The Strays — The Ultimate Race Horror Trope — A Review

“You’re fucking kidding. That was so fucking stupid. Pure horseshit. The death of horror right here in front of us.” ~ Rachel in Stab 7, Scream 4

Well, that pretty much sums up my reaction to The Strays, which I went into completely blind last night.

I’d seen it floating around Netflix for a few days and knew the main actress from Salem (Ashley Madekwe)…So I was interested to see what flavor of scary movie this would turn out to be.

SPOILERS AHEAD

But much to my disappointment, while the ensemble cast did a phenomenal job with their parts, I ultimately found the film’s message problematic and irresponsible for the way it peddles a woke narrative that confuses the real issues of its main and supporting characters.

Quick Synopsis

So, in short, mixed race black mom leaves black family.

Starts new life with a white guy.

Has mixed race black-white children.

Adopts a ‘white’ lifestyle.

Old family tracks her down, stalks her…

Drives her to the point of madness…

And by the end of the film presumably kills her new family…Son, daughter, husband and all.

There’s more to the story that’s conveniently left out until the end, which I'll bring up later.

Blackness vs Whiteness

One thing you’ll notice right away is that there’s a sharp contrast between blackness and whiteness presented in the film — With blackness personified as evil, not through the imagination of the audience, but through the actions of the characters (Which are, by default, an extension of the writer’s imagination).

But What Is The Real Evil?

But although we can make the argument that main character Neve/Cheryl (Madekwe) simply lives a peaceful life in a suburban community, which is disrupted by the presence of her long-lost children Marvin (Jordan Myrie) & Abigail (Bukky Bakray), it’s clear that we’re first and foremostly meant to villainize her as the protagonist with internalized racism and colorism — And perhaps even see her as the true antagonistic face of evil in the film.

But this is problematic for several reasons…

#1 — The story villainizes her not simply because she left her family, but for partaking in so-called ‘cultural whiteness’ as a sin supposedly far greater than even abandoning her own children.

It’s a lazy comparison.

A soft-spoken woman of color who listens to Italian Opera, prefers it to canonically ‘black’ music, literally tells you nothing about her other than that fact…and weaponizing stereotypes in this manner does nothing but to send a dangerous message about authenticity, and what it supposedly looks like for certain people, which is hard to believe is still a thing in 2023.

The Good Life

Behind her paranoid and delusional exterior, which becomes more unhinged from one moment to the next (Not unlike Margaret White, the overzealous Christian mom in Stephen King’s “Carrie”), Neve/Cheryl merely desires the good life for herself and her family.

It’s revealed later in the film that she was in an abusive relationship the first time around, when she had Marvin and Abigail.

So, if we’re to take the events of the film as seriously as its message, it’s more than likely she left out of sheer desperation to survive, rather than to scold her children’s existence.

She then works hard to give her new children everything she lacked in her previous life. Something nearly most, if not all parents do and strive for to the best of their ability.

We see all of the unhealthy ways this manifests, as she fights her appearance, tries to control her children’s need for self expression, etc. But it’s an understandable inversion of common sense, given the trauma of her past and state of mind.

Get Out

The awkward realization of the film comes when we realize the negative element Marvin and Abigail represent is precisely the reason why Neve/Cheryl sought a life elsewhere.

At this point, they are no longer the children she left behind.

In fact, one could say they represent the stereotypical violence of blackness; A world they’ve decided to bring to the white suburbs and visit upon their mother’s new family.

If there’s one real life fear presented here, it’s not of the kind of Race Horror that Jordan Peele has become known for, through socially conscious films such as “Get Out”.

Because at its core, the message in The Strays is not about racial hostility from external others. Instead it’s about a hostility from within.

The antagonists is the ‘in-group’: Those who are perceived to be most ‘like us’. In this case, it’s that in-group, personified by Marvin and Abigail (Who sort of personify collective stereotypical blackness) who decide, perhaps out of chaotic jealously, that they won’t give Cheryl the freedom to exist peacefully in her own world.

Feast of All Saints

Several moments in The Strays reminds me of one of the storylines in Anne Rice’s “Feast of All Saints”, a semi-historical novel and film set in 19th century New Orleans, among the diverse gens de coleur community.

At one point, Marie, a mixed raced black and white girl, is tricked by a voodoo priestess named Lola Dede (Eartha Kitt). She’s drugged and her body essentially passed around to several (white) men.

It’s done partly out of jealousy. As if Dede wishes to steal her youth and beauty, and all of the things she represents which Lola herself can never be. And it ultimately shows how cruel people can be when they succumb to their own weakness and insecurities.

Even though it’s not very graphic, you know what happens and it’s fucking horrific.

The classic “I’ve suffered, so you must suffer too” mentality. As someone who has not had much experience navigating such attitudes, besides a few petty exchanges, but certainly knows they exist, I've often wondered where that comes from.

It’s this sort of chaotic jealously which runs just as rampant in The Strays, as well, as Marvin and Abigail do as much as they can to corrupt Neve/Cheryl’s new kids, Mary (Maria Almeida) and Sebastian (Samuel Paul Small), through marijuana, alcohol and then almost inciting one of the kids to answer bullying with murder.

But they don’t do it because they’re interested in showing them a good time or want them to know how to defend themselves. They do it because they’re thoroughly invested in uprooting every bit of happiness they’ve had in life. Even if that means Sebas goes to jail or Ian (Cheryl’s husband) divorces his wife, etc.

And it all feels sort of…Pathetic. #SorryNotSorry

To be quite frank, I don’t feel connected to their need for vengeance. Or their need to displace their trauma onto others. Not even in a horror film, where that sort of things works, even when it’s crazy.

It’s interesting that the masked killers in The Strangers said very little (“…Because you were home”) yet had a much more well-rounded sense of purpose, of doing what they did, than two characters who are given ample opportunity to talk in The Strays, yet say very little of substance. Certainly nothing compelling enough to warrant going on a murder spree.

And their underwhelming sense of purpose just really makes me say, “Move on”.

For me, The Strays gets a lot of things wrong. But a lot of those issues seem to begin and end with the plot.

There’s two worlds, two different stories and a lot of details that are conveniently not unpacked about the world that existed before the movie takes place and the events that take place in between.

There’s villains on both sides and the ultimate message is unclear.

But perhaps the most problematic thing is that it conflates a mother’s very real fears, about her keeping her family safe and punishes her for the peace and prosperity she’s found outside an environment she lived in once before, but sought refuge from elsewhere.