Let us prey

The film follows a family whose road trip takes a turn when they arrive at a secluded mobile home park and after the power goes out they decide to hunker down for the night in a borrowed trailer.

Under the cover of darkness, three familiar masked psychopaths pay them a visit to test their every limit

Review of Strangers - Prey At Night by Eddie @ The Movie Guys

It didnt need a sequel, yet it got one anyway (as is the case with most semi-successful horror films) but surprisingly, against all the odds that wouldve suggested otherwise, low-budget The Strangers follow-up Prey at Night is a moody and atmospheric genre jaunt that perfectly encapsulates 70/80s horror vibes, creating an experience that wont be transcending expectations but becomes successful in its intentions regardless.
Directed by 47 Metres Down filmmaker Johannes Roberts, Prey at Night is an extremely simplistic but engaging venture that transports the first films household horror into a full blown mobile home park horror, as Martin Henderons Mike and Christina Hendricks Cindy family that includes Lewis Pullmans teenage son Luke and Bailee Madisons moody teenage daughter Kinsey find themselves hunted by a collection of masked persons, seemingly hell-bent on raining down pain and carnage upon their very beings for no apparent reason.
This larger playground than the first film enables Roberts to capture a mist filled and night-time centric arena of pain and torment that harkens back to classic genre entries thats no more evident or apparent than Friday the 13th and it helps Prey at Night create its most successful character with the setting of the caravan clad holiday park giving the film a whole new feeling as this one seriously unlucky family try and survive their night of terror.
The terror Prey at Night creates isnt so much scare inducing, more-so the white knuckle-kind but surrounded by a killer soundtrack and a sense that anyone is fair game when it comes to meeting their demise, this works perfectly for a story that is more about the randomness of violence than anything of substance.
If the film has a glaring weakness its found in its latter stages as things start to take some more unbelievable and questionable turns and while its not unlike films of this ilk to start to go off the rails towards the end-game, its a shame Prey at Night couldnt sustain the more palpable and believable sense of menace that perforates through its opening to middle-acts.
Final Say
With committed acting turns, brilliantly staged set-pieces and a fantastic sense of time and place, The Strangers: Prey at Night is a low-key horror sequel worth paying attention to and one of the more memorable genre outings in the last 12 months.