I will never believe that the writer/director hasn’t seen all the recent French horror films; The Strangers looks like a remake of *Ils *with elements from Inside/À l’intérieur and Frontier(s)/Frontière(s). In the extras, somebody, a producer or somebody, says that The Strangers is an entirely new kind of horror film, unlike anything ever done before. Yeah . . . in English. And then the director says he was going for the opposite of the traditional horror film, in which there’s a big, like, haunted house, which people approach from outside. This one, the horror is inside the house. Um . . . like most of the horror movies made in the last, what, 30 years?
What rock do these guys want us to believe they just crawled out from under?
According to the trailer, The Strangers is based on a true story. The director later said that true story was the Manson family killings.
So no, I don’t think The Strangers is a remake of anything. Besides, isn’t deranged loonies break into a house and torture the occupants a pretty common trope. Hell, I’ve only seen a handful of episodes of Criminal Minds and it’s been used twice.
It’s not a remake, and I wouldn’t really call it a ripoff since, like Justin_Bailey says, it’s such a common trope. I saw The Strangers about a week after I saw the remake of Funny Game and I still have a hard time remembering which scene is from which movie.
I wouldn’t put any stock in what one of the movie’s creators says in the extras; who cares? People say all kinds of stuff when they’re promoting movies.
The Strangers is pretty good, though. My favorite horror movie of the year so far, I think.
Well there is your problem. There is no reason that a writer or director of a horro film is as well ‘watched’ as you are. (what is the term? you say ‘well read’ for a person who has read many books, so what is the movie equivalant?)
The Strangers did nothing for me. I didn’t care for it.
Well, frankly, I’d be shocked–not to say skeptical–OK, I’ll say skeptical–if anyone who’s any kind of fan of the horror genre (as he obviously is; the borrowings in The Strangers are plentiful) hasn’t heard the buzz surrounding the films coming out of France since, what, High Tension/Haute tension. That coupled with the uncanny similarities between the two miovies, and yeah, I’m purty skeptical.