Phoenix Productions
Oh, how the mighty have truly fallen. Prey at Night had all the potential to be a worthy successor to my personal favorite horror movie of all time, The Strangers (Rating 9). Unfortunately, the film makes a massive misstep in its story, as well as many technical issues and flaws. This includes one massive continuity error so egregious, it had my family and me believing that the story actually took a brilliant twist into Saw-esque cult territory out of nowhere. Alas, the film is not nearly as brilliant as that thought, even though the ending is ambiguous enough that such a thing is still possible. Anyways, onto the review. This will be structured slightly differently than other reviews, because I had incredibly conflicting feelings about each act of the film.
Act 1 (out of 3) of Prey at Night is fairly mediocre at best. It starts out fantastically, drawing you back into the nostalgic rampage of the Strangers, with Dollface leading the charge. And when I mention nostalgia, I really mean it. This film structures everything in the style of old-school retro slashers. Even the opening title screen is absolutely a breath of fresh air in the over-saturated modern horror industry. The retro style really works in the film's favor. However, for reasons I will describe later, it also hurts it. Once the first kills take place, the film grinds to a slog, as it shoves the backstory of this average family down the viewers' throats. To be completely honest, I don't even really remember the characters' names, that's how forgettable they are. Far less compelling than Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman's performances in the original film, whose portrayals of Kristen and James are still some of my favorite horror victims. This opening act rides on the acting ability of the cast, which really doesn't hold up. Add to that some really funky issues with the cinematography, including some oddly out-of-focus shots, and the film really doesn't give a good first impression. The second act of Prey At Night makes up for that, with some (albeit predictable) old-school horror and killing. The film makes an effort to change the MO of the Strangers completely, as they begin the killing immediately. The cinematography, acting, and story all improve dramatically in this second act, to the point where the story itself feels very much worthy of being a sequel to the first film at this point. The cinematography reaches the highest quality of any horror movie I've ever seen for the remainder of this film. It's definitely no Blade Runner 2049 (Rating Legendary), but it's definitely up there. Pin-Up Girl and the Man in the Mask definitely deliver some scares here, but the Strangers seem to almost be too omniscient throughout the middle of this film. They are in all the right places at all the right times to propel the plot forward. Still, all in all, this second act is quite good. Then we get to the part of the film that royally pissed me off: the third act. The act where they fundamentally destroy the Strangers as horror villains. The act where they enter the realm of the almost-supernatural for no reason whatsoever. The act where they KILL THE STRANGERS. I won't lie, I honestly cared more for the Strangers than I did for the family in this film. But when Pin-Up Girl was knocked out by a golf club and stabbed repeatedly to death, I was shocked. Then Dollface gets unmasked and shotgunned. Then things get really messy. The Man in the Mask, along with his signature, apparently-invincible truck, survive an explosion, burning, and a shard of glass to the heart. This is where the almost-supernatural part kicks in. It's very clear that the film wanted the Man in the Mask to be a tribute to Jason Voorhees and other similar slashers with the tendency to be unkillable. However, here it just doesn't work since the last film established the Strangers as being purely human. Now for that continuity error I was talking about. The film makes you believe that the shard of glass did the Man in. The daughter, who survives along with her brother, is hailing a truck for help, when the Man attacks her one last time with an axe. Not only does she eat an axe blow to the shoulder and not get butchered, she manages to brush it off, climb into the truck, find a baseball bat, and knock the ever-loving crap out of the Man, snapping his neck. Now, in the scene with the glass, the Man's mask had burned partially, and all his body was burned. In the shot where he hits her with the axe, his body is not burned, and his mask is intact. However, in a close-up as the truck drives away, the mask is revealed to be burned. This continuity error had all of us believing that there were more than one set of Strangers, which would have been such a brilliant twist for this film. However, the story went with the stereotypical supernatural idea and an ambiguous ending that left me shaking my head in disappointment as I left the theater both times I saw the film. A real shame and missed opportunity. This film's score basically comes only from the impressive second act of the film. The first and third acts were just so weak in comparison, and they bring the film down tremendously. A real damn shame. FINAL SCORE: 5
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May 2018
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