The latest horror film being promoted right now is the Liv Tyler vehicle The Strangers, a based on true events film, that is as factually accurate as 2003’s Open Water was, which is to say not at all, since the only people who could tell you what happened aren’t here anymore. Which leads to what I really don’t like about modern horror films. This film, like the Hostel and Saw movies, or last years Funny Games, do the same frustrating thing, you spend two hours watching someone get terrorized and then at the end, they die, end of movie.
Film makers have been doing this since Romero’s first zombie movie in the late sixties, but what was groundbreaking and thought provoking then has become cynical and nihlistic now. Plus it violates the most important aspect of a thriller that Hitchcock always followed, you can do anything you want to the protagonist as long as they come out okay at the end, otherwise you make the audience feel cheated, and I don’t like feeling cheated.
