The release dates have been set, and yes, a three-part reboot of The Strangers is being released over the next year. It starts today when The Strangers: Chapter 1 hits theaters, and who better to direct than veteran genre filmmaker Renny Harlin, the man behind Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, and many more. When audiences first hear the title “The Strangers,” they’ll correctly think back to Bryan Bertino’s hit horror film from 15 years back, which was loosely inspired by a true story of a couple being slowly terrorized overnight by a trio of killers for no apparent reason. Harlin’s new film stars Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez as the couple, and the end result is just as terrifying, if not more so.

We recently caught up with Harlin to learn more about the great undertaking of rebooting a classic scary movie and expanding on it with additional storylines beyond the young couple’s initial night of terror. Harlin also dished on his past films and offered advice for the filmmakers who will be teaming up with Sylvester Stallone for the upcoming Cliffhanger reboot.

Shooting the Trilogy Was ‘A Giant Challenge’
The Strangers: Chapter 1 3/5 The Strangers: Chapter 1 is the third film in the horror/slasher franchise directed by Renny Harlin. The film follows a young couple who move to the Pacific Northwest to start a new life. However, their new life gets off to a terrifying start when a broken-down vehicle forces them to stay at a remote vacation home, leaving them to be stalked relentlessly by three masked murderers. Release Date May 17, 2024 Writers Alan R. Cohen , Alan Freedland , Amber Loutfi Studio Fifth Element Productions, Frame Film

What became three chapters of The Strangersfirst started as a 278-page script. No, not 107 pages, like Bryan Bertino’s original film that was released in 2008. But since the game plan became to release Harlin’s new project in three parts, what has the director’s process become?

“I approached it as one big movie,” Harlin told MovieWeb talking about the production. “But what made it really challenging is that movies are never shot in order. So, even with a normal movie that is a 90-minute, 100-minute movie, you end up shooting the ending first and then the beginning and so on. In this case, it was a four-and-a-half-hour movie and literally just broken into three chapters.” He continued:

“We could be shooting Monday morning and shooting
Chapter 3
, and Monday afternoon
Chapter 1
, and Tuesday morning
Chapter 2
. So,
actors go from being covered in blood with torn clothes, crawling on the ground, to being pristine and perfect and happy and whatever in two hours
. And so the whole crew and me and the actors, and everybody has to react to that and be able to always find the right emotional level for each scene and so on.
It was a really giant challenge
.”

How Shooting The Strangers Compares to Harlin’s Other Work

Given Harlin’s extensive filmography, one has to wonder, then, how such a monumental “challenge” like The Strangers ranks up with his past projects that also seem like they were quite the ordeal. He said, “It definitely was the biggest challenge I’ve ever encountered. But I love that.” Continuing:

“And first of all, I love shooting movies on location, like I’ve done with
Die Hard 2
or
Cliffhanger
, of
going into really harsh locations and dealing with the environment, instead of shooting in a studio with a blue screen
. So in this case, we were deep in Slovakia, in forests. The story takes place in America, but we doubled Oregon for Slovakia and shot in very, very tough conditions, mostly at night. So definitely… quite an undertaking.”

Related The Bricklayer and the Weird Career of Renny Harlin Renny Harlin’s career features one seriously diverse body of work.

Expanding on Bertino’s ‘Brilliant’ Classic

For lots of millennials and grownup film buffs out there, it probably doesn’t seem like too long ago that The Strangers, starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, was hitting the masses. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been 15 years, though, and interestingly, Harlin reported to us that he didn’t end up consulting with Bertino during the production process.

“I don’t know what the reason is. Maybe just everything happened so fast, I literally didn’t have time,” Harlin told MovieWeb. “Maybe I was a little intimidated by his movie because it was so good, so I didn’t know what to say to him, so I never spoke to him. And now I’m just curious to see what he thinks when he sees this.”

Related Best Horror Movie Remakes, Ranked Remakes don’t always have the best reputation among horror fans, but here are ten great ones that deserve your attention.

Harlin continued to speak about Bertino’s O.G. film and how it influenced his own trilogy:

“We wanted to take the spirit and the premise of that movie, that was so brilliant, and use it as a jumping-off point and develop
a story that is bigger, goes deeper into both antagonists’ and protagonists’ psychology
, and really honors what was great about the original film.”

Why Shooting on Location Is Crucial for Cliffhanger 2

Since Harlin mentioned his throwback film Cliffhanger, we had to ask if he had thoughts on the upcoming reboot that is in the works and bringing back Stallone to reprise his role. “I think it’s a sequel to Cliffhanger. I hope for the filmmakers’ sake that they will be able to shoot in real locations because we did this was before the advent of digital cinema,” Harlin told us.

“So when we shot the movie, we spent six months in the Italian Alps, in the real conditions, shooting everything for real. And the actors had to climb mountains, literally. And nowadays, I feel that, in so many cases, these kinds of more complicated movies, they end up being shot in a studio, and then the snow on the mountains and the circumstances are created digitally.”

He went on to add, “So, for their own sake, I hope they are given the money and resources to go on location and shoot it for real because I think, for the spirit of that movie, it’s important to feel that reality. And if it’s done digitally, no matter how well it’s done, I feel like the audience can smell it.”

From Lionsgate, The Strangers: Chapter 1 is now in theaters as of May 17.