The Strangers: Prey At Night (2018) Dir: Johannes Roberts
- Ridley Coote
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
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Directed by Johannes Roberts, this sequel to the cult classic home invasion horror would not normally have been high on my watchlist for this year, considering how disappointed I was by the first one, but a recommendation ensured I moved it up my list a little more. Even so, my expectations were kept very low. After all, horror fans seem to love the first one, and I thought it was terrible, even as a horror fan myself.
Initially, and aside from some updated camera quality, the film looked very similar to the first film, which, I will admit, disappointed me a little. However, later in the film, there were some far more interesting shots, including an excellent looking sequence with a burning car, that I thought looked great. There was also an intense pool sequence, which had some fun lighting to it.
The story was very generic, as were the characters, but I definitely found this a lot more watchable than the original film. I found the characters, despite their basic nature, more likable than those of the first film, and the final third of the film certainly helped the youngest two characters to be more endearing, particularly because of their developing sibling relationship. That aforementioned final third of the film was actually fairly good - it certainly hooked me more than either the rest of this film or the entirety of the last one. The man in the mask was a pretty cool antagonist figure, in that regard.
Bailee Madison and Lewis Pullman, who played the two siblings in the film, may not have had the best performances individually, but the scenes in which they were together were actually fairly good. Meanwhile, Martin Henderson was fairly average, aside from a scene in a car, which I thought he acted out pretty well. The, in my opinion, underrated Christina Hendricks gave probably the best performance of everyone, but was barely featured in the film. I should also mention the likes of Damian Maffei, Emma Bellomy, and Lea Enslin, who played the three masked antagonists, and did so as good as they needed to.
Overall, although this certainly wasn't a perfect film, I still much preferred it to what had been a very lacklustre original. The climactic scenes of this second film were very entertaining, and have single-handedly made me want to watch the next film as well. This may be a very standard home invasion horror, but at least it finished fairly strong, which is what audiences tend to remember the most. I don't regret watching this one, certainly not compared to the disappointing first film.
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