"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." 

OUR MOVIE REVIEW:

A Familiar Knock at the Door

Looking back at The Strangers from 2008, and even at its distant sequel Prey at Night, the rhythm of these movies is woefully predictable. Innocent people become victims of violence at the hands of villains we never truly get to know. Yes, you are correct. We have been here before with this new(ish) iteration, borrowing the same title, just affixing Chapter One on the end. 

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The Strangers: Chapter One is the first in a new trilogy of films that promise to expand on the lore of the home-invading masked killers we’ve seen before. This new film acts like a compulsory Act One; it is serviceable and routine, bordering on redundant. While Chapter One does not offer any new tricks up its sleeve, it does raise some questions that allude to payoff in the two sequels releasing later this year.

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I was interested in the lead characters in Bryan Bertino’s original film, played by Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman. They had chemistry and were relatable. The two leads in this new film, from director Renny Harlin, do not have as much spark but are not entirely devoid of color either. Whatever connection I was supposed to have with them, however, never truly materialized.

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Our antagonists are Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez), a cute late-twenties couple on a road trip from New York to Portland, Oregon. They are three hours from their destination, where Maya has her hopes set on a job interview, when we meet them. They banter here and there. Will Ryan join her if she gets the job? Will she ever say yes to marrying him? This does not matter—at least not yet. 

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After pulling off to get lunch in Venus, Oregon, a quaint town with a population under 500, the couple is met with ominous looks from everyone they meet, a scene very reminiscent of when a young would-be-counselor asks for directions in the original Friday the 13th. We meet a few additional characters, including Rudy, the local surly mechanic and a bevy of locals with wide-eyed stares.  

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While this film is competently made, the character development stalls early in the film. Maya and Ryan are given traits that do not pay off; one is a vegetarian, and the other has asthma. While these attributes are unique, they don't go anywhere. A lesser film would have Maya eat meat to progress the story; a superior film would show Ryan accomplishing some heroic task without his inhaler. Since neither happens in this film, it is curious why the screenwriters focus so much on both. But they do well at evoking the dichotomy that usually exists in every relationship: the pessimist and the pragmatic, even if it comes off a little hammy. I bring up the character traits because I was hopeful that the filmmakers would attempt something different. Sadly, it doesn’t. 

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Car troubles ensue (Ryan is sure the townspeople are scamming them), and the couple spends the night at an Airbnb (Maya is vindicated that it's not all bad). Not long after their arrival, they get a knock on the door. A deep knock that echoes through the house, almost as if it's not a human hand producing it. They open the door to an obscured figure asking if "Tamara is home". But as we all know, there has never been a Tamara. 

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If you've seen the original Strangers, you will know what comes next. We get treated to a handful of audible jump scares, usually more door-knocking. The couple's feelings of security become more undercut as figures appear in the driveway, at the front door, and even in the house. Maya and Ryan are terrorized by three figures wearing masks who break in wielding knives and axes, injecting fear and promising death. 

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Even if you haven't seen the original, this film does not stray far from where you think the story is going. The Strangers: Chapter One and the original share so much DNA; it is a bit laughable when I read that this film is not considered a reboot or a remake.

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Predictable as this film may be, there are some silver linings. Director Renny Harlin and his director of photography, José David Montero, craft beautiful sequences in the Slovakian landscape (this film and the two forthcoming sequels were all shot simultaneously in Slovakia). Editor Michelle Harrison lets some shots linger while truncating others, causing stressful reactions when we're in Maya or Ryan's POV. There are even a few needle drops, such as the now classic Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues, which plays at the film's pivot point. 

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The most remembered shot from The Strangers is the long take when Liv Tyler's character is in the kitchen, and the masked man materializes in the background. The soundtrack drops out, and we as the audience are paralyzed with fear. The shot lingers as Tyler does not see him until much later on. Renny Harlin recreates this powerful shot here in his own way. It isn't as memorable but cranks up the creep factor at the right time.

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What casual audiences can glean from this film's ending will be something other than originality. I recall seeing this film’s trailer in front of a handful of films; every time I saw it I felt like the cut of the trailer pulled more muscle off the film’s bone. Some of the better scares were spoiled in its preview; while this is not the film’s fault, it sure does suffer the consequences for it. Horror fans, the target audience, might be frustrated that this film does not challenge them. Outside of a few set dressing easter eggs and minor callbacks, there really is nothing new to report here. 

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The Strangers: Chapter One does what it sets out to do, but this film has already been made before. The idea of expanding the lore of this franchise, of these characters, is what the next two films are poised to explore. Hopefully, that will be a story worth telling.