The Stranger — The Stranger(VOD)

The Stranger (2022) is a British supernatural home invasion horror film by Paul Gerrard and Mike Clarke, making their feature debut together.

The film follows Kyle (Damien Ashley, Semolina Pilchard), a troubled man who claims that creatures have killed his family before disappearing into hiding. Meanwhile, Amanda (Jennifer K. Preston, The Wheel of Time) and her daughter Karli (Isabella Percival, He Kills at Night) move to the countryside to start a new life by opening a guest house. When Kyle turns up looking for somewhere to stay, their peaceful new beginning takes a sinister turn, and it soon becomes difficult to tell exactly what kind of danger they’ve invited through the door.

The film opens with Kyle calling his mother, telling her that creatures have killed Cassie and their kids, but she doesn’t believe him and urges him to hand himself in, or come home to her. He mutters something about an old lady who is out all day and night, and that she will kill her too. He decides he needs to lie low and has a bit of a mental breakdown in the car while trying to work out what he’s going to do.

The next bit was really difficult to watch because it is so dark that you can’t really work out who is who. A bit disappointing because I couldn’t tell if Kyle was there or if this was the work of the creatures. It’s a big, dark, old building with security patrolling the place, and one of them gets his throat slashed and is stabbed to death. Then a man with a limp runs off, and it looks like Kyle. I wish it had been better lit because the film had already irritated me by this point, and I was just hoping it would all become clear without me scratching my head for the rest of the film, wondering if I should rewind it for a fourth time.

Just to be clear, I totally understand the need for dark, mysterious scenes, and I have watched plenty on this TV, but this needed a bit more work. To make matters worse, it’s a recurrent theme.

We switch to another scene where a couple are lying in bed and hear an intruder. The man heads downstairs with a bat, has his throat sliced, and the next scene confusingly switches to the woman waking up what looks like the next day, but it is actually weeks later. Her drinking has obviously got out of control after losing her husband. She calls for her daughter Karli, packs the car up, and they move to the country to open a guest house.

By now, I’ve started to realise that the acting isn’t great. The atmosphere holds up, though, and the flashbacks add suspense. I especially like the switch between the death and horror and the glimpses of what could be the perfect life. I love that I’m there, in this beautiful part of the country with them. Gorgeous views, no cars, nature, and then the next instant, I just know Karli has absolutely no business walking into those woods alone!

We don’t have to wait long to see the old lady. At around 20 minutes in, so that’s good going!

After settling in, we see the story build around the relationship Karli has with her mother. Karli’s mother heads out in the middle of the night to the shops, leaving Karli alone. This is where Kyle makes a reappearance, and he isn’t the distraught father and husband he was when we first saw him, which makes his mother’s words, “Kyle, what the hell have you done?” ring in my head even more.

He seems desperate for a room, but the guest house isn’t open, and a young and naive Karli lets him in and takes over the odds for a room.

We now have two vulnerable women and Kyle in the same house, in the middle of nowhere, in the pitch black! Kyle is being creepy and starts gaslighting them, and the sense that something isn’t quite right gets stronger.

Ugh, here comes the shoddy lighting again. There’s filming in the dark, and then there’s making a dark scene atmospheric and visually appealing, and this didn’t happen. For me, this let the film down in a big way.

The pace has slowed by now, but it isn’t a drag. I actually think this section is important because it gives us time to get to know Karli and Amanda’s relationship and allows the suspense to develop. At around 45 minutes, the pace starts picking up again, and by this point I’m rooting for them. Even though I mentioned that the acting was a little rough, the character building had done enough to make me care about what happened to them.

I can’t go into too much detail from here on in, but most things become clear. It’s strange and twisted, with lots of misplaced trust sprinkled in for good measure. Not only does it end with even more mysteries, questions and tension, but it also ends with a fair amount of gore. The final reveal made those Kyle questions make sense, but not the whys or who’s.

I’m questioning whether the ending has been left intentionally as it is for a number two, which I probably would watch. Overall, The Stranger is a good attempt. There are some continuity flaws, some ‘where did we learn that?’ moments, but it was those awful dark scenes that knocked a star off for me