When Strangers Appear (2001)

I saw this one years ago and it was a nice discovery.This is a pure film. All built on its characters and storytelling development.It's a B movie from Australia - which makes me happier, this is a country that I used to live in - that has nothing but a good story to tell and a good acting.All set in basically three or four locations in which the art direction and the cinematography took the best out of them, transforming the loneliness and the emptiness of the places in a excellent element of the film.The editing is very intelligent, always helping the twists of the movie getting more intense and also giving that motion and never letting the tension down.Bottom line, it's a "old-time-kind-of-movie" in which no rush is seen and things happen when it has to happen.8/10.

"When Strangers Appear" is problematic in many ways. It is the kind of movie after which a viewer often feels duped. The plot is secondary to the action. Characters are introduced for the sole purpose of confusing the viewer. I enjoy suspense movies, but this offering hardly lives up to the movie part of that formula. It is nothing but a vehicle for shocking-if unexplained and probably unexplainable-imagery. Of course, these scenes don't really advance the story as such, which is actually a superficial structure laid on top of a series of cheap cliffhangers. This movie is not absurdist (Pasolini would twirl in his grave if that label were ever applied to this picture) but just absurd. I can't believe a producer gave this script the green light.

Wow...I tell you what I really liked this movie when i saw it. I was sitting home watching lifetime and this happened to come on. I was so enthralled by this movie i couldn't turn away from it. I love Josh Lucas in this movie. I had always been a huge fan of him, like it Sweet Home Alabama. But in this movie you got to see him act in a different way, he actually got to take on a darker roll. I didn't think that it would work but it totally did! This movie was full of twists and turns. Reading the other comments everyone says that they didn't like the ending but i thought that the ending was pretty good. How they made it switch on and on from person to person. It was a little bit hard to follow but in the end it made it all that much more worth it. I would definitely recommend this movie!

A lot of the discussion seems to be about the last two minutes of this film, which seems unfair, but actually makes sense because the ending, for me, is the main beauty of the film. I have seen many films spoiled by a silly ending, but this is not one of them. The ending is perfect. This film is fast-paced, with constant turns and surprises, a real, classic thriller basically - and throughout the film there are long scenes where almost nothing happens, just suspense building up, and then it explodes in panic and headlong flight. You never really understand what it is all about, and that, for me, sends the film right up there with "The Birds" and other thriller classics. You don't always have to have things explained to you, sometimes there is a strange beauty in the things that you don't understand. So watch this film is you want to see something a little different, guaranteed no boring exposition and long-winded explanations. This film is an attempt to make a thriller that doesn't have to prove itself, that doesn't need an excuse to exist, that simply just works on the basis of atmosphere and mood. This has to be one of the best thrillers I have seen for a long, long time.