The Strays

The Strays is a 2023 British horror thriller film written and directed by Nathaniel Martello-White, in his directorial debut. In the film, Neve (Ashley Madekwe) is a biracial upper-class woman leading an idyllic life with her family. As a socialite in her community and the deputy headmistress of a private school, Neve's privileged life is jeopardized when her troubled past resurfaces to undermine everything she has built. Plot Cheryl, a biracial girl, is living in an undisclosed location in England. She expresses concerns about discrimination and financial difficulties to her sister on the phone. The subsequent scenes show her rejecting phone calls from her spouse and leaving a message on the fridge about going to the hair salon. Several years later, we are introduced to Neve, a fair-skinned biracial woman married to Ian, a white man, with two biracial children, Sebastian and Mary. She is disdainful of anything associated with "blackness." Neve works at her kids’ school as a deputy headmistress and plans to host a fundraising gala at her home. She often gets visions of black people and gets disturbed. At the fundraising gala, Neve confronts two black individuals that she believes to be strangers; they address her as their mother. Flashbacks to five days prior, with "Carl and Dione" being the focus of the story, the two black people Neve has been seeing. The two are on an unknown mission that involves staying at a hotel, with Carl taking on the name "Marvin" and getting a job as the school janitor and Dione taking the name “Abigail” and working as an assistant in Ian's office. They befriend Neve's children, Dione inviting Mary to the hotel room for drinking and partying and Carl inviting Sebastian to smoke after his basketball game. Afterwards, Carl convinces Sebastian to brutally attack his school bully.