The Big Picture

The Strangers: Chapter 1
offers nothing new, serving as a lesser version of the original 2008 film.
Renny Harlin’s action-focused style clashes with the subtle handling needed for films like this.
The lead performances by Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez create a believable couple to root for.

We’ve got another horror reboot on our hands! Although it’s clear audiences are crying out for more original, standalone horror movies, major studios just can’t stop bringing back the dead. Reboots, requels, sequels, prequels, what have you — the horror genre can’t get enough of recycling and repackaging old stories. This brings us to Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 1, the first in a reboot trilogy of Bryan Bertino’s 2008 home invasion horror, The Strangers. Starring Riverdale’s Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez as the new, ill-fated lovers, Chapter 1 simply recycles the original story, adding nothing new nor applying updated horror tools. It stays within the shadow of the original, and for how similar yet inferior it is to the first film, it never fully justifies its existence. Harlin said last year that Chapter 1 is “not a carbon copy” of the original. The only basis on which Harlin can say that is that it’s a new decade, cast, and director. The story, pacing, and even specific scares are all plucked out of the original film, doing little to try to mask its very obvious replication.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 Release Date May 17, 2024 Director Renny Harlin Cast Madelaine Petsch , Rachel Shenton , Gabriel Basso , Richard Brake , Ema Horvath Writers Alan R. Cohen , Alan Freedland

What Is ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ About?
Happily in love couple Maya (Petsch) and Ryan (Gutierrez) are celebrating their fifth anniversary as they make their way across the country from New York to Portland for Maya’s job interview at an elite architectural firm. As New Yorkers, they’re not used to the quiet greenery of Venus, Oregon, where they stop for lunch. Ryan is nervous about the creepy townsfolk whereas Maya is simply happy to get a break from the city. The small town with a population of less than 500 is so unwelcoming of the pair that you almost think this is going to be a Wicker Man situation — that two yuppies need to be sacrificed every year to maintain the town’s harvest. The employees at the diner turn up their noses at Maya’s vegetarianism and the couple is badgered by other patrons for not being married yet. When they return to their car, it mysteriously stops working, and an ominous local mechanic is quick to tell them that they won’t be going anywhere that day.

At the recommendation of the locals, they stay in a remote Airbnb. From there, the plot is pretty much the exact same as the original. Dollface shows up and asks for Tamera, unsettling the couple but they’re quick to get back to their impromptu romantic getaway. Ryan drives off to get food while Maya hears repeated mysterious noises but staves off the suspicions with a joint. Man in the Mask hides in corners of the house unbeknownst to Maya, and when Ryan returns, the three killers finally make themselves known, beginning the night of terror.

‘The Strangers Chapter 1’ Doesn’t Compare to the Original

To understand what went wrong with The Strangers: Chapter 1, we must look back on what went so right with 2008’s The Strangers. Hitting theaters in May of 2008, the movie found space in a genre that was being inundated with gritty torture porn titles from the Splat Pack of directors including Eli Roth, James Wan, and Rob Zombie. Among the torture hostels, Saw traps, and many, many remakes, The Strangers brought horror back to basics. It’s a refreshingly simple premise: A couple’s holiday home is invaded by three, mostly silent, masked killers. No motivation, no backstory, no high concept. It was just hunters and their prey, set over the course of one dark night.

It pared horror back to remind audiences that you didn’t need buckets of gore, an IP with a pre-installed fanbase, or a gang of horny teenagers. Tense atmosphere, committed performances, and a real sense of dread were all you needed to make an unlikely hit. It also played on America’s ever-growing fear and paranoia of someone breaking into their home. The opening hears a booming voice telling the audience that 1.4 million crimes are committed in America each year — and what we’re about to see is among the worst of them. Before either of our stars show up, Bertino roots his horror thriller in a foreboding sense of reality.

The Strangers went on to gross over $80 million at the global box office against its $9 million budget. To this day, it is considered amongst the best and scariest home invasion films, giving us one of the creepiest lines and motivations in all of horror: “Because you were home.” All of this is to say, The Strangers’s success was never something that was supposed to be replicated. The time of its release and the fact it came with very little expectation are the reasons it stands tall in the horror genre. Its direct sequel ten years later was a massive dud, so, who thought a reboot was going to be a good idea? With such little lore and fairly simple characters, it never felt like a movie waiting for more installments.

‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ Doesn’t Add Anything New to the Franchise
Image via Lionsgate

The main issue with The Strangers: Chapter 1 is that it doesn’t have anything new to add to the series. It rehashes all the familiar touchstones of the 2008 movie. Two Christian boys are seen outside the diner, Man in the Mask stalks Maya around the house, and a major plot point of an innocent casualty getting caught in the crossfire is there too. Beyond this, the only updates are smartphones, and a change from the couple being in a rocky place in their relationship to being madly in love. It’s impossible not to judge this film by how it compares to the original. If you’re rebooting or remaking a cult classic, you need to have a good reason for why you’re making it. What can you do to update the story? What fresh spins can you put on it? And how can you bring what worked into a new decade? Chapter 1 doesn’t seem to have considered any of these prerequisites.

