In 2008 a movie called "The Strangers" was released, which, in my opinion, is one of the best horror movies of recent times, mainly because of its simplicity and its eerie realism. So here we are, a decade later, with the release of its sequel, titled "The Strangers: Prey At Night", directed by Johannes Roberts. Given the success of the first installment, it's fair to assume that this sequel comes with a lot of hype even after all these years. Unfortunately, not only does "Prey At Night" not live up to the hype, it comes up far short of it.
Prey At Night's plot will be familiar to anyone that has seen the first movie. A family decides to go away for the weekend and stay at a trailer park where some family members live at. Soon after they arrive, they get a knock from a mysterious girl who is seemingly lost. After she leaves, the family begins noticing strange things and soon encounter three masked people trying to hunt down and kill them. Again, it's a story that will be familiar to anyone that has seen the original, but this time it's a family of four trying to survive in a trailer park seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Because it's set in the confines of a trailer park and not a house like in the original, there's a lot more room for the family to move around and escape from these masked killers. Ultimately, in this case, that ends up being a bad thing. What really made the original as eerie and intense as it was is how condensed the atmosphere was. It was two people essentially trapped in an isolated house with nothing else around them while being stalked and preyed upon by three unknown, masked people. It really added to the chill that you felt by watching it knowing that there is a bit of realism that is present in the situation. It was simple but very effective in how it delivered its scares. Here, it's different. It's a much more open and less suffocating atmosphere and as a result, you lose a lot of the tenseness and eeriness that existed in the original. What I'm trying to say here is that this movie is not very scary. It has its moments here and there, but the constant feeling of dread that was in the original is unfortunately absent here due to the structure of the environment.
Another element of the original that makes it better is the performances. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman really made you feel like they were in grave danger, which added to the overall feeling of dread. In this sequel, the acting isn't quite as good. It's still an "okay" cast made up of Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison (probably the standout here), and Lewis Pullman, but they're just not quite up to par with Tyler and Speedman, both being pretty good actors. To be fair, however, the characters and writing didn't necessarily do this new cast any justice. Multiple times throughout the movie these people would do idiotic things that would get them into trouble. If I had a nickel for every time I wanted to facepalm, I'd probably have enough to easily cover my ticket for the movie. And don't even get me started on the last 15 minutes. Most of the things that happen in the final 15 minutes is either so idiotic that I could barely watch, or not even humanly possible. It's all just a bunch of nonsense that tries to set up a sequel, but fails miserably.
The film's runtime is 85 minutes, which is pretty short for a mainstream movie these days. It ends up being a good thing though, as the movie doesn't waste much time getting straight to the action. Instead of a drawn out, overlong horror flick, it ends up being pretty well paced, which is one of the few things that it actually gets right.
Overall, what we have here is a horror sequel that pales in comparison in every way to the original. It tries to be as scary and thrilling as the original, but what the original had was simplicity and realism, which created a constant feeling of dread, something that this movie fails to deliver even in its best moments. Here's hoping that it takes them 10 years to deliver another sequel.
Prey At Night's plot will be familiar to anyone that has seen the first movie. A family decides to go away for the weekend and stay at a trailer park where some family members live at. Soon after they arrive, they get a knock from a mysterious girl who is seemingly lost. After she leaves, the family begins noticing strange things and soon encounter three masked people trying to hunt down and kill them. Again, it's a story that will be familiar to anyone that has seen the original, but this time it's a family of four trying to survive in a trailer park seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Because it's set in the confines of a trailer park and not a house like in the original, there's a lot more room for the family to move around and escape from these masked killers. Ultimately, in this case, that ends up being a bad thing. What really made the original as eerie and intense as it was is how condensed the atmosphere was. It was two people essentially trapped in an isolated house with nothing else around them while being stalked and preyed upon by three unknown, masked people. It really added to the chill that you felt by watching it knowing that there is a bit of realism that is present in the situation. It was simple but very effective in how it delivered its scares. Here, it's different. It's a much more open and less suffocating atmosphere and as a result, you lose a lot of the tenseness and eeriness that existed in the original. What I'm trying to say here is that this movie is not very scary. It has its moments here and there, but the constant feeling of dread that was in the original is unfortunately absent here due to the structure of the environment.
Another element of the original that makes it better is the performances. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman really made you feel like they were in grave danger, which added to the overall feeling of dread. In this sequel, the acting isn't quite as good. It's still an "okay" cast made up of Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison (probably the standout here), and Lewis Pullman, but they're just not quite up to par with Tyler and Speedman, both being pretty good actors. To be fair, however, the characters and writing didn't necessarily do this new cast any justice. Multiple times throughout the movie these people would do idiotic things that would get them into trouble. If I had a nickel for every time I wanted to facepalm, I'd probably have enough to easily cover my ticket for the movie. And don't even get me started on the last 15 minutes. Most of the things that happen in the final 15 minutes is either so idiotic that I could barely watch, or not even humanly possible. It's all just a bunch of nonsense that tries to set up a sequel, but fails miserably.
The film's runtime is 85 minutes, which is pretty short for a mainstream movie these days. It ends up being a good thing though, as the movie doesn't waste much time getting straight to the action. Instead of a drawn out, overlong horror flick, it ends up being pretty well paced, which is one of the few things that it actually gets right.
Overall, what we have here is a horror sequel that pales in comparison in every way to the original. It tries to be as scary and thrilling as the original, but what the original had was simplicity and realism, which created a constant feeling of dread, something that this movie fails to deliver even in its best moments. Here's hoping that it takes them 10 years to deliver another sequel.