The Strangers: Prey at Night ***

The idea of strangers killing for no known reason still triggers a deep-rooted fear of ‘stranger danger’. It’s a primal fear so raw and designed to keep us on our toes that it always offers plenty of mileage on the big screen.

It’s been ten years since the last The Strangers film, an eerie home invasion horror that proves once again that going to isolated houses is never the best idea. This time it’s mobile holiday homes, widening the killing playing field outside of the four walls of the 2008 film. There are still three unknown, masked assailants hunting their innocent prey – this time in a misty holiday park.

Thanks to the first, we know there is no apparent motive for the strangers’ cold-bloodied killings – even though we still hold out hope to be enlightened. After this film’s family – including ‘Mom’ played by Christina Hendricks – arrives at its destination, the film builds a convincing gloomy, shadowy atmosphere, punctuated by bursts of light that give it a vivid 70s’ horror production value. The darkness seems to ‘feed’ off the negativity surrounding the family too.

Ironically, it’s the sense of being under siege that unites the troubled relatives – after a poignant moment addressing the modern-day reliance on mobile phones fails to do so. With atmosphere and some impressive wide long shots that end up with the focus on one character to sum up the situation at that moment, and the impending doom coming out from the shadows ‘behind you’, the film falls down the confused escape sequences. Granted, they are meant to give a sense of disorientation but failed to add context to what’s happening, relying on the next wide to do so.

The rest is a generic, blood-curdling, body-slashing, squelching fest with the requisite ‘dead-not-dead’ horror moment that renders the threat almost supernatural. Things become a little comical at times because of the nature of the erratic escape scenes affecting the pacing.

However good Ryan Samul’s cinematography is at providing a decent chill factor and giving the prey more chance and space to escape this time, there needs to be more to feed the bloody frenzy. Indeed, in the first, Liv Tyler gets to ask her tormentors why, which is what you are left wondering in this case – short of the strangers not liking trailer parks?

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