Boy meets girl. Boy and girl go to a remote cabin. Boy and girl are terrorized by three masked murderers. It’s a tale as old as time.
But there was a time about 16 years ago when The Strangers hit audiences with this tried-and-true premise in a way that felt fresh and terrifying. It was bleak without being exhausting and frightening without being cheap (barring a few jumpscares). The franchise’s newest entry, The Strangers: Chapter One, attempts to take us back to those days with a reboot, but its execution shows that the time has passed for dwelling on the original’s successes. Now is the time for the series to outgrow the expectations set by the franchise.
‘The Strangers: Chapter One’ Revisits the Formula That Wowed Audiences, But Needs to Outgrow Its Legacy
Directed by genre film veteran Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea), the film is exactly what you’d expect: a return to basics, with a new couple slowly being tortured by a trio of masked killers who play a nasty game of cat and mouse. This time, Madelaine Petsch and Froy Guiterrez lead the film as couple Maya and Ryan, who run into roughly the same problems James and Kristen had in the first film; bog standard relationship troubles, and the occasional axe through the front door. Performance-wise, it’s nice to see Petsch adopting the mannerisms of a tried-and-true scream queen on her first go-around with a horror film, and even if the following two films aren’t knockouts, I’m interested to see how she approaches the character again.
The above might seem like a massive spoiler if you haven’t been following the publicity around this film, so let me elaborate: Chapter One’s titling is a bit more literal to its planned trilogy. Harlin himself describes the three movies as really being one massive 4-and-a-half-hour-long movie that will have its last two parts released later in the year. This is only the beginning, which is usually said as a threat, but this time feels more complicated.
The choice to shoot the trilogy altogether explains a lot of the film’s pacing problems: the last third of the film reaches the steady speed of a molasses drip, with an ending that felt more like the closer to the pilot of a Strangers TV series. The atmosphere is a cold dark forest, but the story moves with the languid motions of a heatwave-struck summer camp when we’re not in the thick of being attacked by cowled killers.
We’re Hopeful for a More Imaginative Future
I have a bit more faith that Harlin plans on doing something very out there with his mega-film ambitions; after all, tripling the length of your film demands something that will keep your audience hooked across three screenings over multiple months, like giving Madelaine Petsch a grenade launcher or having the Man in the Mask turn the town of Venus, Oregon into a Twisted Metal arena with his Ford Ranger. But I’m left wondering if the ending Part One drops us off at will sour audiences on the concept.
In terms of what the film has to offer visually, Harlin and cinematographer José David Montero do interesting work. Chapter One’s aesthetics are at the center of a tug-of-war between the original Strangers film and its sequel Prey At Night, fighting to be both gritty and cleaner looking at the same time. The lighting and coloring are absolutely a step up from Prey at Night, but the mumbly darkness of the original only really makes itself known in shots and scenes that are direct homages. The scares land semi-regularly, but genuine fear is out of the office in favor of more thrilling chase sequences. There are a few moments that really get you, and others that I think will mainly work best in a packed theatre where audience reactions feed off each other.
Though Chapter One feels like a more fun Strangers film at points, it doesn’t keep the energy up, and ultimately feels betrayed by its legacy. I’m under the impression that Prey at Night’s bold decisions and less-than-shining success at the box office might have just scared Lionsgate into taking the safe route, at least as far as opening the trilogy goes. It’s easy to backslide into comfort. But The Strangers: Chapter 2 and 3 have a great opportunity to dive into the deep end and take its audience into the unknown. In a year packed with exciting new movie prospects and original IPs popping up all over the place, Strangers has to go big or go home. Let’s hope the next two can make the hard-and-fast change of pace to do so.
