'The Strangers: Prey At Night' not for the faint-hearted

It has been a while since I sat down to watch a horror movie. The wait is even longer when it comes to watching a slasher kind of movie.

I say this off the bat so that you know what kind of movie you’ll be setting yourself up to watch with The Strangers: Prey At Night, because it’s what the movie gives you straight out of the gate.

The Strangers: Prey At Night is a 2018 release that is a sequel to The Strangers, which was a 2008 release. Prey At Night follows a family that comprises Mike (Martin Henderson), Cindy (Christina Hendricks), their daughter, Kinsey (Bailee Madison) and son, Luke (Lewis Pullman).

The family stops by a resort during a road trip that turns out into their worst nightmare. A girl knocks on their door asking to see someone called Tamara.

The parents tell her she has the wrong house and she flees. Yes, she doesn’t just walk away like normal people would do, she high tails it out of there.

At some point in the night, not so long after the knock-on-the-door incident, they start getting terrorised by this out of control, trio of masked young people, and we can now see that the girl who had knocked is one of them.

BAYING FOR BLOOD

Armed with knives and an axe, the stalkers are baying for the blood of this unfortunate family whose only crime was to have just picked the right resort at the wrong time.

The movie is a nail-biting slasher film as you try to see how the family will pull itself out of this deadly murk . Unlike most films in the genre, the movie really explores the characters in the family, with the teenagers Kinsey and Luke trying to make sense of what life would be like in the future if they stick to their respective chosen paths.

Mike and Cindy are debating on whether they are parenting the right way and what life would be like after their kids move to the next stages of their lives. This humanisation and drawing them closer to the audience through relatability is what makes it even more intriguing.

I found myself really rooting for the family, besides them being the good guys, because I was just like “Why would you want to just be evil and kill some folks just because you can?”

Did I say the movie is based on true events? Oh yes. The movie’s director, Johannes Roberts, told metro.com reporter Gregory Wakeman that some of the scenes were actually things he had experienced; the girl knocking on the door and being robbed. He said the other gory parts he got from Charles Manson stuff.

The soundtrack, that comprises of a lot of retro music, makes it both eerie but you have this tune that’s stuck to your head that sounds like it is a very fun song from back in the disco era.

The actors were great and the scripting was spot on. It’s easy to see why it did good at the box office. And to think that there are serial killers out here who do this kind of thing for real.

The most striking line in the movie, for me, is when Kinsey asks one of the murderous girls why they are doing what they are doing to them and she goes, “Why not?” Have a watch and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it too.