Editorials
“Once Upon a Time We Were Falling in Love”: Why Time Will Be Kind to ‘The Strangers: Prey at Night’
The Strangers has become well regarded as one of the best horror movies of the 2000s. Its reputation seems to only grow stronger every year, and deservedly so, as it is one of the most unbelievably tense films of the century so far. 2018’s The Strangers: Prey at Night, however, does not have anywhere near the same kind of recognition as its predecessor.
In some ways, it makes a lot of sense. Talk of a sequel began not long after the original was released, but the sequel didn’t actually come out for another ten years. That is a long time for a movie to build up in people’s minds. There was even periodic talk right up until Prey at Night went into development that Liv Tyler would return, either in a cameo or as a returning protagonist, but that obviously did not happen. The fact that it was released ten years later also no doubt made the sequel much tougher to market. It’s not like a 40th anniversary Halloween movie, where the franchise is immediately recognizable all over the world. This was the sequel to a movie that was successful, fondly remembered, but nonetheless no longer part of the public consciousness. In some ways, it feels like it was probably never going to be successful at the time.
But I think the main reason, above all else, that The Strangers: Prey at Night is not as celebrated as the first film is because it is an incredibly different movie. That is, without a doubt, the criticism I see lobbed at it the most, every single time the movie is brought up. It’s a different film, a different type of film, it doesn’t feel like the first. People who condemn it often point out that it feels like a different genre. And that is always the most baffling to me because all I can think is, “Yes, that’s the point.” As many criticisms as people may have toward the movie itself, it still seems that the thing it is most often condemned for also happens to be the thing that every other great sequel is praised for. Aliens feels like a different genre than the first, as do Exorcist III, Gremlins 2, Bride of Chucky, The Devil’s Rejects, even Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Sure, there’s absolutely something to be said for sequels like Friday the 13th Part 2 that refine and improve upon the original formula, but for the most part, the best sequels take a step to the left rather continuing down the same exact path, to push things in a new direction.
The Strangers might feature masked killers, but it is not a slasher movie, whereas the sequel very much is. That’s a sore spot, I think, for a lot of people, because they think by being a different type of movie it is betraying the first. Or worse, that Johannes Roberts didn’t get what made the original work. To me, that’s essentially saying “Oh, the sequel’s a slasher because they didn’t get that the original was a home invasion movie, or they didn’t understand why that worked.” Which is silly, because I think they very clearly did. I think many of the strengths of The Strangers: Prey at Night lie in subverting people’s expectations from the first film.
In fact, at the beginning, it’s almost the same movie, which is one of the things I love most about it. There’s an unexpected hallmark of the Strangers features in that they both drop the audience into the middle of an already strained relationship. In the original, we are introduced to our main characters as they return to their rented cabin immediately after she has turned down his marriage proposal. In the second, we’re meeting a family just as they’re heading out to drop their teenage daughter off at private school after one too many fuck ups. They’re different, of course, but the feeling of immediate unease and the way the backstory is explained bit by bit as it goes, is largely the same.
This especially works with the ritualistic nature of the killers. They’re doing the exact same thing they did the first time. Dollface goes to the door without her mask, asks for Tamara, waits, comes to the door, asks again, and things escalate from there. It’s exactly what they do, with the only difference being that now we know what’s going to happen as soon as that first knock comes, which generates a totally different kind of tension. The characters and setting might be different, but the set up is almost identical, even if things start happening sooner. And that’s smart, because it pulls the rug out from under the audience when things take a huge turn and it becomes—clearly—something very different from what people expected it to be. Not only is there the fact that a bigger group of characters means a bigger body count, but these characters also fight back in a way that neither the viewers nor the killers are entirely prepared for.
Even people who enjoy The Strangers: Prey at Night tend to label it more as a style over substance movie, which I think is a bit of a disservice to how smart the film actually is and why some of these stylistic changes are made. Scrolling through Facebook and Twitter comments, you’ll see no shortage of people complaining that it felt like they were watching a music video. The song choices are, admittedly, many. But they are also absolutely crucial, because they embody the one thing that the film is fundamentally about: control.
