The Strangers: Chapter 1 is a 2024 American horror film directed by Renny Harlin, and the cast includes Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez , Gabriel Basso, Ema Horvath, Ella Bruccoleri, Richard Brake and Joplin Sibtain.
I am not quite sure why the new Strangers trilogy has even been made, but I am interested, and here we are with the first release of the trilogy Chapter 1, but is it worth watching?
The movie follows Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) on a cross-country trip for their five-year anniversary and after stopping in a small town for a meal, their car breaks down, forcing them to stay overnight in a local Airbnb, where they are terrorized by the Strangers: Scarecrow, Dollface, and Pin-up Girl.
I have to admit, I quite like The Strangers, even Prey At Night is better than it gets credit for, and I loved the premise of the movies as the idea of home invaders is quite terrifying really and the fact that type of scenario could happen makes you dread it all a little bit more.
Unfortunately, the new movie, a first part of a trilogy of new movies in the franchise being released, Chapter 1, is pretty disappointing.
It's all just a bit repetitive and lacks any new thrills as it just rehashes the original plot but with less impact as you have seen it all before and my fear is the next two movies in the new trilogy will offer the same thing.
It offers nothing new and fresh and comes across as just a mere cash grab.
Much like the original 2008 film, the setup is pretty straightforward but Chapter 1 falls way short because it just doesn't maintain or build any suspense really throughout the movie and anything the movie does try and do in that aspect are just repeat scares from the previous two films.
Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez are OK as the main characters, the problem is though is their characters are incredibly wooden and they were working with some incredibly sub par material and I felt a bit sorry for them truth be told.
And the less said about there decisions, the better as most of how they act and what they do make zero sense, even in the realms of horror movies.
And the films pacing is not good either, it felt like they were trying to cram too much into the 90 minutes runtime and the 2nd half in particular just feels rushed.
It's just all a bit of a mess really, even the ending is somewhat copied just without all the tension as you have seen it all before as said, and I am not really sure even the film makers knew what they were aiming for with this one.
This is up there with Tarot as one of the worst horror movies of 2024 so far.
Overall, this entry just adds nothing new and feels like a copy of the original and while I'm still interested in the next parts, I hope they significantly improve over this one.
I would rate this film 40% on my horror movie nerd-o-meter.