Check Your Pulse … NOW! – – ‘The Strangers’ [2008]

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H O M E I N V A S I O N S

SNEAK PREVIEWS

It’s always a challenge to pick that perfect horror film for Halloween night. Hoping to get the most narrative for your nickel, you might opt for the 1982 anthology film Creepshow. It’s not a bad choice at all — this cinematic compendium of frights might be the precise treat on Halloween night. Like the act of trick-or-treating itself, if at first not satisfied with your booty at one doorstep for the night, an anthology film asks you to be patient, because the night could be full of surprises. Instead of sugary, waxed candy corn at one doorstep, perhaps you’ll find a full-size 3 Musketeers chocolate bar at the next.

Alternatively, you might opt for John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher classic Halloween. Starring one of the genre’s most recognizable villains, it too isn’t a poor choice but may be a little too obvious for Halloween night, clad as it is in the trappings of foreboding anonymity, of merciless doggedness, of invulnerability.

Imagine, then, that you’ve spent the evening doling out candy to trick-or-treaters, and they’ve retreated to their homes to take stock of their treasures. Perhaps you’ve spent the night serving adult beverages to raucous costumed adults, and they’ve ambled away — they will likely resemble zombies at work tomorrow.

However you’ve spent Halloween, it’s now time to settle in for some spooky cinema before the coffin is finally closed on this holiday.

But don’t forget: Halloween doesn’t officially conclude until midnight, so before you blow out the candle in your Jack-O-Lantern, cozy up to any of the sinister films featured under this banner – Check Your Pulse … NOW! – across the Pickwick’s marquee.

Because you’re in luck: the Pickwick has curated a single film from some of the most popular subgenres of horror, letting you know precisely when the horror might finally relent, allowing you the “best night’s sleep” that you’re likely to have in your condition.

There are horrific motion pictures here with humor, heart, humanity, and horrid gore.

There’s a little bit (and pieces) for everyone. Any one of these films could be the perfect fit for you this Halloween night – the perfect costume to crawl into, so to speak, as you finish your annual creepy night of carousing.
Simply select any of these mortifying films, press PLAY at the precise time when you’re instructed to do so, and you’ll soon be met with the final bone-chilling moments of Halloween as the clock strikes midnight – just as the ghosts & goblins retreat to their graves for another year – and just as you’re invited to sleep soundly (or unsoundly), having survived another Night of the Dead.

But choose wisely … and never accuse the Pickwick Drive-In of never having told you to do so …

SYNOPSIS

***

“Love hurts,” Gram Parsons woefully sang in 1974, and those two words have been captured on the big screen in a number of ways over decades: in period pieces, in dramas, in romantic comedies …

… And even in horror.

Because in writer-director Bryan Bertino’s violent home invasion motion picture – in which a young couple is brutally under attack at home – the filmmaker also manages to construct a compelling narrative about the destructive dissolution of romance.

What starts as an evening where Kristen (Liv Tyler) gently rebukes James’ (Scott Speedman) marriage proposal soon turns into a night of mortal terror. *Photo courtesy of Rogue Pictures.*

Unfortunately, the end of this couple’s relationship was almost as assured as the end of this couple’s lives.

As the motion picture begins, two lovers – Kristen (Liv Tyler) & James (Scott Speedman) – have already had a rough night. While attending a wedding & reception – the perfect symbol of two people coming together – James’ proposal of marriage to Kristen falls on ears that simply aren’t ready to hear that overture. She loves him. She truly loves him. But it’s simply not the time.

Returning to the empty home of James’ parents – decked out in romantic accouterments – it’s also not time for rose petal bathes & champagne. But there it is, waiting for the two with all its discomfort.
It’s also no time – as late as it is in the evening. But there they are – three masked strangers who will stop at nothing to gain access to the house and Kristen & James’ already fragile lives.
If the two hope to survive this home invasion, they will need to work together, consigned to the faith that their love for one another might save them.