For our main group of characters, they are each attempting to hold onto a family dynamic that is spiraling. For Kinsey and Luke, in particular, it is about reclaiming their relationship with one another while also taking hold of their own lives. With that in mind, it makes sense that Kinsey is our protagonist, because at the beginning, she has no control over her situation. Her parents are directing the course of her life in the insistence that what they are doing is for her own good, whether she can see it now or not. Her attempts to lash out and rebel against this are incredibly minor; things like refusing to eat dinner, ignoring them when they talk to her, or storming out of the trailer mid-conversation. These things are small and definitely pathetic, because Kinsey already knows there’s nothing she can do; they’ve already left home and private school is on the horizon. This is happening whether she wants to admit it or not. It’s great to see her go from someone who, at the beginning, has zero control over the situation that she’s in, whose life is being fundamentally redirected by her parents because they do not trust her to guide it on her own, to eventually having to depend entirely on herself to survive.
The best thing about The Strangers: Prey at Night, however, is that this sense of control is even more explicitly embodied by the killers. More than maybe any other killers in horror, you can feel the intense amount of prep work that these unnamed masked murderers put into what they’re doing. They clearly laid out the entire area, they know the ins and outs, and they do absolutely everything they can to manipulate every situation and maintain the upper hand at any given time. That’s where the music comes into play. The music embodies this sense of control more than anything else in the movie and that’s made clear from literally the first second. Even Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America” over the opening credits turns out to be coming from the killers’ truck radio. It manipulates the audience, because what feels like a normal opening credits song turns out to be chosen by the killers as much as the filmmakers, as if the Man in the Mask is playing it just for us. Soundtrack choices in movies and TV are always about manipulating how we are supposed to feel as an audience. The Strangers: Prey at Night simply takes that idea and entrenches it in the actual narrative itself. In the context of the story, the song is playing not only as an opening credits selection for the audience, but as the first step in a murder plot being orchestrated by our killers.
There’s something inherently terrifying about that. Not only do we not know who these people are or what kind of lives they might lead when they’re not wearing the masks (I’ve always embraced the chilling idea that they lead perfectly normal lives until they get together for these homicidal sprees every so often) but we don’t know how they know that the family are coming to the trailer park, let alone how they know them at all. There’s too much prep work for them to be chosen at random, which is a very scary thought. They take out Aunt Sheryl and Uncle Marv right out of the gate, the song accompanying them as they do so, as a way of getting the environment exactly how they want it, so that they are already in complete control of the situation before Kinsey and her family even know that they are there.
Through most of the first act, everything seems completely calculated. Even when Cindy, their mom, is killed, horrific as it is, it conveys the same sense of control as depicted in the opening. Even though Kinsey escapes, that scene clearly depicts a murder that is going according to plan. But the scene that most explicitly conveys how the killers use music in their manipulation of the environment comes when they kill Mike, set again to Kim Wilde, this time “Cambodia.” This was the scene that really made me look at the way music was used in the film because it is such an interesting, clearly deliberate choice. The Man in the Mask has the dad right where he wants him and can do whatever he wants, take as much time as he wants, without any risk of escape. The poor guy is literally pinned behind the wheel, and he’s not going anywhere. This allows the Man in the Mask to almost take a breather for a moment. He sits in the car doing absolutely nothing, only searching the radio while Mike begs for his life. And he does not kill him until he finds the right song, which I think is an absolutely crucial detail to understanding these killers and how they operate. It’s not just about setting the mood, it’s about dictating exactly what happens in this environment.
Unlike the original film, the killers lose the upper hand and even meet their eventual comeuppance. But what Prey at Night does so brilliantly is that when this loss of control happens, the soundtrack reflects that, too. This happens most explicitly when Luke takes on the killers by himself, in what is without a doubt the film’s most celebrated sequence: the showdown at the swimming pool. Set to “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” this is the scene that even people who hate the movie tend to commend, while others have said that the music choice takes the viewer out of what would otherwise be a very tense moment. But as I’ve probably made clear, I think the music is vital to the core of this movie, from beginning to end, and perhaps in this scene most of all.
