"Cause you were home"

SPOILER ALERT

Home invasion is, in my opinion, one of the most terrifying experiences a person can undergo. It's a true violation of all notions of security - a sensation which The Strangers captures impressively. In addition to achieving this, The Strangers also fulfills the two requirements Cynthia A. Freeland sets forth for realist horror films in her essay, "Realist Horror", making it a film that scares me times and time again.

Freeland argues one of the two essential aspects of a realist horror film is an intriguing and realistic monster. In her description of the monstrous Henry from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Freeland explains that it's not merely Henry's repulsive crimes that make him a monster, but his emotional "flatness," in their wake. The same goes for the three masked hooligans who harass the disgruntled couple, James and Kristen, in The Strangers.

The first time we're introduced to one of the three is both eerie and as Freud would say, "uncanny." One of the masked females knocks on their door (which is in the middle of nowhere) at 4 AM only to say, "hey" in a monotone, undisturbed voice. This moment sends shivers down my spine no matter how many times I watch it. After she asks for Tamara and when James replies that she has the wrong house, she appears just as unaffected as before. This emotional flatness, as mentioned by Freeland, is one of the most disturbing elements of these killers. It drives us viewers to question how an individual can be so unattached to emotions, and makes the murderers capable of any heinous crime.

Secondly, Freeland states that realist horror films depend primarily on spectacle, rather than a traditional plot line, to keep our heart rates up. She remarks, "plots in realist horror, like stories on the nightly news, are dominated by the three r's: random, reductive, repetitious" (265). The Strangers fits this formula exceedingly well. First, the harassment James and Kristen face is completely random, as we find out at the close of the film. When Kristen, tied to a chair and facing her imminent death, asks a female of the trio why they were doing this, she replies, "Cause you were home." This statement captures both the emotional flatness of the perpetrators and the shocking randomness of the crime.

The situation James and Kristen are faced with is also reduced very quickly to simply life or death. There is no complexity to the plot in this regard, as it becomes a story of them reacting to the various harassments. They don't make a fancy escape plan - in fact, they hardly even speak at all. Their situation is simply reduced to terror and the primal urge to survive the attack.

Repetition is the name of the game in The Strangers. The plot is essentially that the troop does something to scare James and Kristen, they scream and lock themselves in their bedroom, the group executes another scare, and they react again. While there is variation among their actions and reactions, they follow the same pattern throughout the film. The repetition serves a purpose, however, as it communicates the inescapability of the situation: they're captive on the carousel of terror (as Joni Mitchell would say).

It's also worth commenting on the statement Freeland makes about gender in realist horror films. She argues that, "In realist horror, male sexuality is a ticking time bomb, a natural force that must be released...Since women...are scapegoated as sources of this repression, they are shown somehow to deserve the violence they evoke" (266). Liv Tyler's character, Kristen, has just rejected James's marriage proposal. He had adorned the whole house with rose petals and champagne flutes, clearly expecting her to enthusiastically accept his proposal. While both Kristen and James are equally targeted by the three masked individuals, Kristen is placed in more situations where she faces the terror alone. They begin harassing the house while James is gone, she's left in the house alone while James checks the barn, and she is killed second, having to watch her boyfriend die the excruciatingly slow and painful death that will soon be hers as well.

In addition to these inequities, Kristen is portrayed as somewhat naggy. When James accidentally shoots his best friend who had come to pick him up, Kristen repeatedly asks him what happened. Shocked and irritated in the moment, James violently tackles her to the floor to silence her. Though it's understood that he was facing a serious emotional trauma, the situation is presented so the viewers infer that Kristen should not have been nagging at him to tell her what happened, and that James' abusive behavior is justified.

This film works to violate any notion of safety us viewers might have. The opening scene of the film informs us that the plot is based on a true story. James and Kristen are brutally murdered in the daylight of the morning (one of the scariest elements of the movie for me). The murderers have no better reason to perpetrate this crime other than the couple being home. Everything that happens in the film is entirely possible. Ultimately this film fits every criteria laid out by Cynthia A. Freeland, making it an incredibly terrifying testament to the heinous actions humans are capable of.

Here's the trailer for The Strangers if you fancy a watch: