Happy New Year everyone! It’s been a great year for horror and I’m looking forward to an even better year in 2019. With 2018 coming to a close, I decided to finish watching all of the 2018 films I had meant to watch, but never did. I started with The Strangers: Prey at Night; a film that was on a lot of people’s “Top 2018” lists. I liked the original, but didn’t find it to be as memorable or profound as some people found it to be. That being said, I had high hopes for this one. It started out interesting enough, with great camera angles and visual anticipation, but soon enough settled on our main characters: a family packing up their car to drive their daughter to boarding school; A punishment for some event that no one sheds light on. The daughter, Mackenzie, is played by the only speaking actor in this film to have read the script ahead of filming, Bailee Madison, who is no doubt the loudest breather and runner I’ve ever seen in a horror film. She shrieks and gasps her way through every moment. The parents are unfortunately cast, especially Christina Hendricks, who makes me hear “action” before every line delivery. My fiancé put it best when he said “Every scene feels like the first day on set.” These people don’t know each other, let alone have blood relation. It’s so uncomfortable and boring that I wonder why they’re even bothering with so much exposition.
Finally something seems believable when they find the first dead body, but the bad writing instantly shines through when we are expected to believe that none of these people in today’s world have their cell phones on their person. Especially the Ramones shirt wearing, chainsmoking, eyeroll inducing teenage stereotype, Mackenzie. She’s being sent away for her actions, she hates her mom, and she doesn’t want to be there, so of course she would leave her phone laying around.
The rest of the first hour is filled with been there/seen that shots and scenarios. In a well made horror film, classic horror cliches make me tingle with excitement. In an already bad horror film, it feels tired and unoriginal. This was the latter. When Christina Hendrick’s finally gets killed, (which thankfully is first) it’s a scene that I’m still trying to remember where I’ve seen it before. But, nevertheless, I’ve seen. it. before. I don’t want to watch bad actors reenacting good scenes. Let’s see what else they can do.
Here’s the thing. The soundtrack is really good. The dancey 80s love ballad pop music mixed with the dark, muddy slasher look make for a great indie film. The sound is also fantastic. From the music coming from the truck in the opening, to the above water/underwater audio in the pool scene, it’s beautiful.
Now let’s talk about that pool scene. It was one of the most mesmerizing scenes I’ve witnessed in a horror film in the last five years. It was so beautifully done in every way. It was a well made and exciting cinematographic masterpiece of a short film, ripping through a boring and trite imposter of a slasher film. The soundtrack was so perfectly in sync with the action on screen, creating a haunting, neon masterpiece. It was also worth watching the entire movie for, and kicked off the better half of it. (And by better half, I mean the last 25 minutes.) There were extremely decent scenes after the pool scene that made me so mad because everything before it was terrible. This leads me to my question. Why was it so bad? If they were capable of creating some really terrific and exciting moments, why couldn’t the whole thing be that good? They needed to go back, recast, rewrite the first half, and reshoot. This could have been one hell of a horror film. I’m so sad that it wasn’t.
Til next time,
🔪Madame of Horror
Madame of Horror 
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