FILM REVIEW OF ''THE STRANGERS: PREY FOR NIGHT" (2018)

Indeed, “The Strangers: Prey for Night” (** OUT OF ****) arrives ten years later as a belated sequel to writer & director Bryan Bertino’s 2008 horror chiller “The Strangers.”  Although Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) survived in the original “Strangers,” she doesn’t show up for the sequel.  While Bertino received first credit for writing this follow-up film, “Forrest of the Damned” director Johannes Roberts has taken over the helm, and “30 Days of Night: Dark Days” scribe Ben Ketai has contributed to the screenplay.  Mind you, “The Strangers: Prey for Night” lacks the nihilistic artistry of “The Strangers.” Nevertheless, the sequel proves far more satisfying in terms of dramatic closure.  Whereas only Liv Tyler lived in “The Strangers,” two characters escape the knives, ax, and vehicular mayhem in “Prey for Night.”  No, you don’t need to watch “The Strangers” again to appreciate its tardy sequel.  If you do, you may notice certain scenes are replicated here for greater impact.  One of the things that made “The Strangers” such a startling exercise in terror was its violence.  At one point, Kristen’s terrified boyfriend, James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) found a shotgun.  Unfortunately, when he wielded it, Hoyt accidentally killed Mike (Glenn Howerton), his best friend.  Since the front door stood ajar, Mike had blundered into the house, and Hoyt mistook Mike for one of the three foes.  Nobody perishes from friendly fire in “Prey at Night.”  The two films share some similarities, but they remain largely different based on their respective settings.  “The Strangers” emphasized claustrophobia because the bedlam occurred in a ranch house in the woods.  The hysterics in “Prey at Night” are not confined to one house.  Instead, the pandemonium rages within an isolated trailer park where only the manager and his wife remain during the off-season.  Ostensibly, the two movies take place after dark, and the predators eventually sabotage all means of communication.  As slick as Johannes Roberts’ direction is, “Prey for Night” amounts to a lukewarm, standard-issue, 1980s slasher saga.  Bits and pieces of the storyline—not the body parts of its slain victims—have been tweaked sufficiently to make it its 85-minute running time tolerable.

In “The “Strangers,” Kristen and James had just gotten home after attending a wedding.  Clearly, they were amorous couple, but they had not set a date for their own wedding.  “The Strangers: Prey at Night” deals with a family in turmoil.  Cindy (Christina Hendricks of “The Neon Demon”) and her husband Mike (Martin Henderson of “Windtalkers”) are driving their problem child daughter, Kinsey (Bailee Madison of “Just Go with It”), to a boarding school.  Kinsey has a rebellious streak a mile wide.  She wears Goth girl make-up and smokes cigarettes without inhaling them.  All of Kinsey’s girlfriends skip school and participate in activities just as onerous as she did, but their parents haven’t punished them.  Cindy tells her defiant daughter she wishes that her mother could have confronted her problem as she has Kinsey’s.  Mike loads up the mini-van, and they pick up Kinsey’s older brother, Luke (Lewis Pullman of “Battle of the Sexes”), who has been playing baseball with his pals. Naturally, Kinsey and Mike annoy each other during the journey.  Although the family fell behind their scheduled departure, Cindy has left a telephone message for Uncle Marvin at Gatlin Lake Trailer Park that they will be arriving late.  We the audience already suspect this family is headed for an ill-fated rendezvous because the three murderers —the Man in Burlap Mask (Damian Maffei of “Nikos the Impaler,” Dollface (newcomer Emma Bellomy), and Pin-Up Girl (newcomer Lea Enslin)—have broken in on Uncle Marvin and Aunt Sheryl and relieved them off all their worldly anxieties.  Interestingly, this older couple slept with a dog between them, but the canine cowered rather than attacked.

Predictably, Cindy and family don’t have a clue about their impending doom.  They arrive after dark, and Cindy picks up their trailer key from main office.  Of course, nobody greets her.  No sooner have they settled in than somebody knocked at the door.  The knocking itself sound ominous.  Cindy opens it to find a girl standing in darkness on the porch.  The outside light is not shining, so Cindy cannot see the girl’s face.  The girl asks her if Tamara is home.  Cindy disappoints her, and she watches the girl leave.  Stubborn Kinsey refuses to play cards with Cindy and Mike, and she storms out of the trailer to smoke.  Cindy sends Luke after Kinsey.  After the sinister prologue, director Johannes Roberts devotes about thirty minutes acquainting audiences with the family.  They appear average.  The parents are struggling to raise their two children, but one has run off the rails.  If a message lurks in “The Strangers: Prey for Night,” could it be: “think twice about sending your daughters to boarding school?”  Otherwise, Cindy and Mike seem like a model couple with few flaws.

“The Strangers: Prey for Night” differs from its predecessor because its victims enjoy a greater chance of survival. Meantime, the filmmakers have scrupulously observed the rules of the slasher fest.  The masked villains are virtually indestructible.  Some can recover from the worst injuries.  An older man wearing a burlap bag drives them around in a battered Ford pick-up.  He is dressed in a suit and tie.  He favors an ax.  Something about the way an ax sounds as it is dragged across concrete appeals to him.  The two girls prefer kitchen knives.  They display no emotions whatsoever when they maim or slaughter their victims.  The masked dastards in “The Strangers” behaved in similar fashion.  One of Cindy’s family asks her assailant why she is trying to kill her.  “Why not?” the girl utters with a dreamy gaze.  Not surprisingly, when the stabbing starts, the family goes berserk.  They do the usual, foolhardy things victims do.  Everything about “The Strangers: Prey for Night” is hackneyed, but the film adheres to the slasher formula with enough style to make it adequate for a rental.

