50 God-Tier Acting Moments Buried in Bad Movies
49. Luke Fights Back - The Strangers: Prey at Night
The Strangers: Prey at Night was one of those uber-forgettable horror sequels that feels like it was written in a few hours and put together in about a week. It's an empty cliche-fest... but we all loved the pool scene, right?
In this moment, Luke (Lewis Pullman) manages to kill Pin-Up Girl, one of the masked killers terrorising his family, and then gets into a brutal fight with one of the others, Man in the Mask, which unfolds in an outdoor swimming pool and which he barely survives. The sharp cinematography and excellent music choice - Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' blares ironically through a nearby sound system - add a lot, yet Lewis Pullman deserves a lot of credit, too. This scene wouldn't have worked as well without him.
Simultaneously terrified yet badass and defiant in a believable, grounded sort of way, Pullman also pulls off the physical side of the performance with aplomb, helping to make this fight scene a particularly intense one. Looking back on this, it's no surprise that Pullman is now a rising star, with him recently having an important role in the MCU's Thunderbolts.