This is the moment when the whole movie shifts, because this is the moment when—no matter how they try to regain it—the killers fundamentally lose the sense of control they have had from the beginning. It happens when Luke kills the Pin Up Girl. The Man in the Mask, whose persona in both movies had been entirely dispassionate up to this point, starts lashing out wildly. With “Total Eclipse of the Heart” blaring throughout the entire sequence, the pool showdown is unbelievably tense and it’s easy to see why it is so fondly remembered as the highlight of the entire movie. I’ve seen a couple of people argue that it would be better without the music, which makes it too showy and stylistic, but I think that sells the film short. Every song is included for a reason and means something specific to where in the movie it is placed, and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is no different. As the scene shifts, as the killers lose the upper hand, the music reflects that. In the most obvious and un-subtle sense, there’s the fact that this song, preaching about loss and a heart turning to stone, plays over both the death of the Pin Up Girl, Luke taking a life, and what we’re at first led to believe is Luke’s death.
But it’s not the lyrics or the song itself that signal this transitional moment in the film and the overall loss of control, it’s the way the song gets distorted. As Luke and the Man in the Mask fight from the poolside down into the water, they periodically sink beneath the surface, where the song drifts away and only the rumbling bass can be heard. If I’m reading too into it, I’m more than happy to, because I think this is great. I think the distortion of the song absolutely showcases the moment the killers lose control, with every thing that happens after this scene being about their increasingly aggressive attempts to regain it. This is when everything slips out of their hands. When the Man in the Mask’s persona crumbles, even if he doesn’t take his mask off. This is the moment when the song they have chosen to ironically accompany their murder spree fails them, for the first time, when they sink beneath the water to discover that down there, there’s no clever soundtrack, and the song only sounds like thunder.
When Kinsey takes her stand against the Man in the Mask, he’s still committed to having a soundtrack, blasting Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” from his truck’s radio, but by this point the illusion has been stripped away and his intimidation tactics only come off as acts of desperation. Everything at this point is about holding on to the illusion of control and maintaining his persona, both of which he has already lost to some degree. What I think The Strangers: Prey at Night ultimately shows is that no matter how much both families, as it were, struggle for control, no one ever really achieves it by the end, because it kind of doesn’t exist. At every turn, the upper hand, no matter how much planning went into it, is seized only by opportunity. It’s all left up to chance. Luke only happens to catch the Pin Up Girl off guard and here, in the final showdown, Kinsey happens to see the gas leaking out of the Man in the Mask’s truck and recognizes the opportunity it presents. Once again, the film seems to stop for a second as she throws down the lighter, and it’s another transitional point. Now, the song continues to play, louder than ever, but it’s a soundtrack that’s playing in her favor, not the killer’s.
All in all, it seems like The Strangers: Prey at Night was almost tailor-made to not be a movie that people would respond to at the time. Like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, it was a tonally different sequel that came a little too late. On that level, I do entirely get why it didn’t exactly take the horror world by storm. But I think it is, without a doubt, one of the best slashers of its era. The things that make it stand apart from the original are things that I think will come to be recognized as its strengths over time, just like so many re-evaluated sequels before it. It’s entertaining in a way the first wasn’t meant to be. Instead, it’s much more of a roller coaster ride than an assault on the senses, but it’s also a whole lot smarter than it is given credit for.
And that, I would like to hope, will be the key to its eventual success.
On July 13th, 2026, the world lost one of its brightest stars.
Beloved New Zealand actor Sam Neill passed away from pneumonia after a long battle with stage 3 lymphoma. The multifaceted movie star will be remembered by mainstream audiences for his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 masterpiece Jurassic Park, as well as powerful turns in A Cry in the Dark (1988), The Piano (1993), and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), and prestige TV series The Tudors and Peaky Blinders. But horror fans know him as one of the genre’s most surprising Scream Kings.
Through a handful of memorable starring roles, Neill spent the 80s and 90s bringing life to a wide variety of characters and finding humanity in the most unusual leading roles, regardless of how heroic or villainous.
The Final Conflict (1981)
After a decade on the stage and screen in New Zealand and Australia, Neill made his international debut as Damien Thorn in Graham Baker’s The Final Conflict, the third installment of The Omen franchise. Now a 36-year-old businessman, Damien is fully aware of his devilish parentage and hell-bent on world domination. But rather than a hooved and horned monstrosity, Neill’s Antichrist is a suave businessman who leads his followers in an expensive suit and seeks to bring about the apocalypse through deceptive altruism rather than grand proclamation.
