The Strangers: Prey at Night

The Strangers: Prey at Night
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Johannes Roberts
Written by	Bryan Bertino Ben Ketai
Produced by	Jalen Headchop Wayne Marc Godfrey Mark Lane Robert Jones Ryan Kavanaugh
Starring	Christina Hendricks Martin Henderson Bailee Madison Lewis Pullman
Cinematography	Ryan Samul
Edited by	Martin Brinkler
Music by	Adrian Johnston
Production companies	The Fyzz Facility White Comet Films BLOOM Rogue Pictures
Distributed by	Aviron Pictures
Release date	March 9, 2018 (2018-03-09) (United States)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$5 million
Box office	$32.1 million

The Strangers: Prey at Night is a 2018 American slasher film directed by Johannes Roberts and starring Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison and Lewis Pullman. A sequel to the 2008 film The Strangers, it is written by Bryan Bertino (who wrote and directed the first film) and Ben Ketai. The film follows a family's vacation to a secluded mobile home park, where they are attacked by three masked offenders.

The film was released in the United States on March 9, 2018, and grossed $32.1 million worldwide. It received mixed reviews, with some critics considering it more entertaining than the original and appreciating its satire of horror films, while others noted it as inferior to the original and called it cliché.

Plot

Ten years after the events of the first film, in a secluded trailer park in Kalida, Ohio, the three masked strangers — Dollface, Pin-Up Girl, and the Man in the Mask — arrive in a truck at night to a couple's new trailer. Dollface wakes a sleeping female occupant by knocking at the front door. When the female resident wakes up to investigate, she sees someone already in the house and confronts Dollface, who kills her offscreen in the confrontation and then lies down in bed next to the woman's sleeping husband.

Meanwhile, Mike and his wife Cindy take a family trip with their children, Luke and Kinsey, to their aunt and uncle's trailer park to spend time together before Kinsey leaves for boarding school. After arriving, an unmasked Dollface knocks at their front door and asks for Tamara, but is turned away by Cindy. Kinsey and Luke go for a walk and stumble upon a trailer with the door open. Inside, they see signs of foul play and a clash which leads to their finding of their aunt and uncle's dead bodies.

Back at the family trailer, Dollface visits a second time and is yet again turned away. Troubled by the encounter, Mike and Cindy get their things together and go to find the kids, who are in hysterics. Mike follows Luke back to the trailer to find the bodies of the aunt and uncle. Cindy and Kinsey return to their trailer, only to find their cell phones smashed to pieces and one of the masked offenders inside. Cindy helps Kinsey escape the through the trailer roof before being stabbed to death by Dollface. Mike and Luke find the bodies and find the voicemail that Cindy left for their uncle earlier, realizing that the offenders had heard her message and were waiting for them to arrive. After heading back to the family trailer, they find Kinsey missing and Cindy dead. After a devastating moment, they drive their minivan around, shouting for Kinsey. But the Man in the Mask violently throws a brick at the van’s windshield, causing Mike to crash into another trailer, totaling their van.

Finding himself pinned to his seat with a long piece of wood impaled in his abdomen, Mike gives Luke the gun he found at his uncle and aunt's trailer, and tells Luke to go find his sister. After Luke leaves, the Man in the Mask enters the passenger seat of the car, playing a song on the car radio, and killing him with an ice pick. Kinsey is stabbed twice by Dollface before being rescued by Luke who points a gun at Dollface, threatening to shoot her. They then go into a trailer and bandage up Kinsey’s wounds. Soon after, the Man in the Mask drives his truck into the trailer, startling Luke and Kinsey. They escape and Luke hides Kinsey under a porch for safety. He then goes to the general store to use the landline to call for police, but the line quickly gets snipped by Pin-Up Girl. Luke then realizes that he was not alone in the general store and escapes out to the swimming pool, where he overpowers Pin-Up Girl and stabs her to death. An angry Man in the Mask approaches and realizes that one of his accomplices is now dead, and confronts Luke by attacking him first with an axe before an altercation in the pool, stabbing him in the back, leaving him to die in the swimming pool. Kinsey finds Luke and extricates him out of the pool before setting off to find help. A deputy finds a disheveled Kinsey lying in the middle of the road, but before he can be of assistance, he is killed with a slit to the throat by Dollface. Dollface further wounds Kinsey with a knife, until Kinsey is able to use the Deputy's shotgun to shoot Dollface in the chest; there she unmasks her, and as Dollface backs away from her slowly bleeding to death, Kinsey asks, "Why are you doing this?" To which Dollface replies, "Why not?" Kinsey then finishes her off with a shotgun blast to the head.

