The 2008 film The Strangers — one of the best horror movies of the 2000s — told the story of a couple being terrorized by masked assailants while staying at a remote vacation home. In the upcoming horror movie The Strangers: Chapter 1, we’ll go further into that lore in the first of a planned prequel trilogy. Critics are weighing in on the project, which stars Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez as the couple whose cross-country trip turns into a nightmare.
First reactions to The Strangers: Chapter 1 were generally positive, with people calling it a “terrifying gorefest” but taking issue with a few different aspects. Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting gives it 2.5 out of 5 skulls, writing that this movie leans so heavily on its predecessor that it doesn’t have much impact on its own. But it does pique curiosity about where the next two movies will go. The critic continues:
The Strangers: Chapter 1 exists in a unique place in that it’s the first 90 minutes of what will amount to a roughly 4.5-hour movie yet doesn’t give much away at all about what’s ahead, presenting only part of the whole picture. Chapter 1 does a sufficient job laying the groundwork and delivering horror thrills but with a caveat: the less familiar you are with The Strangers, the better. Harlin and crew get a bit too faithful in their bid to recreate Bertino’s effective scares, even when remixing them, and it dampens what works.
Lena Wilson of IGN also notes how similar Chapter 1 is to the 2008 original but says The Strangers’ writer/director Bryan Bertino did it better than the prequel’s helmer, Renny Harlin. Wilson rates the first chapter an “Awful” 3 out of 10, writing:
The Strangers: Chapter 1 might freak you out if you aren’t old enough to remember The Strangers, but where its predecessor was subtle and interesting, Renny Harlin’s reboot chooses to be ridiculous and boring. If this film is notable for anything, it’s how stupid the main characters are. Whether depicting small-town America as a sinister freak show or ripping its best moments directly from the original, The Strangers: Chapter 1 actively resists novelty. If you really need to see a milquetoast couple get their shit rocked, watch The Strangers.
William Bibianni of The Wrap says the entire first half of the movie is “tedious filler” as we wait for the masked attackers to show up. The critic calls the movie “rote” and “by-the-numbers,” and features an infuriatingly clueless couple of leading characters. In Bibianni’s words:
Maya and Ryan are some of the lousiest horror protagonists in recent memory. They have no personality to speak of and they’re useless in a clutch. The problem isn’t that they act like they’ve never seen a scary movie before, although I suspect that they haven’t. The problem is they have no survival instincts at all, and that makes them impossible to relate to. A bunch of armed murderers break into their cabin so they run upstairs to the bedroom and just stare at the door, which they’ve barricaded with one cabinet so small a housecat could knock it over. They don’t look for escape routes. They don’t look for weapons. They aren’t even visibly panicking. For a large portion of this movie they just look confused, like they nobody’s told them what to do.
Maya and Ryan’s “questionable choices” were discussed in the first reactions, and it’s an issue also brought up by BJ Colangelo of SlashFilm, who questions how a movie can be a new chapter in the same universe as its predecessor when it is basically an exact lift of that movie. The critic gives it a 4.5 out of 10, and in regards to our “heroes”:
I actively felt myself disassociate for a solid five minutes because of how foolish our protagonists behaved. Plenty of horror movies have characters make stupid decisions in the heat of the moment, but this is a film that expects me to believe a hot white lady in 2024 with metallic nail polish hasn’t seen a ‘Stay Sexy, Don’t Get Murdered’ infographic on Instagram and therefore: 1) Doesn’t think it’s weird that their car is magically busted. 2) Has no problem staying overnight at a random Airbnb in the woods because the local motel ‘happens to be closed for repairs.’ 3) Is more than willing to let the random waitress they just met drive them to said second location. 4) Is not the one catching all of these red flags when her boyfriend does. Yeah, no.
Emma Kiely of Collider rates The Strangers: Chapter 1 a 4 out of 10, pointing out some editing flaws and flat-out rejecting the director’s claim that his film isn’t just a mere remake of the original. The critic says:
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.
Despite some admittedly effective jumpscares, it sounds like fans of 2008’s The Strangers might not find enough new material to grasp in Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 1, but several of the critics maintained hope that the next two chapters of the trilogy — which have both been filmed and are scheduled to come out later this year — will bring something new to the franchise.
You can catch this first chapter in theaters starting on Friday, May 17, and be sure to check out our 2024 movie calendar to see what else is coming soon.
