The Strangers: Prey at Night movie review (2018)

In theory, the ending was chilling—the idea that this trio of people didn't have any rational motive, any supernatural characteristics, or, when the time came, any scruples in killing their victims. In practice, it felt cheap—tacking on a hopeless ending just to make us feel bad.

Bertino returns, as a co-screenwriter this time, leaving the directorial work to Johannes Roberts, who brings a far surer hand and a more striking visual aesthetic to the sequel. So much of the success of any given horror film relies on a few aesthetic elements: its atmosphere, its ability to play with light and the shadow, and, of course, location (...location, location—as real estate folks would add for effect). From the start, a prologue that breaks its predecessor's strange sense that the killers might just be toying with their victims, this is a visually oppressive exercise in terror. Save for a few scenes in a brightly sunlit suburb, the film remains that way for the extent of its running time.

Thanks to the original, we know by now that the three strangers (played by Damian Maffei, Emma Bellomy, and Lea Enslin), who wear ironic masks or a hood with painted smiles, mean business. The neat thing about this sequel is that it stands on its own. We don't need to know from the ending of the original movie that these people are heartless, cold-blooded killers. They get to work almost immediately in this outing, pulling up to an occupied trailer home in an otherwise empty trailer park in their beat-up pickup truck—a peppy pop tune blaring on the radio (Roberts has that song play over the production logos and a black screen, but as soon as the film proper starts, it cuts out with a jolt, as we take in the dim, streetlight-lit scene). As with the original, a few knocks on a door at an ungodly hour of the night starts off a brief, if genuinely creepy, opening.

The rest of the story follows a likable family of four: father Mike (Martin Henderson), mother Cindy (Christina Hendricks), daughter Kinsey (Bailee Madison), and son Luke (Lewis Pullman). They're on their way to that trailer park for a weekend trip, before taking Kinsey to a boarding school. There's tension between the family members, naturally. The parents are worried about their daughter in slightly different ways: Mike is a bit out of the loop but knows something is amiss, and Cindy was in a similar place during her own teenage years. Kinsey resents her parents' decision, as well as her brother's standing as the "perfect" child. Luke clearly thinks his younger sister is a nuisance, but he wishes for a return to the days when Kinsey was his little sister.