The Man in the Mask arrives in the truck soon after and totals the police SUV with his truck to prevent Kinsey from escaping. She uses her cigarette lighter to ignite a gasoline leak from both trucks, blowing them to smithereens, seemingly killing him. The Man in the Mask however survives the explosion and continues pursuing her in his truck, now engulfed in flames. He exits the truck, burned up, intending to attack her but falls to the ground, pulling out a piece of glass from his abdomen, appearing to have died. Kinsey flags down a mother and son in a truck for help, but they attempt to flee when they see the Man in the Mask appear still alive wielding his axe. Kinsey manages to climb into the bed of the truck, along with the Man in the Mask in pursuit, swinging his axe at her. Kinsey knocks him off of the truck by bashing him in the head with a baseball bat which she found in the back of the truck. The Man in the Mask is last seen lying in the road, dead. Some time later at a hospital, Luke is in a bed, recovering from the stab wound. Kinsey awakens by him from a sudden nightmare. As she gets up, filling a cup of water to refresh herself, she hears the jack-in-the-box toy noise along with a knocking at the door, dropping her cup in shock.

Cast

• Christina Hendricks as Cindy
• Martin Henderson as Mike
• Bailee Madison as Kinsey
• Lewis Pullman as Luke
• Damian Maffei as Man in the Mask
• Emma Bellomy as Dollface
• Lea Enslin as Pin-Up Girl
• Mary Louise Casanta as Aunt Sheryl
• Ken Strunk as Uncle Marv
• Rachel Kuhn as Waitress
• Leah Roberts as Young Mother
• Preston Sadleir as Officer Brooks
• Gabriel A. Byrne as Young Son

Production

Development

Rogue Pictures' producers announced that a sequel to The Strangers was in development in August 2008, tentatively titled The Strangers: Part II. In a 2009 listing published by Bloody Disgusting, it was reported that the script would be written by Bryan Bertino and the film directed by Laurent Briet. In 2010, the horror website Shock Till You Drop reported that Relativity Media put The Strangers: Part II on hold because they decided the film might not be in their interest, despite the fact that Universal Pictures was willing to distribute it. However, Rogue Pictures confirmed in January 2011 that the sequel was again in production, and was then scheduled to begin filming as early as April 2011; in a press release, Rogue revealed the plot would concern "a family of four who have been evicted from their home due to the economy, and are paid a visit by the same three strangers from the first film."

According to Liv Tyler, star of the original film, Part II was slated for release in 2014, but that did not occur. In 2015, The Wrap reported that the sequel was in production, and that Relativity Media and GK Films had scheduled the film for a December 2, 2016, release date, though it was later removed from the schedule.

Roberts said that while he was in Los Angeles, the producers of 47 Meters Down met him for dinner and asked if he could read a script called Prey At Night. He liked the script and wondered if he wanted to get involved in a sequel despite having released the first film years before but finally accepted and decided to add his personal touch.

Casting

In February 2017, it was announced that Johannes Roberts would be the sequel's new director, and that filming would commence during the summer of the same year. In May 2017, Christina Hendricks, Bailee Madison, and Lewis Pullman were reported as the film's stars, and production began in Los Angeles on May 30. In June 2017, it was announced Martin Henderson had also joined the cast, along with other cast members.

Filming

Filming began in June 2017 in Covington, Kentucky and lower Cincinnati which concluded on July 10, 2017.

