After their car breaks down in an eerie small town, a young couple is forced to spend the night in a remote cabin. Panic ensues as they are terrorized by three masked strangers who strike with no mercy and seemingly no motive.
Director: Renny Harlin
Cast: Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez, Richard Brake, Ema Horvath
Release Date: May 17, 2024
Genre: Horror
Rated R for horror violence, language and brief drug use
Runtime: 1h 31m
Review:
The Strangers Chapter 1 is a tired retread of the original film which offers little intrigue for the already completed next two Chapters which leaves you wondering why a prequel exists or even necessary. Renny Harlin is a capable director, but this film is terribly bland from start to finish, leaving it a lifeless experience. It doesn't help that the film never delivers any sort of tangible tension or scares. It’s all entirely predictable with the victim doing some truly stupid things throughout which might have more than a few people rooting for the killers. Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez do the best they can with the material they've given as the couple being terrorized. They have decent chemistry together, but their characters are so terribly stereotypically written that there's very little to the character that makes them interesting or engaging. Once the main action gets going, Petsch does show some strong potential as a scream queen with a believable sense of playing terrorized paired with an impressive scream. It’s a shame its wasted on this uninspired opening entry in the coming trilogy which might make more sense once everything has been released. As a standalone film, The Strangers Chapter 1 doesn't offer anything new to the franchise which gives the "Why are you doing this to us? Because you were *here*" exchange near the end of the film a weird sort of meta context that could be applied to the audience.
D-