Renny Harlin Wasn’t the Right Choice For ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’

The original Strangers was all about subtly, and “subtle” isn’t exactly the first word that comes to mind when you think of director Renny Harlin. This isn’t an insult. The man gave us turbo-sharks in Deep Blue Sea, arguably the best shark film since Jaws. He turned Freddy Krueger into James Bond and the Dyatlov Pass incident into a humanoid-filled time-travel escapade. Harlin has certainly carved himself a place in out-there and at times, camp horror, but that’s exactly why he wasn’t the right choice to bring back the Strangers. Lest we forget he’s also the man behind Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger. Harlin has done a lot of horror but at his core, he’s an action director. The mood and atmosphere needed to craft a film that somewhat compares to 2008’s The Strangers would take the approach of a filmmaker like Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), Chloe Okuno (Watcher), or Mike Flanagan, who gave us another terrifying home invasion film, Hush. Again, this isn’t a knock to Harlin as a director, it’s just that his bombastic cinematic sensibilities are ill-suited to a story like this. However, where that Harlin flourish does pay off is in the jump scares. None of them may reach the heights of Samuel L. Jackson getting jumped by a tweaked-out mako shark, but they do make for the film’s most thrilling moments.

Related Does ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ Have an End-Credits Scene? Does Dollface have one more surprise?

The shoddy editing is also hard to ignore. Maya and Ryan walk into the diner with fliers on Christianity given to them by the young boys but the scene where we actually see the exchange comes later. They are driving past the dinner only to turn into it a few seconds later. There are several moments where a Stranger will be standing in a position Maya can’t see but the audience can only to magically disappear just seconds later. While this is common in horror, moments like these are the exact antithesis of the core of the original film. Chapter 1 constantly asks you to suspend your disbelief, but the original played on your very rational, very real fears.

The movie is meant to be all about the quick glimpse at the killers, making the audience second-guess what they just saw. The direction here lets all of those quiet terrors get lost, instead bringing a big-studio glossy feel to a story not made for it. In the original, the first time we see Man in the Mask, it takes you a second to realize he’s in the house — allowing for a slow release of horror. Here, it couldn’t be shoved in your face more plainly. There’s no build-up or slow release. Renny Harlin’s stylings are too impatient for it. The booming score spoonfeeds you what you’re meant to feel, taking the audience further out of the dreadful atmosphere. For the recreation of the iconic “Is Tamera home?” scene, instead of using lighting to darken the culprit’s face, it’s heavily digitized to look more like a social media avatar before you’ve picked your profile photo.

The Performances in ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ Are Good But Unbalanced
Image Via Lionsgate

This is Madelaine Petsch’s first major role since her tenure as the sharp-tongued, lesbian empress of Riverdale. While Petsch turns in an impassioned performance, she sometimes lacks the necessary urgency, playing down the tension of the scene. The sequence of her alone in the house goes on far too long, and her constant shrugging off that something is wrong doesn’t pair well with Harlin obviously wanting to incite fear. However, a particular scene where Petsch has to exhibit excruciating pain is viscerally played to perfection, even if she isn’t quite ready to be considered amongst scream queens like Melissa Barerra and Mia Goth. But with her returning for the next two installments, there’s plenty of room for her to come into her own as a new Final Girl. Chapter 1 surprisingly puts a lot of effort into immersing the audience in Maya and Ryan as a couple. By the end of the film, you do believe in their relationship and you don’t just want them to survive, you want them to make it out together. Gutierrez does a fine job playing off Petsch but the film is hellbent on making him out to be the dreamy savior boyfriend, with too many overly long shots of his sparkly eyes staring into the camera.

Whether we like it or not, we are getting two more Strangers films — Chapter 2 later this year and Chapter 3 in early 2025. Much like how some felt about Dune, Chapter 1 feels like a total set-up movie. Fans of the original were excited at the prospect of finally getting to unveil the trio of killers, was there a reason beyond the ill-fated couple being home, and who in God’s name is Tamera? For this reason, perhaps we’ll have better luck with the next two films. But for now, stick with the original.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 REVIEWThe Strangers: Chapter 1 is a retread where the most horrifying thing is how derivative it is.ProsAlthough slightly unbalanced, the lead performances from Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez forge a believable couple to root for. ConsThe Strangers: Chapter 1 does not bring anything new to the franchise, basically becoming a lesser remake of the 2008 original.Director Renny Harlin’s action-focused sensibilities do not fit well with the subtle, restrained handling films like these require.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 breaks into theaters in the U.S. starting May 17. Click below for showtimes near you.

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