Release

On October 12, 2017, Collider reported the film would be released on March 9, 2018, by Aviron Pictures. A teaser trailer for the film was released on November 16, 2017. The official trailer debuted on January 5, 2018.

Box office

In the United States and Canada, The Strangers: Prey at Night was released alongside The Hurricane Heist, Gringo and A Wrinkle in Time, and was projected to gross around $7 million from 2,464 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $4 million on its first day, including $610,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $10.4 million, finishing third at the box office behind Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time.

Critical reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 39% based on 113 reviews, and an average rating of 4.89/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Strangers: Prey at Night may appeal to fans of the original who've been jonesing for a sequel, but its thin story and ironic embrace of genre tropes add up to a bloody step back." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale, down from the "B–" given to the first film.

Bloody Disgusting gave the film a positive review, saying, "The Strangers: Prey At Night really takes The Strangers to the next level, and serves as a perfect introduction to The Strangers for new horror fans. You can go back and watch The Strangers and be just as happy for their previous relentless onslaughts”. IGN also praised the film, writing that "Skillfully made, spooky, stylish, and featuring some quite good character work, The Strangers: Prey at Night stands much taller than the 2008 original. The central killers are plenty scary, and some of the images on display would make John Carpenter proud." Writing for /Film, Candice Frederick gave the film a 7/10, writing that "Though its characters may fumble and its winks to the first film may not be as slick as I’d like them to be, Prey at Night does maintain the original commitment of presenting horror to the most mundane. It doesn’t just disrupt an innocent setting of a quiet suburb...It is that relentless seclusion, heightened by a haunting soundtrack of otherwise harmless songs."

Brian Douglas from The Hollywood Reporter praised the tone of the film, writing, "While the original Strangers was devoid of any sense of the 80s, instead opting for a kind of timeless modern quality, Roberts’ sequel boasts its stylistic debts, with everything from camera shots, and music choices culled from the 80s, forming an impressionistic collage of a time period that feels made for the big-screen." Staci Wilson writing for Dread Central also praised the film, writing “Aside from the quick setup introducing the targets, The Strangers: Prey at Night really is a nonstop thrill ride. I know it’s a cliché, but sometimes you’ve just got to call it as you see it. I was breathless from start to finish. Kudos to Roberts on his best movie yet! He was wise to amp up the atmosphere with a kick-ass original score and flawless cinematography."

Glenn Kenny of The New York Times gave the film a mixed review and compared sequences of the film to Lucio Fulci's Zombi and the slasher film The Mutilator, adding: "If you recognize those films, you might find yourself mildly diverted by this tawdry, occasionally effective shock-delivery device. Watching it with a demonstrative crowd in a Times Square theater proved to this former grindhouse devotee that sometimes you can go home again, at least momentarily. That said, the movie’s ludicrously drawn-out finale sapped the good will out of some of my fellow audience members." Kimber Myers of the Los Angeles Times also gave the film a mixed review and wrote that “...although the film is as slim and poorly balanced as a cheap knife, The Strangers: Prey at Night is a stylish 1980s throwback that packs plenty of terror into its short running time. This isn't a horror movie that will take up residence in your nightmares for weeks, but the sequel to the solid 2008 original The Strangers is nonetheless just as effective in the short term as its well-made counterparts”. Owen Gleiberman, writing for Variety, described the film as "Friday the 13th with four victims and three Jasons... [it's] shameless in its bluntly misanthropic family-of-lambs-to-the-slaughter violence, its blithe depravity that’s more fetishized than felt. It doesn’t take much, though—as it didn’t in the ’80s—to create a one-weekend horror hit."

The Guardian's Benjamin Lee gave the film more of a negative review, rating the film 2/5 stars despite praising Hendricks' performance, noting: "...it’s just difficult to really invest in what happens to any of them. Before long, characters are all making stock horror movie decisions, and there’s no amount of effective craftsmanship that can sell stupidity. Audience members will be too busy sighing at the screen to be scared."

External links

• Official website
• The Strangers: Prey at Night at IMDb
• The Strangers: Prey at Night at Box Office Mojo