It’s been quite a year for the franchise of horror films known as The Strangers as not only do we get this new home media release, we are also being treated to three new films in the franchise courtesy of Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea) and Lionsgate (the first chapter of which has already been released, and everyone hated it! We’ll get to that in a little while.). But with the critical re-appraisal of its sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018) and a continued love for the brutally grim original, my childhood fear of home invasion only made worse by watching a copy of this film at a friend’s rainy Fourth of July party in 2008, is feeling particularly vindicated in 2024. Shout! Factory has re-issued its already great 2018 Blu-ray release of The Strangers remastered in 4K Dolby Vision for the world to see, but is the film visually engaging enough to justify double dipping?
Shockingly, yes.
After a marriage proposal gone very wrong, longtime couple James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) return from a friend’s wedding to James’s childhood summer home in rural South Carolina. With no one around for miles, the couple is left to stew in the brutal awkwardness of their situation, but as the night drags on, they soon find themselves visited by a young woman looking for “Tamara.” Shocked at anyone being out this far into the middle of nowhere, let alone in the middle of the night, they are unsettled and dismiss the girl. As the night continues, they discover changes to the house that have cut them off more than they already were from the outside world, and once the young girl returns to the house seeking Tamara once more, the couple soon discovers that this time she has brought two more masked friends eager to wreak violent terror on the couple for the sheer thrill of it.
As a frightened 11-year-old, I never understood, nor did I care to try to understand, any of the actual themes and references that Bryan Bertino’s (The Dark and the Wicked) excellently grim horror film was making. I simply wanted the excruciating 86 minutes to be over so I could return to the comfort of my own home, where I would lock myself in my room, thinking I am somehow special enough to convince strangers to commit first-degree murder over. Growing older, wiser, and less afraid of people breaking into my home, I began to appreciate the style and tone that Bertino injected the film with, and there really hasn’t been a film since that has really dug so subtly, but effectively, into the grungy, 1970’s, “this could happen to you” style horror film complete with a John Laroquette-esque opening narration straight out of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1973), at least without going absolutely overboard on the stylization of it all. It’s Bertino dimming the lights and pulling back the humor of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997) (whose remake, also directed by Haneke, released just two months earlier than The Strangers in 2008) and injecting it with a pseudo fear-mongering tone straight out of the Nixon administration, all set within the confines of a mid-century modern ranch house. It’s beautiful in its simplicity.
It’s so grimly simple that it makes me look back on The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024), a film I gave more grace to than 99% of viewers did (despite being a rehash of this film), wondering if I liked it for itself, or whether or not it was because it was merely reminding me of what this film did so much better 14 years prior. Harlin’s film doesn’t have that pit-in-your-stomach type of horror that this film does, and when you get to re-experience that dread, which always comes before cheaper, more obvious scares here, you realize how imperative it is to tell this story effectively.
As for Shout! Factory’s new Blu-ray release for The Strangers, it comes with a new cover, referencing the 2008 theatrical poster, and lacks both the Shout! Factory original cover and the reversible cover referencing the 2008 teaser poster. I quite like the new main cover, but I do wish that it had contained the reversible cover as I find that to be one of the more charming aspects about home media releases from Shout! Factory. Other than that, the release is identical to the 2018 release, with the obvious exception of the new 4K disc, which includes only the unrated version of the film. I definitely understand the thought process of capping the release at three discs and leaving out the theatrical version of the film on 4K, if only because the unrated version changes so little from the theatrical version that it makes little difference. I suppose it would be disappointing if you were a purist of the theatrical cut of the film, but I think that is a very small minority here.
As for the 4K transfer of the film itself, I didn’t have particularly high expectations for this release, if only for the points I mentioned earlier. The Strangers is a dark, grungy horror film that cares little about being aesthetically pleasing and much more about creating a visual style that lends itself to the greatest effect of dread and fear in the viewer. So, imagine my surprise when the opening shots of the film reveal something far more beautiful than I could ever imagine Bertino’s film could ever look like. While the grungy look is still very much retained here, there is a level of clarity and (more importantly) color definition that no home media release of the film has ever gotten this right before. The Dolby Vision grading of the bleak shadows of the surrounding nothingness and warm glow of table lamps and fireplaces within the mid-century modern home lull you into a sense of strange, nostalgic comfort before ripping it out from under you. It’s something that shouldn’t work as well as it does, but I’m absolutely giddy over the fact that it does, absolutely justifying double dipping into something that one might think to ignore on paper alone.
Aurally, the film features the same DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 tracks featured on the 2018 Blu-ray release, which are excellent. There is a small part of me that wishes that Shout! Factory would have mixed the film in Dolby Atmos for the 4K release as I feel like the atmospherics of the far-off bumps in the night, the crackle of the ever-burning fireplace, the scrapes of kitchen knives against the walls across the house, etc., would have provided an extra layer of horrifying immersion. However, it’s hard to complain when both the 5.1 and 2.0 mixes already pull these effects off so well, but as I thought that this film in 4K was an unnecessary remaster, and was proven wrong, I would have loved to have been proven wrong about Dolby Atmos being overkill for this film, too.
As for special features, there is nothing new added for the 4K release that wasn’t included in the 2018 Blu-ray release, which isn’t really as big of a deal as it sounds, as the 2018 release got the typical Shout! Factory treatment of a good mixture of classic and retrospective special features, and it’s hard to really think about what else could be added here that isn’t already present. The full suite of special features is as follows:
Disc Two: Theatrical Cut
- “The Element of Terror” Featurette
- “Strangers at the Door” Featurette
- Deleted Scenes
- Theatrical Trailer & TV Spots
Disc Three: Unrated Cut
- “Defining Moments: Writing and Directing The Strangers“
- “All he Right Moves: Kip Weeks on Playing the Man in the Mask”
- “Brains and Brawn: Laura Margolis on Playing Pin-Up Girl”
- “Deep Cuts: Kevin Greutert on Editing The Strangers“
- Stills Gallery
Listen, I completely understand how one can look at a release like this and wonder “How would this film benefit from a 4K release?,” but to say the improvement over an already stellar 1080p transfer is noticeable is an understatement, which colors me just as shocked as anyone else. Still, the 1080p is so good that I also still understand waiting for a sale, even with the 4K being so great on top of that. The existing special features remain as interesting as ever, and even though it doesn’t add Dolby Atmos to the audio mix, I can’t complain too terribly much with such good 5.1 and 2.0 audio tracks. It’s a must-buy for any fans of the film who do not already own Shout! Factory’s wonderful 2018 Blu-ray release, and an “Actually worth the upgrade price if you have some disposable income” for anyone else who already does.
But let’s be real here, Shout! Factory, how about you give the fans what they want and do a 4K release of The Strangers: Prey at Night, with neon-drenched Dolby Vision and actual special features this time around. I can only imagine buying the rights to a film from the hollowed-out corpse of Aviron Pictures isn’t a particularly expensive endeavor.
Or a 4K release of Silent Hill (2006), but that’s for me and me alone.
Available on 4K UHD Blu-ray September 10th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Shout! Studios The Strangers webpage.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews
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