***

This is why The Strangers (2008) is important to Halloween …

Like the Halloween holiday, Bertino’s *The Strangers* (2008) reminds us to beware of those who knock on our doors at night. It is likely not a supernatural force but something that can survive in the light of day as well. *Photo courtesy of Rogue Pictures.*

Don’t look again at the film’s poster. Forget its trailer. Somehow divorce yourself from the knowledge that The Strangers is meant to be a horror movie — like I did — and the first 15 minutes of the motion picture are terrifying enough, demanding that you intimately watch a romantic relationship disintegrate.

Those first 15 minutes — watching a loving couple break up?

That’s horror.

Imagine the planning that James put into readying the Hoyt home for his celebratory return with Kristen that night – the two of them now engaged & poised to spend the rest of their lives together – only to receive a rejection of that marriage proposal. I would have to imagine that both husbands and bachelors alike could sympathize with a horror show of this nature. Now, the film’s title has less to do with the brutal visitors who will soon arrive and more to do with Kristen & James themselves. They are, in fact, the strangers: to one another; to themselves; to understanding their feelings; and to their ability to take the room’s temperature. In this way, the first 15 minutes of Bertino’s film represent one of the most realistic horror films of all time, to me – and perhaps others.
But it doesn’t end there.

The transformation of this quiet, heartbreaking uncoupling into an anxiety-inducing, frenetic horror picture would have been betrayed by any of the genre films’ traditional ingredients. Introducing any of them – ghosts, creatures, demons, witches, any of them – would have destroyed the perfectly sound foundation for this horrifying home. Bertino maintains the intimate terror of this night by casting his antagonists as flesh & blood human beings, just as capable of being injured or killed as Kristen & James.

But we also know that it won’t be that easy. With or without a marriage ceremony, Kristen & James might actually spend the rest of their lives together on this night, after all.

This game of cat & mouse wasn’t orchestrated to demonstrate that these two have a fighting chance against the Strangers. Because – in one way or another – they never did. Before the Strangers even stepped onto the Hoyt doorstep, Kristen & James were already wounded. They were never fighting back at 100% power …

… And that’s how true horror works – or should work. I hope few of us can be so foolhardy as to believe that monsters are going to wait for us to be emotionally, intellectually, and physically ready for their attack. What is so much more plausible is that the monsters will arrive when we’re already down a pint of blood or two. True monsters want to catch us off-guard, just as the Strangers catch Kristen & James off-guard, just as the door-to-door pubescent pamphleteers catch people off-guard.

Just as Kristen & James metaphorically fight to keep their relationship alive – even if already down by a pint of blood or two.

And that’s what makes The Strangers so much a part of my annual Halloween viewing today. Watch those kids trick-or-treating from door to door — dressed as anything from a cowgirl to a ghoul — and you’re catching the family off-guard as those kids stand on the doorstep & ring that doorbell.

But when they walk another 40 feet to the next doorstep and ring the next doorbell, it might – in fact – be the pint-sized cowgirl & ghoul who are caught off-guard by what answers the door. What awaits them there might not ensure that they’re ready for what they find when the door opens, and they yell, “Trick or treat!”

By then, it might be too late.

That’s the mad wonder of Halloween.

***

WHEN TO PRESS PLAY

10:50 p.m.

You yelled, “Trick or treat.”

Tonight, the Pickwick Drive-In opts for the trick, and it’s an additional 15 minutes or so of film before the movie’s true conclusion, about the same amount of time that the film’s introduction fooled you into believing you might be watching anything but a horror movie.

There exists a bleak, nihilistic nature to Bertino’s *The Strangers* (2008), the likes of which highlight the couple’s emotional troubles more than the physical assault on the house. Both experiences are synonymous with horror. *Photo courtesy of Rogue Pictures.*

But – no – these last 15 minutes will truly let you understand that you were watching spooky cinema all along — perhaps even beyond this evening — when one Stranger intones to another, “It’ll be easier next time.”

Perhaps there will be a next time.

But perhaps you’ll never imagine how it could be more effective than this one.

***

The Strangers (2008) is streaming for free on Amazon Prime.

Late-Night at the Pickwick Drive-In

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