The Strangers: Prey at Night (15)

A belated attempt to turn 2008’s gnarly home-invasion hit The

Strangers into a viable franchise, this plays more like a cash-in on the similarly titled Stranger Things. Kicking off with Kim Wilde on the soundtrack and ironically masked killers descending upon another unsuspecting household, the film continues the retro vibe with a credit sequence that pays predictable homage to John Carpenter and various video nasty era slasher films. All of which might make sense if the film was either set in the 1980s or using these touchstones to offer some kind of contemporary commentary on the culture-choking effect of always looking back. But it’s not. Indeed, the new film’s Brit director, Johannes Roberts, seems more interested in soundtracking cool kills with Bonnie Tyler songs than using horror tropes to serve up subversive social commentary. ■