![]() ![]() ![]() “The Strangers: Prey at Night” Brian Dogulas Their cell phones are smashed, other bodies are discovered, and at least one of those mask-wearing weirdos playfully apes that same scene that set the stage in the first film (this one: outside, and all the better for it). ![]() Soon, the family is at the mercy of a trio of mask-wearing weirdos who delight in separating them - literally and figuratively - and sending them spinning around the increasingly foreboding atmosphere that is a darkened trailer park in the middle of nowhere. It’s the first big callback to Bertino’s original film, and it delivers the same queasy dread it did in 2008. Installed in a private trailer, an apparent neighbor comes knocking, hidden in shadow and asking for a resident who doesn’t exist. The central couple of “The Strangers” has now been replaced with a family in crisis - Christina Hendricks and Martin Henderson as beleaguered parents Cindy and Mike, Lewis Pullman as golden boy son Luke, and Bailee Madison as troublemaking daughter Kinsey - who arrive at the park after an exposition-heavy introduction that soon gives way to a lean, mean narrative. At the tail end of the summer, the park is empty, and filled with spaces just asking for a murderous, mask-wearing trio to turn them into meat markets. “Prey at Night” continues the first film’s tradition of casting secluded rural enclaves as key locations, moving the action from the first film’s oddly empty middle class neighborhood to a cleared-out trailer park that caters to families on holiday at the local lake. Juiced up with clever kills, a throwback soundtrack, and a unique new setting, Roberts’ film also makes the case that horror franchises aren’t dead yet, they just need some new blood. Helmed by “47 Meters Down” director Johannes Roberts, “Prey at Night” plays out as both a clever followup to the first film and an homage to classic John Carpenter joints like “Christine” and “Halloween.”īetter still: the mash-up works, and “Prey at Night” is a strong successor to the first film (it doesn’t hurt that Bertino co-wrote this one alongside Ben Ketai) that also stands on its own merits. Where to Watch This Week’s New Movies, from an Expanding ‘Asteroid City’ to ‘No Hard Feelings’Ī sequel to the film was originally announced just months after Bertino’s feature hit theaters, but it’s taken nearly a decade for “ The Strangers: Prey at Night” to arrive, a sort-of sequel that gleefully exists in the same universe as “The Strangers,” without being beholden to demands that it pick up precisely where the first film chillingly left off. ![]()
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