I’ve
never been the biggest horror fan, but I’ve actually missed the genre on the
bigscreen in recent years. Well, the meat and potatoes portion of it, anyway. I’m
talking about regular people in a remote location beset upon by irrational
killing machines with no real motivation. Keep your elaborate ghost stories,
torture pics, and tales of factions of werewolves and vampires fighting
throughout centuries…I’ll watch that stuff when it drips down to The Sci-Fi
Channel bookending reruns of Painkiller Jane. When I’m in a
theater and I want to feel terror, the classic premises are my choice of
poison.
With
that, I’m intrigued by the teaser trailer for The Strangers. It’s
mega-effective in quickly setting up the young lovers (Scott Speedman, Liv
Tyler) out in the boonies where some unpleasant creepy masked types want to
filet them (Or would “chiffonade” be more appropriate? I’m in a Food Network
kind of mood today…). After that, you just get a bunch of stills, quick edits,
and typical horror music. It’s the very definition of “teasing.”
Granted,
we aren’t that far removed from the foul taste of Vacancy, but the tone
here seems more brutal and hopeless, despite the bland leads. The film’s
bounced around on Rogue’s release schedule a bit (Their website still has it
slated for “Summer 2007”), but supposedly it’ll make an early 2008 bow in
theaters, which is a good idea given the packed October release schedule this
year. To see the fuss for yourself, click
here.