On a secluded farm in a nondescript rural town, a man is slowly dying. His family gathers to mourn, and soon a darkness grows, marked by waking nightmares and a growing sense that something evil is taking over the family.
Chuck says:
With The Strangers, writer/director Bryan Bertino has one certified horror classic under his belt, giving him enough cache to peak my interest whenever he steps behind the camera. To be sure, his latest has moments as the filmmaker is able to construct a tense moment with the best of them. An image featuring the dead matriarch in this film floating above the front lawn in the middle of the night is a vision I could surely have done without. Other moments such as these populate the film yet arresting visuals alone do not a movie make. The script is incredibly thin as the threat here goes unexplained while the story simply repeats itself again and again and again without moving forward. There’s a sense of narrative inertia that ultimately proves to be the film’s undoing.
2 Stars
Pam says: The atmospheric tone of this film with the underlying music is unnerving, but unfortunately, the story spins its wheels and seems to go absolutely nowhere. Michael Abbott, Jr. who plays the hard-nosed, unforgiving brother and son and Marin Ireland whose portrayal of the responsible sister and daughter lose their footing in a script that gives them no range to development their characters. And without a character to connect with, we just don’t care if the devil takes over or not. “The Dark and the Wicked’s” pace is much too slow and Abbott and Ireland’s performances plateau early on with no building of tension. It’s just a continual monotonous tone which does not allow the shocks and special effects to truly take effect. This is just another horror film can be lumped into the myriad number of forgettable flicks that show up this time of year.
1 1/2 stars
