A knock on the door followed by a brutal murder. Johannes Roberts’ The Strangers: Prey at Night begins like a true slasher film with the agenda set up right at the onset — there will be masked killers, gore, chases and deaths. As soon as this is established, the film proceeds to explore the relationship between a teenage girl (visibly going through a Goth phase) and her mother, as the family of four move out of their home into a trailer.
The filmmaker spends a leisurely time in an 85-minute film to delve into their relationship, after which nothing matters beyond the thrills of a slasher film.
Three masked killers try to hunt down the family without any apparent reason. Depending on your expectations, there are two ways to look at Prey at Night — one is to dismiss it as a clichéd horror sub-genre and the other is to place it in the context of other slasher classics, its prequel The Strangers (2008) and the Manson family murders of the late ’60s.
- Director: Johannes Roberts
- Cast: Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison, Lewis Pullman
- Storyline: A family on the move is attacked by masked killers.
The murders in the film appear arbitrary and purposeless, and the killers — ever so powerful. But violence in horror films are often a reflection of the time they are set in and/or the time when the film is being made. In the two-part series, which come a decade apart, killings are random and showcase the omnipresence of death.
Unlike classic slashers of the ’80s, the deaths have neither purpose nor consequence. Although, when looked at closely, one could find a link between death, class and a failing American economy, where the family is forced to leave their house and stay in a mobile home park. Death for them, perhaps, is a heightened and closer reality.
In keeping the killings “purposeless,” the filmmaker opens a tiny window to anarchy, which lurks in the corners of civilisation. The film, after all, is supposedly inspired by the Manson family cult, where killings were part of a larger warped apocalyptic plan. This is best captured in the silences which follow the family’s constant plea of, “Why are you doing this?”
One could hold a grudge against the filmmaker for not providing enough context to fully grasp the gravitas of his portrayal of death. Perhaps the film wanted to leave it accessible for an audience seeking merely the thrills. In that department — if you overlook the trite situations — the chases and murders are crafted with enough expertise to provide a crescendo of scares.
It is supplemented with pop music from the ’80s, creating a period atmosphere, but is interjected by modern devices like a touchscreen phone. The film has several glaring loopholes and requires a suspension of disbelief, but the target audience of this film — those seeking scares and observing the aesthetics of a slasher — have ample to take notes of.
