10. The Strangers
Taken at face value, The Strangers was terrifying. Telling the story of a couple who become besieged by a group of anonymous, masked murderers, it was pretty damn tense and some of the scenes where you, the audience, can see there's a maniac in the room with Liv Tyler must've ranked with film's most hair-raising moments of 2008. Yet despite its early promise the film couldn't keep up the same level of tension and eventually fell into the toilet of mediocrity, and a lot of the blame has to be laid at the door of its final act. Just to be clear, I can understand the appeal behind the 'because you were home' motivation there's nothing quite as terrifying as random, unexplainable atrocities. Yet it appeared that the film-makers attempted to have their cake and eat it, taking the anonymity of their masked assailants a bit too far. When the masked girl spoke for the first time after all the violence, it was chilling. Yet then, the film decides to go on a road trip with them and these anonymous boogeymen we had come to fear are given some sparse characterisation that I assume was supposed to make us think. I think this was a mis-judgement the best monsters are the ones we only give fleeting glimpses to, and are made more effective by not putting them in the spotlight. Yet by shoving them into their full glare, they somehow made the Strangers less scary instead of more enigmatic. I believe they should've just ended on that 'because you were home' line by taking it too far, they ended up with a bloated, overlong final act that dragged the film down.