FILM REVIEW OF "GOD FORGIVES, BUT I DON'T . . ." (ITALIAN-1967)

Before he became a film director, Giuseppe Colizzi served as Federico Fellini's production manager on "The Swindlers." The short-lived Colizzi helmed four of his six films with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. Nevertheless, Colizzi belongs to a select handful of distinguished Italian western directors, such as Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, Tonino Valerii, and Gianfranco Parolini--who imbued their oaters with an unmistakable aura of flair and style, doubling not only as director but also as writer. The first entry in an overlooked and underrated spaghetti western trilogy, Colizzi's "God Forgives, But I Don't" boasts the numerical distinction of pairing Hill and Spencer together for the first time after a foot injury forced lead actor Peter Martell off the picture. "Ace High" and "Boot Hill" followed. Hill and Spencer went on to achieve greater fame in Enzo Barboni's two "Trinity" features. Before Hill capitalized on comedy westerns and later modern day adventures, he proved himself as gunslinging Cat Stevens, a pistolero who found it just as easy to cross the line between good and evil as fire up a cheroot. Bronzed like a tawny Greek god with a deep masculine voice dubbed in by another actor and displaying admirable restraint in the stoic tradition of Clint Eastwood, Hill proved equally adept at portraying sober dramatic leads as well as lightweight, comic leads. Hill and Spencer are evenly matched by seasoned spaghetti western villain Frank Wolff who resembles Harpo Max with mutton chops.

"God Forgives, But I Don't" (***1/2 out of ****) seizes your attention from the start. A crowd in Canyon City awaits the arrival of a train at the railway depot with a brass band. The train trundles into the station, breezes past the surprised on-lookers, and crashes into a barrier at the end of the siding. A dead man with a bullet hole in his forehead tumbles out of a passenger coach when the door is thrown open. Colizzi presents a swift montage of bullet-riddled corpses and faces to highlight the enormity of the massacre. During the excitement, a wounded passenger stumbles off the other side of the train and flees without attracting attention. Eventually, we learn that the murderous outlaw chieftain Bill San Antonio (Frank Wolff of "A Stranger in Town") and his gang of despicable desperadoes held up the train and stole $100-thousand in gold.

Colizzi shifts the action to a poker game. Cat Stevens (Terence Hill of "The Leopard") looks as cool as ice as he gambles with a quartet of hard cases. A dispute arises over the conduct of the game and a brawl breaks out. Cat whips his adversaries with his fists but in the process trashes the premises. Cat's trademark gesture is pushing a cheroot up and down with his fingers. Later, Cat's friend Hutch Bessy (Bud Spencer of "The 5-Man Army") finds him at a remote waterhole and tells him about the MK&T train robbery. Hutch found the sole survivor of the train massacre. Before the passenger perished, he told Hutch about Bill San Antonio's role in the robbery. Hutch describes Bill's clever plan. The outlaws rode 150 miles to the halfway point between El Paso and Canyon City and then rode in circles to make their presence known at that point. The gang turned south, followed the river, and then galloped back to El Paso. They watched as the gold loaded onto the train and then bought tickets, and waylaid the train 20 miles from the Mexican border. After he robbed the train, Bill San Antonio had everybody on board murdered and sent the train onto Canyon City.

Initially, Cat refuses to believe Bill could have planned and participated in the hold-up. Colizzi flashbacks to a scene in a shack where Bill and Cat squared off against each other in a showdown after Bill's henchman Bud (José Manuel Martín of "The Savage Guns") sets the building ablaze. Cat guns down Bill and Bill's men allow him to leave alive. Later, they come after him and try to kill him. Meanwhile, Bill is never heard or seen again until the MK&T robbery. The bank took an insurance policy out on the stolen money and Hutch plans to find the gold and collect the insurance. He wants Cat to team up with him so they can locate the loot. Not only did Bill San Antonio not die in the fire but he also robbed the train. Garrulous desperado that Bill is, he explains what happened and why. The banker and Bill were in cahoots. When things got too hot, the banker recommended that Bill disappear for a spell. Cat sneaks into Bill's hideout one night, blunders into a trap, and gets strung up by his heels. Nevertheless, he manages to defend himself against his opponents. Hutch intervenes and they steal the $100-thousand dollars in gold.

Neither Cat nor Hutch has an easy time holding onto the gold while surviving Bill and his gang. Numerous shoot-outs occur with a take-no-prisoners mentality. Colizzi models loquacious Bill San Antonio after Eli Wallach's Mexican bandit Calvera from "The Magnificent Seven." Bill feels responsible for his cronies and wants to take care of them. Blue-eyed Terrence Hill has the stew beaten out of him and nearly drowns in one scene. Hutch displays his Herculean strength both in fistfights and in shouldering a chest packed with gold. The same friendly rivalry that characterized Trinity and Bambino's relationship in the "Trinity" appears to have been foreshadowed by Colizzi. The final showdown between Bill and Cat takes the shoot-out at the beginning to the next level. Good dialogue, rugged laconic heroes, grimy trigger-happy hooligans, atmospheric settings, Alfio Contini's impressive widescreen photography, and the scenic sun-drenched plains of Spain make "God Forgives, I Don't" a solid, satisfying saga, head and shoulders above the average spaghetti western.