WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for The Strangers: Prey At Night. So if you’ve not seen the horror film then you should proceed very cautiously.
For the most part “The Strangers: Prey At Night” is a horror film that is more interested is creating an unsettling mood and scaring its audience than leaving them with too much to think about.
However, the film’s final shot, which shows Kinsey (Baille Madison) responding to the sound of Dollface’s jack-in-the-box and the familiar banging on the hospital door with a horrific glare, does a good job of showcasing the PTSD that comes with going through such a terrifying experience.
I recently spoke to “The Strangers: Prey At Night’s” director Johannes Roberts about the horror film’s gruesome ending, which shows that Kinsey has forever been traumatized by the deaths of her mother Cindy (Christina Hendricks) and father Mike (Martin Henderson), and the life-threatening injuries to Luke (Lewis Pullman). Which is hardly surprising.
During our discussion Roberts admitted that the journey of Kinsey was one of the main reasons why he originally signed up to the film.
“I was interested in her journey from a bratty teen girl coming into adulthood and to have her journey having to try and save her family and going through something that hopefully some people will never experience. That was kind of important to me, to see how that affects her.”
Roberts’ remarks suggest that Kinsey was just imagining the sound of the jack-in-the-box ahead of the knock of the door, while there will undoubtedly be moviegoers that believe Dollface didn’t die and barged into the room the moment the film cut to black. The glory of the movie is that it is all very much up for interpretation.
“The Strangers: Prey At Night” revolves around a family that spends an evening in a deserted mobile home park, only to be accosted and attacked by three masked murderers. It is in cinemas now.
