The Strangers: Knock, Knock

Official Site: TheStrangers.net
Director: Bryan Bertino
Writer: Bryan Bertino
Producer: Doug Davison, Nathan Kahane, and Roy Lee.

Starring: Liv Tyler as Kristen Mckay, Scott Speedman as James Hoyt, Gemma Ward as Dollface, Kip Weeks as Man in the Mask, Laura Margolis as Pin-up-Girl, and Glenn Howerton as Mike(IMDb). Rated-R.

James and Kristen travel off to a family vacation home to discuss the current status of their relationship. At 4 o'clock in the morning a girl knocks on the door asking for a strange girl. James and Kristen answer the door, and explain to her that she has the wrong house. Moments later when James goes out for a drive, the same girl comes back but she brings the others with her to horrify the couple.

This film absolutely met my expectations in a gratifying manner. What I expected from this film was for the suspense to be driven mainly by the use of the surroundings such as the dark corners of the house, and the creepy disposition of the woods. Also, the sentinel and mysterious nature of the masked characters very much added to the suspsense of the film. The most frightening aspect of the film was the fact that, it was based on actual events. Being that it was based on true events, as I watched the film I asked myself, what would I have done?

The film certainly does not introduce anything new to suspenseful film making as the use of surroundings to add suspense has been done before, but this film was entertaining, and furthermore it was incredibly creepy. The tone of the film was amazing; the element of fright was well conveyed. On another note, this film could have been shorter, but seemingly the film was lengthened on account of the masked killers toying with the couple, and that could be perceived as pretentious but it did provide insight into the diabolical nature of the killers. According to Movies.com the fans gave it a B, and the critics gave it a B-. I will side with the critics and grade a B-, but truthfully this film fits somewhere between a B- and a C+. Metacritic indicated this film received mixed reviews, but it was not a bad film at all. Stay tuned, Movieporium.blogspot.com.