Revisited: The Strangers: Prey at Night – underrated or just underwhelming?

An image of three masked figures from The Strangers: Prey at Night. They are standing in a triangular formation. Two women are standing holding knives and a male figure is behind them holding an axe. They are standing in front of background with a crumpled paper bag effect.

With the arrival of a new prequel to Bryan Bertino’s modern cult classic The Strangers (2008), Hamish Calvert revisits the horror franchise’s lesser-seen sequel, The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018), to see if it deserves a similar level of status.

The simplicity of Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers is often what fans suggest makes it so scary. In one of the film’s most notable exchanges of dialogue (there aren’t many!) Liv Tyler’s Kristen asks “Why are you doing this to us?” The masked antagonists’ chilling response? “Because you were home.” This devastating lack of reason, coupled with a number of particularly effective and memorable scares are what has seen the film carve out such a name for itself. Yet, the same can’t be said for its sequel.

Striking while the iron was stone cold, The Strangers: Prey at Night finally arrived in cinemas a decade after Bertino’s original film. Stepping aside as director, the sequel was instead helmed by Johannes Roberts (47 Meters Down) while once more Bertino, alongside newcomer Ben Ketai, penned the screenplay. Although, Prey at Night couldn’t be further in tone from the original film, as this slasher sequel trades atmosphere for action.

“…this slasher sequel trades atmosphere for action.”

As is common for horror sequels, Prey at Night ups the ante at almost every opportunity. Instead of a single isolated holiday home, the sequel uses an entire trailer park for its setting. Unlike the original film, Prey at Night sees a family of four under attack; twice the number of victims from the first film (not counting poor old Glenn Howerton). And most noticeably, the violence and action are dialled up a considerable few notches too. While this certainly comes at the expense of the impressively unnerving atmosphere that Bertino’s original film conjured, it doesn’t mean the sequel is without merit.

Prey at Night is far more lively than its predecessor. This change in tone is first hinted at in the film’s opening moments with the use of Kim Wilde’s ‘Kids in America’. Gone are the eerie record player needle drops from the original film – seriously though, if you’re going to listen to ‘Sprout and the Bean’ at 4am maybe you have it coming. Instead, the sequel’s 80s soundtrack is played through car radios and blasted over pool speakers. It creates an entirely different character for the film, that, for better or worse, gives the sequel a more animated appeal.

An image from the film The Strangers: Prey at Night. A masked man is swimming an axe at another man (Bill Pullman) by the edge of a swimming pool. There are neon palm trees and sun loungers in the background. — *Vertigo Releasing*

This is demonstrated nowhere more vividly than in the film’s most ambitious scene, when Lewis Pullman’s character attempts to fend off not one, but two, of the masked killers by the trailer park’s swimming pool. Bonnie Tyler’s iconic power ballad ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ is heard throughout the sequence, while the palm tree pool decorations punctuate the visuals with bright pops of neon. It’s a scene that would be entirely out of place in the original film, but one that works so well with the sequel’s more boisterous tone.

And while Prey at Night delivers this standout scene, it’s maybe not just as impressive as some of the more simplistic moments of horror from its predecessor. Seeing the masked killer appear in the shadows of the house in the original film is the kind of striking horror imagery that really sticks with audiences. The sequel’s swimming pool scene, while fun, just doesn’t quite have that same lasting impact. A statement that’s true also of the film as a whole.

“…it’s easy to understand, then, why this sequel was taken in a larger, less atmospheric direction.”

They’re different kinds of films though, and if they weren’t in the same franchise perhaps would never be compared. However, it’s this comparison that’s what’s likely lead to the sequel’s lukewarm response. The tonal shift feels like a lack of conviction on the filmmakers part; like they felt they couldn’t reproduce the simplicity of the original. Yet trying to replicate this a second time, while still feeling fresh, admittedly, would have been difficult. There’s still all the elements of the original film in the sequel: the same masks, the woman asking for Tamara, “hello” splattered all over the windows. It’s all there, but it doesn’t have the same impact second time around.

Consequently, as a standalone slasher, Prey at Night probably would have fared better. But in reality: having to follow a cult classic that steadily gained popularity over the course of ten years – considerably more difficult. It’s easy to understand, then, why this sequel was taken in a larger, less atmospheric direction. If it wasn’t going to be able to match the especially sinister mood of the first film (without just being a carbon copy) it needed to at least become bigger and bloodier. And it does just that – something that many cynics of the original film praise it for.

It’s certainly not a bad film, but it’s also far from anything remarkable. Thus labelling it as either ‘underrated’ or ‘underwhelming’ feels like a stretch. It’s fun, but ultimately disposable slasher fare that simply gets a harder time because of what came before it.

So, if overcoming the expectations set by the original film’s rise in popularity are what it struggles with most, maybe the real issue is that – despite its few genuinely superb moments – perhaps The Strangers (2008) has become a tad, a smidge, just a fraction ever so slightly overrated itself.