them all. Pretty thin premise, but the first at least changed things up a bit with the characters and their attempts to keep themselves safe; this one doesn't, really. Like so many sub-par slashers this one relies entirely on the characters doing really stupid things and dying as a result.

Example: A big deal is made when the main characters find a fully-functioning revolver and at least one full cylinder's worth of ammo. When the dad inexplicably crashes his car and is trapped, the son takes the gun with him, and when he finds one of the killers on top of his sister in the process of stabbing her, he doesn't fire it. I guess the argument could be made that he's not a killer so in the heat of the moment (one very long, very thought-out moment) he can't bring himself to do it; okay fine, but then like five minutes later we have a scene where he's able to repeatedly stab a different killer with a knife (which I feel is way more visceral and traumatic than simply firing a gun). And it's not like there was any ambiguity; he literally caught the killer in the process of stabbing his sister but no, he refuses to fire the gun (and refuses to let his sister fire it either). And then- this is the worst part- he sets the gun down and (due to more pressing circumstances) never picks it back up again! It felt like the gun was a poorly-thought-out red herring more than anything else, and the fact that it never gets brought up again (no "Dang it, I lost the gun" or "I sure should have shot that killer earlier") makes me feel like the writers forgot about it too.

Also- here's something that is such a long-standing cliche of TV and film as to feel like a straight parody- during the chase at the end of the film, the sister is being chased by a truck, and she simply runs in a straight line down the middle of the road instead of going off-road, behind a tree, or literally anything except what would be most convenient for the killer. There's even a point where she's tripped and fallen and is still being followed by the truck, all while on a bridge- and again, she just crawls along the exact center of the bridge, instead of struggling towards one of the sides. It's just so ridiculous that it feels like someone was making a satire of slashers but they forgot to make it funny.

Another thing: I really, really, really wish filmmakers would take a moment and figure out how car engines work. So many films- not just this one, but this one is certainly guilty- act like any kind of damage whatsoever causes a car's engine to die and no longer turn on. I can understand it with the first car crash (the car drives head-on into a double-wide, okay, I'll buy some engine damage) but nobody even tries to turn the car on; they just assume, "Well, we crashed, guess it's a lost cause." Later on, another big crash occurs- this time, with the protagonist in one car, which gets rear-ended by the killer's truck. The killer's truck- the one that hit head-on into the other car- is perfectly fine and continues to drive for the rest of the movie. The protagonist's car- which was only hit in the rear- suddenly won't start anymore. For anyone who has never operated a car: The engine is in the front. Hitting the back doesn't break the engine. Now, I could definitely see starting the car and then finding it won't move because of the damage (maybe the rear axle is broken or something), but no, the engine won't start because their car got rear-ended. (And, again, the one who used its engine as a hammer still works just fine.)

Overall I think this movie was incredibly lackluster; even Lisa called it "generic" while we were watching. The only thing worthwhile about my watching experience was the fact that I was sitting at home with my wife watching it with dinner on Halloween. (Also, pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.)

Overall Rating: 4/10

Another Thing Hollywood Needs To Stop: Acting like unmasking a random killer means anything. Why does it matter if we don't get to see the killer's face until 80 minutes into the film? I don't know who that character is. The protagonists don't know who that character is. It's not like they're going to pick them out of a police lineup later on. If I were out in the country being stalked by a killer I'd be much more concerned about my own safety than seeing what's under the mask.