Now this is a movie that I was not really aware of its existence. I just found out about it last week from the tweet by two of Indonesian cinema chains. When I read in more detail, apparently it was a sequel to 2008 film that I felt a bit familiar. So I searched for it online, watched it and immediately realized I had seen it before, but I still watched it again to remind me of the movie. I was able to convince my wife to try and see this, so she would be willing to accompany me (against her better judgment). Well anyway, we should go on with the movie itself.
Brief Story Line
A family of four consisted of the father Mike (Martin Henderson - Torque, Grey's Anatomy TV series etc), his wife Cindy (Christina Hendricks - Bad Santa 2, Mad Men TV series etc), the son Luke (Lewis Pullman) and his younger sister Kinsey (Bailee Madison - Just Go with It, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark etc) were planning to drop Kinsey off to a boarding school outside their home town. But before that, they went to a trailer park managed by their uncle in a rather remote area.
Little did they know that actually there were no one else staying at the huge vacation spot as it was a major holiday and people were vacationing some other places. When a strange woman knocking on their door, Cindy and Mike were getting restless. Especially since Kinsey and Luke were out somewhere. Meanwhile Kinsey and Luke found something very surprising and scary in one of the trailer. The four of them then realized that there were some dangerous people lurking around in that area, hunting them one by one.
So could the family escape from these Strangers? Or would they be their next victims? Find them all in this scary suspenseful intense horror thriller movie.
End of Story Line
Well, it has been a while since I was having this kind of scary suspenseful moment, together with my wife. If you have read some of my earlier posts, you would know that she was not a fan of any type of horror movie, whether it's this kind of thriller or it's the supernatural kind (especially those). During those intense moments, she was complaining to me why she agreed to see this kind of movie, which she knew she would be feeling the stress. So when the movie finished, she was very relieved. LOL.
The first 5 minutes of the movie's opening was rather suspenseful, but the next half hour was more of the drama moments involving the family's relationship problems specifically Kinsey's personal issues. But once the strangers started to appear, the movie became a nonstop thrill till the very end. So all those slow pace earlier could be forgiven due to its intensity for the rest of the movie. The duration was around 85 minutes (including opening and end credits), which meant the movie was pretty short, but with such suspense, it did not feel that short. I really have to give credit to the cast here especially Bailee Madison as she looked genuinely terrified of the bad people which gave me the feeling that it was a really really scary situation.
As I mentioned above, this movie was a sequel to 2008's The Strangers with main cast of Liv Tyler (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Leftovers TV series etc) and Scott Speedman (Underworld series, Felicity TV series etc). The plot to this sequel was like a copy paste of the formula from the original, with changes on the characters but with different type of ending. My personal opinion was the 2008 version felt very original and having a unique ending, however this one felt having an ending of just like any other similar horror movies. I do not know why but the finale part felt like scenes from Friday the 13th movies with its really scary villain Jason Voorhees (you would know what I mean if you had seen this movie & of course if you know Jason's character). This is what I felt was a bit changed from the original film and made me personally feel the 2008 movie was better in term of originality, but the scary and suspenseful parts were definitely more in here.
As usual in this kind of horror movie, the sound effects should definitely be good to add the effects of intensity. And the movie did not disappoint as the shocking moments were successfully done due to those effects. One specific moment involving Luke & Kinsey towards the end was really shocking and literally made my wife jumped a bit. The music here was pretty decent, though I felt that some of the movie's scenes seemed too dark and not very clear (not sure if it was from the film itself or it was actually the theater). When I saw this film, the audience were not full (perhaps not a lot of people aware of the movie). There was funny moment when a lady who came with her boyfriend and sit in front of us looked like going to be noisy, but turned out it was the guy who was very loud and gave lots of remarks. Lucky for us it only bothered a bit as we could still concentrate on the film itself.
Overall, this was a suspenseful horror movie that was quite well crafted and should be able to scare you not through ghosts or supernatural things, but through the evil of people. It would probably be better if you have seen the original movie first to appreciate some of the scenes in here. But even if you did not see that one, you could still see and enjoy the movie as a standalone. Who knows, it might be a big success and they would spawn more sequels in the future. At least you would know the origin of such movies.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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