While gaps between classic horror films and their sequels have tested fans’ patience in the past (Psycho, Carrie, The Lost Boys, Day of the Dead, Amy of Darkness), it’s hard to imagine anyone eagerly waiting for a follow-up to The Strangers. The sub-par bag-head home invasion horror from 2008 had the privilege of being granted a theatrical run back in the day but seemed unlikely to spawn a sequel then, let alone ten years later. What’s more surprising than a belated follow-up being green lit, is that it’s also debuting in cinemas and not being banished to online screening platforms or supermarket bargain bins next to VHS rips of Jeff Speakman’s Timelock or Wild Fishing with Henry Gilbey.
Thankfully, The Strangers: Prey at Night isn’t quite the derivative botch-job one would have expected considering the original’s insignificance and the genre’s tendency to emit cut-price cash-in/ franchise silage. The first act is robust with instant, albeit clichéd, family conflicts. Ripped Ramones t-shirt wearing Emo Kinsey (Bailee Madison) is about to be carted off to boarding school while lug brother Luke (Lewis Pullman) taunts her adolescent tantrums. Mum and dad Cindy and Mike (Christina Hendricks and Martin Henderson) do their best to be good parents while battling finance troubles. To ease woes, they decide to take the “kids” to a trailer park for a long weekend away. You don’t need to be a genre aficionado to figure out what happens next.
The taut set up and surprisingly sumptuous cinematography suggests The Strangers: Prey at Night will be an immediately stronger sequel than expected. This is not too unexpected considering recently, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Annabelle: Creation, The Purge: Election Year and Underworld: Blood Wars proved better than their predecessors. Director Johannes Roberts whips the fitting air of menace he managed with 2016’s The Other Side of the Door, with masked figures in shadows and the kind of strategic floorboard creaking that could make Statham squeal like a Bee Gee on helium and soil Dwayne Johnson. Sadly, the more we learn of the masked antagonists, the less terrifying they become and shortly after the stabbing commences, The Strangers: Prey at Night dissolves into predictable, derivative, subgenre cine-swill, like so many slashers before it.
The second act’s fagpack plotting is emaciated as characters flap into blood laden bedlam while searching for a weapon (and arc); stopping only to adhere to stereotype/genre programming (split up, investigate noises in the dark, make the fatal mistake of asking “who’s there?” to a chasm of eternal darkness). It’s moments like this that denigrate TSPAN into intolerable pap. When Luke asks “why are you doing this?” to someone who is about to scythe his face off, it makes one wonder whether the same question was put to the film-makers, because “why not?” (the killer’s response) doesn’t quite cut it. But, despite clinging to the tent-poles and the perfunctory performances, its characters are, for the better part, affable. Which is refreshing considering many modern horrors employ plastic, iPhone engrossed adolescents (Truth Or Dare, Happy Death Day, Wish Upon) as obligatory agents of the app generation to connect it with modern teen viewers/ target audiences.
Johannes Roberts’ belated follow-up looks better than it should but feels far too familiar like the bastard son/ by-product of a thousand lesser efforts. Some scenes directly replicate (more rip off than pay homage) classic horrors (Scream, Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Even You’re Next is mined for its kill to retro pop deaths. The editing, directing and cinematography are predominantly better than expected but in terms of character, substance and script innovation, The Strangers: Prey at Night is a slick and spiky yet cliché laden concave. Aside from displaying Roberts’ fright fashioning capacity and Ryan Samul’s silky cinematography, this sequel serves no purpose other than to suggest that any further follow ups be better off bedfellows to Jeff Fahey’s Lethal Tender or Butch Harmon’s Ultimate Golf.