Despite his austere demeanor, the man’s true evil knows no bounds. When a prophecy foretells the second coming of Christ, known in the film as “the Nazarene,” Damien commands his followers to commit widespread infanticide, murdering all baby boys born on a specific date. He seduces a high-profile reporter while transforming her teenage son into a bloodthirsty disciple, then uses the child as a human shield. This tricky role allows Neill to demonstrate his trademark versatility, easily charming the outside world while dropping his suave mask of normalcy behind closed doors. Though certain aspects of The Final Conflict are admittedly dated, Neill’s performance feels eerily prescient. He’s mastered the heinous portrayal of a politician willing to sell his soul for power that will ultimately bring about the end of the world.
Possession (1981)
Though Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession is often remembered for Isabelle Adjani’s stunning depiction of a woman on the edge, Neill delivers an equally unhinged performance as Mark, a spy returning home from a lengthy assignment in divided Berlin. Upon discovering that his wife Anna (Adjani) wants a divorce, Mark desperately tries to hold his family together even at the expense of her sanity. Filmed the same year as The Final Conflict, Neill dives headfirst into this visceral role, managing to evoke sympathy for the distraught father who becomes ever more desperate to regain control. Inspired by his own divorce, Żuławski resists blaming either party for the separation, instead showing the chaos and heartache that comes in the wake of a family’s dissolution.
Once considered to replace Roger Moore as the next James Bond, Neill has fun with the international spy persona as Żuławski’s plot grows increasingly bizarre. But the skilled actor never lets us forget that Mark is a flawed human being struggling to keep his life from falling apart. A second character emerges in the film’s mesmerizing climax, allowing Neill to lean into full villainy with a glassy-eyed stare that chills to the bone. Now a cult classic, Adjani and Neill bounce off each other’s seething rage, creating one of the most effective cinematic duets in the history of horror.
Jurassic Park (1993)
When Steven Spielberg’s creature feature first hit theaters, Neill was by no means a household name and hardly a traditional leading man. Without the swashbuckling swagger of Harrison Ford, the mega-watt smile of Tom Cruise, or the chiselled jaw of Brad Pitt — all famous action stars of the era — Neill felt like an unconventional choice for this massive role. But he perfectly captures the essence of Grant, an aloof academic who prefers dig sites to fancy fundraisers and social events. Despite an aversion to children, the dinosaur expert finds himself tasked with saving the theme park’s youngest survivors who gradually break down his emotional walls. Grant’s transformation into a courageous caretaker is a landmark deconstruction of traditional gender norms wrapped in the guise of a rugged outdoorsman.
Neill proves to be the perfect action star, effortlessly navigating Spielberg’s stunning set pieces without losing the character’s relatable hook. But perhaps the film’s most touching moment is Neill’s childlike wonder at seeing a dinosaur for the first time. Stunned to speechlessness, he channels the audience’s wondrous joy when Grant first spies a real, live Brachiosaurus. But he seamlessly weaves this infectious awe into serious concerns about the creature’s existence, amplifying the story’s prophetic messaging. Jeff Goldblum may utter the film’s iconic warning, but the duality of Grant’s performance perfectly illustrates the scientific imperative, reminding us that just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
Neill would go on to lead Joe Johnston’s 2001 sequel Jurassic Park III, in which Grant is again tasked with saving a child. In 2022, he would appear in Colin Trevorrow’s legacy sequel Jurassic World Dominion, which merges the franchise’s two distinct eras while bringing the carnage onto mainland shores. Despite turning in strong performances, neither film is able to top the magic of Spielberg’s original or Neill’s captivating performance as the stoic leading man. But his nuanced depiction of Alan Grant inspired a generation of would-be paleontologists and quiet kids who could now see themselves as courageous academics capable of surprising strength.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
After catapulting to worldwide fame, Neill returned to horror proper to lead John Carpenter’s mind-bending In the Mouth of Madness. We first meet John Trent (Neill) as he’s dragged, kicking and screaming, into a padded cell. An unknown stretch of time later, he recounts an unbelievable story while covered in protective crosses scrawled into his skin — and the cell’s walls — with black crayon. A private investigator, Trent has been tasked with locating Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), a world-famous yet elusive genre author whose work has been driving his ravenous readers to disturbing acts of random violence.
