The Strangers | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

It's all admirably restrained and, for the most part, effective.

This one's a neat little chiller that creates fear out of the familiar: dark corners in the room, peepholes that show masked figures, walls that are incessantly battered with loud knocks, glass panes that reflect strange images.

The movie is best before the mayhem actually starts: First-time writer-director Bryan Bertino gets right some priceless details as the couple try to deal with the evening's earlier fallout, and elevates his movie above other horror films.

The movie achieves an okay level of tension, especially in the first half, because first-time director Bryan Bertino has absorbed his Texas Chainsaw Massacre lessons well.

The formula of calm followed by shock is repeated until one tires of the technical polish of Bryan Bertino's directorial debut (with nods towards Funny Games and the French Them?) in the absence of coherent plot or character development.