JamesIan2021

First off, Naomi Scott is incredible, easily one of the best performances of year, and whilst awards shows are a bunch of self-congratulatory woke nonsense, it's a shame awards shows overlook horror because Scott deserves some serious kudos for this wickedly thrilling and intense performance. I love her character Skye Riley, despite her flaws, I was rooting for her to win.

Oozing a brooding and menacing atmosphere, shot superbly with brilliant camera angles that twist upside down and creep through darkened hallways, this film pulls you in into every scene, and the scares are very effective, and it all had me smiling after each fright!

The ending is epic, not what I expected, and the gore has been dialed up to 11 and all the better for it! Can't recommend this enough!

The Strangers from 2008 starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman is a far superior film. This "soft-reboot" lacks an atmosphere, convincing performances and the thrills it needs to become memorable.

The two lead performances are average, Froy Gutierrez struggles to emote convincingly, never seeming too scared and on edge in moments of terror, and whilst Madelaine Petsch fairs a little better, you could argue the two leads are lumped with some truly terrible dialogue, as if the writer's don't understand how young couples communicate.

With next to no gore and tension, it's a flat affair. It's not shot particularly well, the lighting is bland, the horror sound notes are overused every time a weapon or villain appears to the point it becomes laughable.

The masked invaders no longer feel threatening or creepy, and the famous lines from the original, "Is...Tamra..here?" and "because you were home", no longer carry the same heft or eeriness that the original effortlessly captured.

I should've known this was going to be poor when I saw Renny Harlin's name attached to this.

The film has the right tone, it knows what it is, and the cast are fun, and you can't go ever wrong with Michael Jai White, but somewhere along the way, Black Friday forgot to be fun. It's got only a few intermittent moments of excitement and energy, the prosthetics are visuals are pretty decent for a low-budget movie, but the majority of the movie spends more time on the cast walking around the shop and sitting down to talk about their lives, and it's not engaging or memorable, leading to a rather bland horror comedy that could've potentially become a cult favourite.