The Strangers: Chapter 1 (now streaming on Starz) is the official ârelaunchâ of The Strangers âfranchise,â which until now consisted of the 2008 original (which isnât exactly a classic, but weâll just say “it has its fans” and leave it at that) and a 2018 sequel. The ârelaunchâ consists of three consecutively shot films, all directed by Hollywood-mainstay-turned-B-movie-guy-for-hire Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cutthroat Island), with the second due before the end of 2024. But now that the home-invasion thriller is a subgenre of its own, the question is whether Harlin can bring anything fresh to a formula thatâs beginning to feel played out.
THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: If you exist in a movie and are running away from a malevolent pursuer, you must scamper desperately through a desolate woods and always, always slip and fall and tumble down an embankment and hurt a lower appendage. Itâs the law, and if you violate it, the movie might not get made in the first place because the bean counters find it too risky to deviate from the norm. And thatâs exactly what happens to this poor unnamed guy as heâs being chased by a masked Ax Person, who doesnât have to run, because he/she knows the pursuee will inevitably fall down and hurt him or herself. We donât see it, but we assume the Ax Person kills this poor man, before we cut to a title card that says a violent crime occurs in America every 26.3 seconds, âseven since youâve been watching this film.â Have a nice day!
Now, if you didnât turn off the movie after reading that sweet and tidy bit of fearmongering, youâll be introduced to the protagonists, Jenny Finalgirl- er, I mean, Maya (Madelaine Petsch of Riverdale), and her BF Ryan (Froy Gutierrez). We learn that theyâre celebrating their five-year anniversary of being together because she says something like hey, itâs our five-year anniversary! like no one in reality would ever say unless your reality is a shitty movie filled with shitty dialogue. Driving through rural Oregon on the way to Portland for Mayaâs job interview, they stop in a little tiny nothing town where the locals all glower at the fancy cityfolk with furrowed brows and try to push religious pamphlets into their hands. Maya and Ryan grab a bite at the local diner and whaddayaknow, the car wonât start and they have to let the local Passive-Aggressively Hostile Mechanic take it overnight and then let the local Suspiciously Nice Waitress drive them to the only Airbnb nearby, which is of course a Creepy Cabin Filled With Antlers And Taxidermy.Â
That night thereâs nothing for our morons to do but have sex (even though we donât see it), set up plot devices to be used later and wait around for the Ax People to show up and terrorize them. And as anyone who saw the original Strangers knows, the sweet and tender masked murder-trio of Dollface, Man in the Mask, and Pin-Up Girl will inevitably pop up behind the main characters within the frame and disappear like apparitions as soon as the main characters look over their shoulders. Itâs strange how the main characters can never really see outside the frame, either, so weird! The plot contorts Ryan out of the cabin so Maya can be by herself in the cabin, jumping at creaking floorboards and rattling latches, and scaring the pus out of herself by hitting a lightswitch and accidentally turning on the garbage disposal, which weâve all done, havenât we? But what we know that she doesnât know is that someone is in the house with her, and their intent is to eff with her mercilessly for our amusement. Theoretically, anyway.Â
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Would you think less of me if I told you that I turned off Michael Hanekeâs Funny Games (the American one) halfway through because it was driving me insane, which I see as a credit to the famously crazed director, because I usually can gut out anything? Well, that seems to be the pinnacle of the home-invasion thriller, where The Strangers: Chapter 1 is just the pits.
Performance Worth Watching: Petsch is totally fine here. Absolutely acceptable. Good thing, since sheâs going to anchor all three of the new films.
Memorable Dialogue: I liked nihilists better when they micturated on Lebowskiâs rug:
Maya: Why are you doing this?
Pin-Up Girl: Because youâre here.
Sex and Skin: None, although thereâs a significant stretch of the movie where Petsch wears no pants for no good reason.
Our Take: TheStrangers tried to used-car-salesman-sell us the bullshit that it was âbased on a true storyâ when it, at best, was inspired by how people execute serial break-ins, then adding Manson-family psychosis to the conceit. Chapter 1 mooshes up that concept further by asserting in so many words that the movie is based on the notion that the world is a horrible place where people do horrible things to each other, and Iâd say thatâs a revolutionary idea if 95 percent of all the horror movies in existence didnât capitalize on that already.
Of course, some of those horror movies go about their gruesome, cynical business in a manner that emphasizes suspense, comedy, innovation and/or style. The Strangers: Chapter 1 will have none of that. It goes through the motions. Not every film can give us something we havenât seen before, but this one gives us things weâve seen countless times before: Lame jump scares, villains that exist only when and where the plot needs them to, protagonists with a collective IQ of the MPG of a â72 Buick Whale Shark, ironic needle drops (Styx, the Moody Blues), convenient/inconvenient power outages, characters who walk⦠slowly⦠through⦠the house⦠and reach⦠for a doorknobâ¦. You know the drill all too well. If I see one more thriller where a killer chases the chasee and the chasee experiences an unfortunate twisted ankle, it will be the 300th time too many.
Harlinâs approach to the material is dull and workmanlike. His visual approach consists of stalker cams and creeper cams, and when heâs exhausted those angles, he opts for peeper cams. The tone is grim and humorless (although I did laugh when, early in the film, Maya tells Ryan that she wants to spend the rest of her life with him, and you just know one or both of them is heretofore doomed to not live to the end credits). And as it peers into the blackened-abyss portion of the human condition, everything always gets worse and nothing ever gets better. And I frankly found this to be utterly, unquestionably boring.
Our Call: Donât be a nihilist! SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ on Starz, a ‘Relaunch’ of a Horror Franchise appeared first on Decider.
