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Have You Ever Seen Anything Like the Pool Fight in The Strangers: Prey at Night?
The four-minute sequence is thrilling and operatic, the kind of instantly iconic set piece most slasher movies dream of.
Reviews for the long-delayed sequel to 2008’s The Strangers were mixed to negative, but even the pans frequently singled out the scene, in which terrorized teenager Luke (Lewis Pullman) tussles with the film’s slasher villain Man in the Mask (Damian Maffei) around and inside a swimming pool. Without the budget for more advanced equipment like a Technocrane (“we had no money on this movie,” Roberts repeatedly emphasized), the director credited key grip Jeff “Fish” Fisher with attaching an underwater camera to a jib system that made all the elaborate camerawork possible. As a contemporary Time Out review put it, “In the current horror climate, when movies like ‘Get Out’ and the forthcoming ‘Hereditary’ are earning praise for their adventurousness, these retro scares feel especially out of touch.” Now, Prey at Night ’s throwback thrills seem precious and rare — and the pool scene in particular serves as an essential reminder that a classic slasher can also “elevate.”
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