Listen to your mama

Yesterday I was talking on the phone with my mom, and because my mom is awesome we ended up talking about The Strangers. She'd seen the TV spots and asked if I thought it was some sort of remake- not of the French film Ils (Them), which has been the popular (if misinformed) opinion, but rather if it was some sort of remake of "that Naomi Watts movie". I knew the spot she was talking about, the one where Liv Tyler asks the masked intruders "Why are you doing this?" which, of course, is a question central to Michael Haneke's Funny Games. I picked up on that and immediately thought of Haneke's film, but I figured that it was maybe a coincidence- or at least, I was hoping it was.

I've been psyched about The Strangers since last year because, unlike at least 87% of the other horror previews I've seen, it looked like it would probably be scary. The original teaser poster, as we all know, has a kickass retro vibe that only added to my excitement.


It's almost impossible to tell what a movie will actually be like (or even about) based on trailers and posters, obviously, but now it seems that my mom wasn't so far off: the promotional machine behind The Strangers is undoubtedly trying to ride Michael Haneke's hump, as I discovered today over at Shock Till You Drop. Follow the yellow brick link and see what I mean.

I sure hope this is simply some kind of marketing ploy and The Strangers isn't mostly concerned with tying up Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman and poking them with pointy metal things and 'torturing' them. In my dreams, the film was...I don't know, I guess more subtle than that- more stalking than stabbing. I wasn't a huge fan of Ils, but what I did like was the cat and mouse aspect of it.

Again, who knows? I'm continuing to avoid clips and stills from The Strangers and hell, I only have to wait another week or so before I can finally see how it plays out on the big screen. It's just that this new ad campaign has me feeling like...well, you know when you have a crush on someone and you think that they're simply the coolest, most awesome best thing ever and you want to be around them every minute of the day and then something happens and you look at them and think "Aw man. You're just like everyone else, aren't you?" and you deflate a little bit? I kinda feel like that now.