Movie review: ‘The Strangers – Chapter 1’

On May 17, ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’, directed by Renny Harlin and starring Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutiérrez, Ema Horvath and Rachel Shenton, will be released in theaters.

Initial thoughts

Since ‘The Strangers’ came out in 2008, its reputation as a cold horror classic has grown. And with good reason: the film, about a troubled couple besieged in their home by three masked strangers for no apparent reason, is legitimately terrifying. Writer-director Bryan Bertino’s terrifying little gem took viewers by surprise with the relentless and utterly inexplicable nature of the assault, while placing two characters who are already at odds when we meet them in a situation where they will live or die in last place. They want to be in that moment.

A sequel, ‘The Strangers: Prey at Night’, attempted to capture that same feeling with mixed results. And now we have a prequel, ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’, which is essentially a blow-by-blow remake of the original, with some details changed and some missing, that fails on almost every level. There’s no surprise, no underlying tension, not even much of a dynamic between our two leads, who are pretty, bland, and utterly uninteresting. In its second half, ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ simply becomes an exercise in sadism because we already know how it ends.

History and direction

Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutiérrez) are driving through the Pacific Northwest to get to a job interview Maya has with an architecture firm (a convenient plot point that seems simply thrown in to advance another plot point). the plot later). They are young, cute and perfectly happy. Well, almost: Maya has decided that she wants to get married after years of not being interested in formalizing the relationship. Unlike the original, where Liv Tyler’s Kristen adamantly didn’t want to marry Scott Speedman’s James, Ryan is the one who hesitates. But not so much as to interrupt our merry couple’s idyllic journey, a source of tension that elevated ‘The Strangers’.

Of course, their car breaks down in a small town in Oregon, where, in one of the oldest cliches in the horror book, almost everyone is acting suspiciously or seems actively in cahoots with the ‘Texas Chainsaw’ family. . Slaughter.’ However, this is a development that basically goes nowhere and seems simply set up to kill time until the couple ends up at an Airbnb located so deep in the woods that one might expect some Ents to show up.

Sure enough, Maya and Ryan have barely settled into the decently appointed cabin in the woods when there’s a knock on the door and a shadowy female figure asks if Tamara is there, the sign that Maya and Ryan’s night is about to turn… Very bad. . It’s a while before the three masked intruders finally launch their attack, but in the meantime they make noises around the house while Ryan goes out to get some vegan food and Madelaine takes a shower, giving director Renny Harlin a chance to squeeze in what little suspense there is. has. she can get out of the situation.

And that’s basically it: the rest of the movie follows the same path as the original ‘Strangers’, even until Ryan finds a gun and accidentally shoots an innocent person who appears at the wrong time. He and Maya are especially useless at protecting or defending themselves, and Maya even locked herself in an upstairs closet at one point and just sat there. There’s no suspense or surprise because we’ve basically seen this all before, and the last act of the film becomes an exercise in tormenting two young men who are so free of depth that we don’t really care what happens to them.

Renny Harlin – far removed from the era of ‘Cliffhanger’, ‘Die Hard 2’ and even ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street IV’ – directs all of this with a lack of energy or innovation that would condemn this film directly to a VOD platform if Lionsgate Films was not interested in ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ relaunching this semi-franchise. Speaking of which…

The ‘Strangers’ trilogy

Harlin and Lionsgate have apparently filmed not only ‘Chapter 1’, but also ‘Chapter 2’ and ‘Chapter 3’. In fact, stick around and you’ll see a scene from the second (or even third?) movie during the credits. We won’t reveal much more than that, but it looks like the ‘Strangers’ mythology will be expanded into a big three-part story that will finally explain who the Strangers are, who “Tamara” is, and why the bloody trio is dealing with their affairs.

That, of course, is the wrong way to proceed. We don’t want to prejudge the movies, but if the next two chapters finally explain and eliminate the mystery of the Strangers, that will probably ruin any fear factor the franchise can maintain. Horror is often at its best when it’s left inexplicable, something the producers here should take seriously.

Final thoughts

Meanwhile, assuming that the already completed sequels are going to come out, whether we like it or not, ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ doesn’t give us much confidence about the future of the series. It repeats the original film while losing all of its existential dread and deploying common horror tropes in place of the latter. It gives us no one to care about or anything to hold on to, except the feeling that we should have seen something else, like maybe the original film.

‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ receives 3 out of 10 stars.

What is the plot of ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’?

While driving cross-country for a job interview, Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and her boyfriend Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) are stranded in a small Oregon town due to car trouble. Finding shelter at a local Airbnb, the couple soon find themselves under siege by three strange masked killers.

Who is part of the cast of ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’?

• Madelaine Petsch as Maya
• Froy Gutierrez as Ryan
• Ema Horvath as Shelly
• Rachel Shenton as Debbie
• Richard Brake as Sheriff Rotter

‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’. Photo credit: John Armor.

Other films in ‘The Strangers’ franchise:

Other Renny Harlin films:

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