![]() ![]() They run to their parents and the family splits up – Mom staying with Kinsey while Luke shows Dad what they found – and it’s pretty much chasing and battling (with some hiding) until the credits roll. I take that back – the stabbing is already underway, as they discover when they notice a trailer with its door wide open, wander inside, first find some booze (cool) and then the mutilated corpses of their great aunt and uncle (uncool). They argue about some stuff but ultimately they’re there for each other in this time that is already trying before the stabbing begins. They’re pretty different in some ways – symbolized by him playing baseball and her wearing a Ramones shirt and Docs – but they’re family, they share the same experiences, some of the same annoyances with their parents. I like the sibling relationship in this movie (other than him calling her “sis,” which always feels phony to me). ![]() Kinsey is mad at everybody and annoyed that Dad is trying to be Cool Dad with her while she’s trying to be off in her own world with headphones on, so she storms out into the night, and Mom sends a reluctant Luke to talk to her. So we learn about the various family tensions, we arrive late at night to the uninhabited trailer park in the middle of nowhere (but somebody’s takeout leftovers are in the fridge?) and then enjoy the creepy-as-fuck experience (repeated from the first one) of a young woman, her face covered in shadow, knocking on the door and asking if Tamara is home. Those are all different actors than in the first one, but presumably the same characters. They don’t have names within the movie but the credits call them Man in the Mask (Damian Maffei, “Devil” in HAUNT and “Deer Skull” in WRONG TURN), Dollface (Emma Bellomy, KILLER BABES AND THE FRIGHTENING FILM FIASCO) and Pin-Up Girl (Lea Enslin, THE NIGHT HOUSE). We have a pretty good idea that means her uncle and aunt were the couple killed in the opening, and that the perpetrators heard the answering machine message she left and decided to wait for them to show up. They arrive late at night, and there’s a note from her uncle telling which trailer to stay in. I’m not familiar with a place like this – it seems to be furnished, rentable trailers that people stay in seasonally, and at this time of year they’re all vacant? I’ll take their word for it that that’s a thing and if not it’s okay because it makes for a good location anyway. Kinsey has recently been fucking up, the parents have decided to send her to boarding school (which she’s very pouty about), and on the way to drop her off they’re all staying at Cindy’s uncle’s trailer park in Kalida, Ohio. The family are parents Mike (Martin Henderson, X) and Cindy (Christina Hendricks, BAD SANTA 2), their son Luke (Lewis Pullman, TOP GUN: MAVERICK) and their daughter Kinsey (Bailee Madison, DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK). It sets up a family in the midst of some family drama, it moves them to an interesting, isolated setting, it puts them through a series of well-directed scares, scraps, and chases, and it’s over in 80 minutes. There’s no continuity or information that needs to be understood, it’s more like a loose remake, a do-over, or just another time where a family is terrorized by a man and two women in creepy masks who knock on their door at night and fuck with them with no apparent motive other than that they enjoy it. This is a horror sequel in the old tradition where it’s a new set of characters and you don’t have to remember anything about the other one, or have seen it. I saw and liked the first chapter of the THE STRANGERS motion picture saga, but haven’t seen it since and don’t remember many specifics. THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT is an enjoyable, well-put-together modern slasher movie.
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