The Strangers: Chapter 1 Can’t Mask These Killers
A very opinionated review of the latest instalment in this playful intruder franchise
How are you this fine evening? Or perhaps it’s morning for you now? At least you’ve made the time to read, if nothing else. Consider this your fifteen minutes of The Happy Half-Hour for the day. Good on you!
In keeping with the theme of horror, I thought I’d offer my two cents on a recent watch that gave me a lot to think about for all the wrong reasons. These days, I often find myself looking forward to new horror films without holding my breath for their success (the ’70s and ’80s cult classics are my jam). This is why unexpected hits like Talk to Me (2023) and Late Night with the Devil (2024) catch me by surprise and stand out among their peers. Unfortunately, The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) was far from what I wanted it to be and didn’t hold a candle to the original. I really tried to go into the theatre without comparing it to its fifteen-year-old predecessor, but that’s hard when it’s pretty much the same story and uses near identical plot points. The least they could have done is change more than the relationship dynamic of the main characters, but I digress…
The latest instalment is the first of a standalone trilogy from director Renny Harlin, the man behind A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), Die Hard 2 (1990), and Deep Blue Sea (1999). Presented by Lionsgate, The Strangers: Chapter 1 was made on a budget of $8.5 million and has grossed $27.5 million at the time of writing this. It was announced last year that oddly all three films would be released in 2024, although it seems that the third is now slated for 2025. I don’t know what it is about contemporary horror reboots, but the big IPs seem to be getting the trilogy treatment lately (see David Gordon Green’s Halloween and The Exorcist missteps). They must be going for quantity over quality, shooting and cutting everything before it’s even announced so it won’t get messy from a change of hands partway through. But don’t they know that bad things always come in threes?
It stars Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez as young couple Maya and Ryan traveling through Oregon for a job interview that coincides with their five-year anniversary. After their car breaks down at a local diner in the remote town of Venus, they have no choice but to stay at – yep, you guessed it – a cabin in the woods. As the two unwind in their accidental serenity, three loud bangs at the door disturb their peace. You know how the story goes: stupid things are said and done, people get hurt, and the next thing you know, there’s a mildly tense pursuit on foot at night in the middle of nowhere. I might be coming off a little harsh, but I’m honestly struggling to further describe the plot without simply listing the beats of the film.
As you can probably tell, I’m a big fan of The Strangers (2008), written and directed by Bryan Bertino in his debut feature. It was a chilling sleeper hit grounded in reality with an air of mystery to it. The simplicity and effectiveness of a single set, long shadows and great sound design set it apart from other horrors of the early 21st century that suffered from unnecessary CGI and lazy writing. It’s a classic home invasion flick that followed in the footsteps of Them (2006) and would be emulated by the likes of The Purge (2013) and Hush (2016), instead portraying the flawed protagonists as relatable victims in the aftermath of a rejected proposal. While Chapter 1 doesn’t overuse digital effects and (luckily) had a solid story to follow, it still left me with a whole lot to be desired. I wanted to know why I felt that way and explore the film to identify the points that didn’t work for me, so I mulled it over and this is what I found.
The film opens with the latest American crime stats, making it oddly self-aware by adding how many acts of violence would have occurred on average at that exact point in the title sequence. Normally, I would have found this pretty cool, although it removed me from the experience by reminding me too early that I’m watching a movie. Beyond this point – and I shit you not – it’s a beat-for-beat remake, but worse. Apparently, Harlin had stated before the film’s release that Chapter 1 would not be a straight remake, yet here we are. I suppose it had to set up the new trilogy by recreating the original as a springboard for the following chapters, but it just felt wrong. Every scenario was something we’ve seen before; however, I could overlook this similarity for showing that the torturous cat-and-mouse between the killers and their victims are all routine – if only it were slightly different.
There were several more subtle nods to the original, like the Jehovah’s Witness boys (who are strangely silent in this version) and the bedroom door with ‘hello’ written all over it. But the obvious replications, like the killers ramming the couple in a pickup truck and Ryan mistaking the fridge repairman for one of them, were far more impactful in The Strangers – he shot his best friend, for God’s sake! The major moments in Chapter 1 are predictable and all too familiar. A long shot of Maya in the shower reveals Scarecrow watching her after she leaves the frame, something you can see coming from a mile away even without the string stabs. This happens again when the motorbike is unconvincingly left outside, beckoning the couple to approach before exploding in front of them. Though her reaction is brilliantly played, Maya putting her hand down on a nail in the crawlspace is bereft of tension since they never show it earlier, unlike the Chekhov’s gun in A Quiet Place (2018).
