Bryan Bertino’s feature film debut The Strangers is nothing if not absolutely ruthless in its intensity and single-minded in its purpose. With only a modicum of conventional narrative set-up, it drills a direct passage into your nervous system, hammering away with a harrowing scenario that will immediately connect with anyone who has spent time in a dark house alone. It’s a first-rate genre exercise, which makes it a bit disappointing that Bertino couldn’t match his bravura execution of the material with a little more depth. Still, when the film is this effective (not since John Carpenter’s Halloween have I seen a horror film with such mastery of the ‘Scope format), it’s hard to complain. (Hollywood Jewel 16, Waco, TX)