A love letter to fans of horror fiction, we delight in watching Trent explore literary easter eggs that lead him down jarring rabbit holes. A late-night road trip takes Trent and Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), an editor for Cane’s publishing house, to a tiny New England hamlet teeming with darkness. While investigating an ominous cathedral on the outskirts of town, Trent realizes that he’s somehow been transported into the author’s interdimensional story and become its unwitting protagonist.
Neill serves as a skeptical everyman and the audience’s conduit through this bizarre tale of literary monsters that find a way to burst through the page. An often overlooked Carpenter film, In the Mouth of Madness spirals into insanity, but Neill keeps us grounded throughout each outlandish twist. A shocking conclusion leaves us gaping at our screens and contemplating our own relationship with horror fiction. After all, does free will truly exist? Or, like Trent, are we merely pawns in someone else’s monstrous creation?
Event Horizon (1997)
One of the scariest movies ever set in space, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon builds upon the heroic image Neill established for himself in Jurassic Park. Dr. William Weir (Neill) is a physicist temporarily joining the crew of the Lewis and Clark to assist in their latest rescue mission. Seven years after vanishing without a trace, a spaceship called the Event Horizon has suddenly reappeared near Neptune’s orbit. As the creator of a top-secret gravity drive designed to facilitate faster-than-light travel, Dr. Weir has been sent to explore the ship and find out what happened to its missing crew.
Still haunted by his late wife’s suicide, Dr. Weir is a sympathetic figure, particularly in comparison to the harsh Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) who commands the crew of the Lewis and Clark. But Weir’s desperation to return to the infamous ship hides a sinister secret that leads his fellow astronauts to the threshold of hell. Neill’s talent for playing the everyman pays off in spades as the formerly sympathetic widower transforms into a disciple of this frightening dimension. Resembling a long-lost cenobite, Weir claws out his own eyes and prepares to drag the crew into a world consumed with sadistic pain.
Daybreakers (2009)
Neill returns to his Omen roots in Michael and Peter Spierig’s action-packed film as a secretly sinister businessman. But rather than the Antichrist, Charles Bromley (Neill) is a proud vampire convinced of the species’ superiority. With human blood in short supply, Bromley Marks Corp. is working on a synthetic substitute to prevent the human race from impending extinction. While hematologists perfect the formula, Bromley oversees disturbing fields of humans chained to massive machines that systematically harvest their blood.
Neill chills in this sinister role with vampiric yellow eyes, a pale complexion, and subtle fangs. But more upsetting is the fact that he honestly doesn’t believe he’s wrong. Once diagnosed with cancer, Bromley was delighted to find that vampirism would totally reverse his illness and grant him the gift of eternal life. He begged his daughter Alison (Isabel Lucas) to turn alongside him, but she has rejected her father’s controversial choice and is now hunted by his bloodthirsty goons. In a heartbreaking moment of clarity, Bromley brings his daughter to the brink of death, then turns away in disgust when she will not embrace his undead lifestyle.
Daybreakers is a surprisingly thrilling exploration of survival and sustainability. Similar to a plot Damien Thorn would hatch, Bromley’s ultimate plan is to placate the vampire population with synthetic blood while allowing the human population to replenish itself. With a larger stock, he plans to sell authentic humans at a premium, hunting these poor souls to season the meat. Bromley rejects a cure that would reverse the vampiric disease, choosing to enrich himself over saving the world. The strangely captivating villain’s end is a cathartic nightmare and fitting punishment for a wealthy man who places himself above everyone else.
In the Mouth of Madness
While the world may remember Neill for his signature role as a gruff but compassionate paleontologist going head to head with a raging T-Rex, horror fans may picture the versatile actor maniacally rocking back and forth in a filthy Berlin apartment, commanding a boardroom of corporate vampires, disappearing into the darkness of a haunted spaceship, sermonizing to satanists, or giggling over popcorn in a deserted movie theater. Or perhaps you have another favorite role in the beloved actor’s stellar career. But whether he was playing a hero or villain, Neill brought undeniable humanity to every role, redefining our idea of masculinity and the very nature of goodness vs. evil. By bringing such disparate characters to life, Neill challenged audiences with a variety of complex roles, asking us to examine the humanity of each character no matter how flawed or virtuous.
You must be logged in to post a comment.