Film Review: The Strangers: Prey at Night

"Is Someone Else Staying Here? I Thought We Were Alone..?"

With it being an entire decade since the release of Bryan Bertino's mildly successful 2008 American horror, The Strangers, the follow up sequel, subtitled Prey at Night, finally hits the big screen under the direction of English filmmaker Johannes Roberts, whose previous credits include 47 Metres Down and The Other Side of the Door, with Bertino still attached to the project by supplying the screenplay for the movie alongside American pen pusher Ben Ketai. With the original film based on a culmination of the infamous Manson Family murders and a personal experience of break-ins in and around an area to which Bertino lived within, the 2008 release was nihilistic oddity with a genuine nasty streak which paid tribute to the likes of famous video nasties including Straw Dogs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Last House on the Left, and what Prey at Night offers is a very familiar, ultra violent slasher flick which overcomes a wide array of weaknesses thanks to a stylish, retro tone and various interesting and well orchestrated set pieces which offers the case for Roberts' movie being a case of a sequel which improves upon the basis set by its' predecessor. 

With an opening act which introduces the quartet of leading familial victims including Christina Hendricks' (Drive) mother figure, Cindy, Martin Henderson's (Everest) Mike, and the two teenage children played by Bailee Madison and Lewis Pullman, the attempt to flesh out any reasonable characterisation within the first twenty minutes fails pretty spectacularly, with the reasoning behind the families sudden venture to the most vacant of caravan parks not really expanded upon, resulting in a complete absence of empathy for when the inevitable violence eventually occurs. Thankfully however, once the action begins, Prey at Night continues the overly hyper-violent tone of the original to impressive means, utilising a surprising early character death to set the pace for remaining hour or so of the piece, and with the aid of the creepy masked killers, the iconic image of the series so far, the murderous rampage which the film embarks upon is surprisingly entertaining. Central to the film's success however is a strangely ironic and satirical undertone, one which is beefed up by a wholly comedic and off-kilter 1980's jukebox soundtrack, and one which allows individual set pieces to blossom with a heavy sense of style, particularly a latter act scene involving a superbly manoeuvred confrontation at a swimming pool which for me, took the film to a higher level than it possibly should have ever been, and although Prey at Night does indeed fall into a realm of cliche and predictability when looking back as a whole body of work, its' the film's style and nasty streak which makes the sequel work to an entertaining degree. 

Overall Score: 6/10