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Such a frustrating disappointment

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Blistering performances.

The plot is so full of absurdities it is difficult to stay and see if the rest of the film is any good at all. Radha Mitchell is a waitress in a café all by herself near an abandoned highway. No one there to manage the place or watch it while she steps out for a break? The drifter drives up with a surfboard on his car. It seems his friends are surfers in this setting which seems to be far inland somewhere in the US, so do they plan to use a lake instead? Her dialog is more like a one liner list from 2 Broke Girls. "If you're a thief, go ahead and steal everything right now." She's always drawing conclusions without a thread of anything real to support them. I also grow tired of pointless setup shots filled with closeups of coffee pots and frying eggs or the thirty year old song from Blondie, Atomic Man.

Granted the premise has been done, but this is a fun suspense film and also as Josh Lucas in it, so add a few stars.Radha Mitchell is basically a restaurant/motel owner in a desolate Oregon town. She has a customer (Barry Watson, child actor from "Seventh Heaven" for anyone who recalls that series, circa 1997).Anyway, odd things start to occur and her doctor friend becomes a victim. Three strangers apparently on vacation drop in, and proceed to terrorize her.Radha Mitchell is believable though, and has since been in a Woody Allen film ("Melinda and Melinda") so she does a few things right.Watch for Josh Lucas in recent period piece "Stolen" also with Jon Hamm (from "Mad Men") a nice suspense film recently made in 2009. Overall give "Strangers" a chance. 8/10.

I remember seeing roughly the last half of this movie WHEN STRANGERS APPEAR (2001) years ago on TV thinking one word...UNPREDICTABLE! Having seen it in full recently, I still go with that adjective. The viewer really doesn't know the twist until fairly late into the movie, and then the movie goes from methodical into overdrive! It works mainly because (A) it does an amazing job of infusing realistic doses of humanity into the thriller genre and (B) it is minimalist in it's presentation and (C) it is very well-written and acted. The movie introduces us to Beth (played convincingly by the talented Australian actress Radha Mitchell). Mitchell is one of the very few actresses that has repeatedly been able to draw me into her characters over the last 10 years or so. She always seems to play women that are tough, individualistic, resourceful, that still maintain their femininity (PITCH BLACK, ROGUE, SILENT HILL). There's an authenticity about the way she plays these characters. I find her a lot easier to watch than many "bigger" name actresses. Helps that she's hot as hell, too!Beth runs a diner and motel in a small "Oregon" burg near the beach. One morning opening the diner, a mysterious guy named Jack (Barry Watson in a effectively creepy performance). Jack has a surfboard on his car and seems headed for the beach; Beth is suspicious and grills him for info. Three "surfer" guys show up for breakfast. The "main" guy appears to be Peter (slyly and appealingly played by Josh Lucas). Jack hides out and explains to Beth after they leave that they are out to kill him. A skeptical Beth orders him out, but he has a flesh wound and passes out. She takes him to the local surgeon and then starts to investigate Jack's story. In the meantime, Beth finds herself drawn to Peter. Needless to say, there are several twists and turns along the way.The angle that really caught my attention is the relationship between Beth and Peter, which is very natural and convincing. They seem to really like each other aside from all the twists and turns and I kept thinking that under different circumstances, I could actually see them together! There's an interesting exchange between them near the end that I found to be strangely endearing and believable given the connection between them. Also, I liked the more platonic Beth-Jack relationship; she had an almost maternal instinct when it came to him.Although some of the turns in the story are a tad, shall we say, "convenient", the director times them in a very tongue-in-cheek manner that makes one smile rather than wince. Not to mention the leads Mitchell, Lucas, and Watson do a great job of "selling" the story. The 2 guys with Lucas are kind of underused and underdone as characters, But veteran actor Kevin Anderson gives a very strong turn as the dicey town sheriff Bryce, who has his own rather interesting connection to Beth. Beth's very different interactions with Jack, Peter, and Bryce are a strong point of the film.The ending is very tense, exciting, and ironic (you'll see!). There is a minimalist approach to film-making that I love about this flick as it relies primarily on somewhat lengthy scenes of character interaction and very little of that typical background music you hear in thrillers. The flick also has an otherworldly appeal/supernatural element as it takes place in isolation in the seeming middle of nowhere with VERY FEW people; makes the proceedings all the more scary. It also has that well-known Hitchcockian touch of the Macguffin plot point that in the end is really secondary to the main draw of the film, yet the Macguffin strangely still seems relevant and important somehow at the end...Highly recommended.

When Strangers Appear has a mostly American cast in the leads, the only name though that is any kind of recognizable to American audiences is Barry Watson from 7th Heaven. Being unknown the rest of the cast has an opportunity to escape with reputations intact because they have no reputations.We call the film a Kiwi Klunker because though the story location is American it was shot in New Zealand. They too, were smart not to be associated with the movie.Radha Mitchell who bears a slight resemblance to Christina Applegate from Married With Children is the owner/proprietor of a small restaurant that is dying on the vine for lack of business since a new Interstate took a different route. This isolation is partly the reason for the strange goings-on.Barry who is a surly loner comes into her place and she's not quite believing him. Later on three surfer type dudes come in and he takes to hiding. Radha of course doesn't know who to believe and spends the rest of the film trying to figure out who the good and the bad guys are.No life gets breathed into this film at any time. You get to the point where you absolutely don't care about halfway through the movie. As for Barry Watson, he was better served in his career with Sorority Boys.Pass this Klunker from down under right on by.