I also found the dialogue a little wooden, spoon-feeding the audience with background information on the characters rather than letting us figure it out for ourselves. In the original (I know, you must be tired of reading those three words already), it opens with the two driving in awkward silence with tear-stained cheeks and bloody knuckles. In this, they simply state that it’s their five-year anniversary, which feels out of place in casual conversation. The show-don’t-tell method of the original gives it some mystery to create intrigue, the characters returning to a dark house decorated with rose petals and a bottle of Champagne gone to waste. The setup in Chapter 1 also feels a little long as the knocks don’t occur until about an hour in. Maya disregards the suspicious sounds inside the house by smoking weed until Ryan gets back with food like the creepy interaction earlier didn’t bother her. Well, that bothered me.
Ryan returns to find Maya hiding in a closet from Dollface, who appears for a jump scare after the power was cut off. Their reunion is portrayed as a fake out, dampened by the fact that he doesn’t call out to her upon entering the dark house for some reason. It takes a third unannounced visit before either of them even thinks to LOCK THE DAMN DOOR, at which point Scarecrow crashes through with an axe Jack Torrance style and chaos ensues. Other than these disappointing setups, the film also trades much of the original’s suspense for loud action sequences courtesy of Harlin’s established style. Perhaps most annoyingly, it shows the killers from a perspective other than that of the characters. I much prefer only seeing the bad guys when the protagonists are around, so it puts me in their shoes or at least has me yelling at the screen for them to turn around. There’s no tension in a shot of the masked villains stalking through the woods alone.
Okay, it’s not all bad. It would be a waste of time for me to write a review of a film without any incentive just to pan it. Let it be known that Chapter 1 has some good acting throughout, even though the characters make some stupid decisions (it’s a horror film, after all). At the end of the day, the actors have to follow the script they’re given, and they didn’t write it, so you’ve gotta pay respect where its due. Their reactions are convincing if confusing and I enjoyed the misdirection of suspicious side characters to turn this lowkey slasher into more of a whodunnit. The aloof locals and friendly tourists make me think the hospitable folk are in on it, if not the killers themselves, and that the trilogy will develop into a stalker story. I also like that Ryan forgetting his inhaler in the car that they leave behind is a clever cause for him to go out again, especially since they hint at his asthma early on after a near miss.
Finally, we get the same slow slaying of the couple as the original. Maya and Ryan wake up tied to chairs with their arms bound before the killers plunge a large knife into their stomachs and twist for good measure. The acting by Petsch and Gutierrez in this desperate moment is fantastic, gripping each other and professing their love through choked tears at the mercy of the three intruders – except they sadly don’t remove their masks in this one. Maya pleads for her life then asks why they are doing this, to which one of them replies ‘Because you were here’ – an ode to the gut-wrenching rationale of the original. I love a bleak ending, but then we get a shot of the killers standing around awkwardly as police sirens permeate the silence before they get in their truck and bail. I’ll take a sudden disappearance, like The Shape after he’s shot out of a two-storey window, over a slow escape any day. I won’t spoil the last scene, but if you’ve seen The Strangers then you probably know what happens next.
Though most of the session was disrupted by a group of boisterous teens giggling and yelling throughout, my friend and I couldn’t help laughing at the awfully convenient final act as the characters tripped their way to the grisly but welcome end. Every textbook trope was thrown at it with a little suspension of disbelief to make it stick, but even the most reliable callback left us feeling robbed of a fresh spin. I drove home from the cinema wondering if I would have enjoyed it more as the first of its kind had the original film never existed. Based on the technical and narrative aspects of what I dislike about The Strangers: Chapter 1, I imagine not. But hey, maybe you’ll enjoy reliving the terrifying experience of the original with a more invested arc in this new trilogy. See it for yourself while it’s still at theatres and let me know!