The Strangers (SPOILERS!! Get over it or go away.)

Joe told me today he used to think I was invincible when it came to scary movies but that he now knows I'm just a "vagina." I guess this is where I admit I screamed a little during The Strangers. You can tell my threshold for scary stuff has been passed when my eyes start watering. Despite my screaming, my eyes remained dry.

What bothered me about this movie was the circumstances surrounding their stay in the cabin in the woods. Ok. So Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are at a wedding when he whisks her away and proposes to her. She declines his offer with puppy dog eyes stabbing through his heart. So what does he do? He drives her out into the woods to the ranch-style house he grew up in as a young boy. Rose petals were strategically placed in a bath tub and around candles to set the mood for some victory sexy time. Only there was no victory. So really they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Seriously. The girl just broke his heart and shat on his dreams. Why would anyone want to stay in a romantically decorated house in the woods with someone like that? Ugh. Dumb.

I was also mad we never saw the killers faces. Imagine my surprise when I IMDB'd that shit only to discover Gemma Ward plays the main creeper. Gemma Ward! The little alien looking model! I'd like to say I'm happy to see her branching out but she probably probes, kills and hides dead bodies in her space ship when she's not strutting down a cat walk already. The bad guy is played by Kip Weeks who I don't know. The other girl creeper is Laura Margolis from Dirty Sexy Money.

Ignoring that minor plot discrepancy, Bryan Bertino wrote and directed one pretty creepy movie. The narrator said it was inspired by real events. Wikipedia told me the screenplay was a combination of different elements including:

• A memory from Bryan Bertino's childhood wherein a stranger rang his doorbell at midnight looking for a person who didn't live there. (Apparently Bertino later found out that neighboring houses were being robbed.)
• Charles Manson and his clan. (Reading Helter Skelter and researching Manson and his followers made my eyes water.) The bad guys tortured Liv and Scott by creeping around their house and moving things. Manson's followers would entertain themselves by entering houses while people were sleeping and moving things around. (I wonder if people attributed out-of-place items to strangers and not other family members or bad memory? I mean unless they wrote "hello" and "killer" all over the walls.... I hope I never face this predicament.)
• California murders where three people "were found tied up, stabbed, bludgeoned by a hammer."

So basically the idea was good. And most parts were scary. The music was loud and damning and painfully irritating just as the score of a horror movie should be. The end was fantastic. I anticipate a sequel but will still be furious when one is filmed.

Just another reason I'll never live in the woods and I'll always carry a frying pan around my house if I ever live alone. You can never be too careful these days.