James (Scott Speedman, left) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) are a couple whose romantic getaway becomes a trap in the thriller The Strangers. (Glenn Watson/Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures)

It’s hard to watch The Strangers without thinking – and thinking fondly, in fact – of Michael Haneke. The Austrian director of Funny Games made his controversial movie (most recently in English) as a comment on pointless, violent, insipid thrillers just like The Strangers. That both films are about a sadistic, random home invasion adds a frisson of poetic justice; it’s a short-lived feeling, but at the very least, it’ll give you something to dwell on during this baleful genre picture.

The Strangers opens with some promise. A pair of young missionaries stumble upon a scene of recent domestic violence: a bloody wall and knife, a shotgun, overturned furniture. Over this, a disembodied police dispatcher’s voice repeatedly asks, “What’s your emergency?” First-time director Bryan Bertino then cuts to an attractive couple, James (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler), sitting in a car, their tear-stained faces illuminated by a changing stoplight. We soon learn the source of their distress: Kristen has just rejected James’s marriage proposal. In a long sequence of largely wordless close-ups, we follow the couple to a country house outfitted for passion: chilled bottles of bubbly, rose petals strewn over the bed like so many bloodstains. James’s hopes for a romantic evening have gone south; he has no idea how much worse things are going to get.

A young woman (model Gemma Ward ) soon comes knocking. The front porch light is out, reducing her face to an eerie smudge. She asks in an unholy voice for someone named “Tamra.” James and Kristen send her on her way, but she soon returns, standing on the lawn, staring blankly at the house. Despite this vague threat, James inexplicably leaves Kristen alone in order to run out to get cigarettes.

Almost immediately, Kristen is besieged. Another knock at the door, this time more insistent, thunderous. There are other noises in the back of the house. She tries to call James on her cellphone, but the battery is dead. A record on the turntable – featuring the eerie, girlish voice of Joanna Newsom – begins to skip. Other figures emerge, their faces all hidden: two women in cartoonish doll masks and one scary dude with a fashion sense borrowed from Batman’s nemesis The Scarecrow. Kristen, understandably, freaks.

The so-called Strangers teach Kristen (left, sitting) and James (right, sitting) a lesson in terror. (Glenn Watson/Rogue Pictures/Universal Pictures)

At the beginning of the film, a voice-over tells us – with all the gravity of the true crime show Forensic Factor – that The Strangers is based on “true events.” That may be, but this disclaimer adds nothing to the long and largely silly cat-and-mouse game that ensues. James returns, but he’s entirely ineffectual, unable even to load the shotgun that they find hidden in the house. It’s somewhat pleasing to see the bland, All-American (sorry, All-Canadian) Speedman stripped of his virility, but it’s disappointing that there’s little else underneath. Tyler fares even worse. She’s given nothing more to do than weep, babble and scream; her famous lips have rarely trembled so much.

These frighteners continue to terrorize James and Kristen throughout the night; aside from destroying the couple’s car, the Strangers restrict themselves largely to subtle, unseen mischief. Weird noises abound; indeed, the sound design is the best part of the film. An array of screeches, scrapes and squeals quickly drive the couple mad. (The Man in the Mask’s asthmatic wheeze is particularly ominous.) Finally, James ventures out into the night, shotgun in hand, hoping to use an old CB radio in the barn. Instead, he disappears for several long minutes, only to be tossed back into the house a bloody pulp. Kristen, understandably, freaks again.

The Strangers isn’t exactly Hostel — the gore is kept to a minimum. That restraint would be commendable if it weren’t the film’s only real strength. While technically proficient, Bertino seems oblivious to the movie’s worthlessness as either titillation or entertainment, and its lack of genuine chills. Repeated shots of masks looming in the gloom quickly lose their spooky zip, and Speedman and Tyler’s utter powerlessness precludes any suspense. Home invasion movies push so many obvious buttons – the violation of the sanctity of home and family, for starters. It’s hard to believe how quickly and easily Bertino squanders that premise.

As daylight grows near, it becomes clear that there is no point to this violence – and, drearily, that this is Bertino’s entire point. Echoing Funny Games again, Kristen repeatedly asks her victimizers, “Why are you doing this to us?” If you ever bother to sit through The Strangers, it’s a question you’ll want to ask Bertino yourself.

The Strangers opens across Canada on May 30.

Jason McBride is a Toronto writer.