The plaque of daft horror reboots continues, with The Strangers being the next victim.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 follows a young couple as they are stalked and terrorisd by a group of masked strangers.
Acting as a remake to the 2008 original, Chapter 1 is a pale copy of what has come before. Filled with modern horror tropes and laughable writing.
This film is also the first part of a trilogy. The other two chapters are scheduled to release at some point this year.
“I bet the people who live here are very happy”
Image credit: justjared.com
The film starts with a simple cold open. A man runs through the woods before he stumbles and falls to The Strangers. It’s very plain but it sets the tone fairly well.
However, right after this a bunch of text crawls across the screen, showing the audience the US’ murder statistics and setting up the film as a “True Story”.
The “True Story” trope was used in the original, but since it’s release, this trope has been used in everything. Now making it a flat out lie.
The entire film is one big trope. The naive young couple, the red herring locals and stupid character decisions that make no sense.
These tropes are fine if the film is actually good and uses them well. Chapter 1 doesn’t reinvent the wheel at all, if anything it becomes the embodiment of all these tropes.
Chapter 1 features a pretty star studded cast with Madelaine Petsch and Ryan Bowen leading the film. Both actors do their best with what they’re given
Keeping to the original films roots, Chapter 1 has a small core cast. The only character’s that have any meaningful dialogue are the couple and some towns folk.
After the couple experience some car trouble and have a strange run in with the locals, they are put up in an Air B&B for the night.
At this point, the film practically becomes a modern take on the original film. Trading quiet tension and looming dread, for obvious scares and over blown jump scares.
At multiple points the film re-creates scares from both The Strangers and The Strangers: Prey At Night. Most notably the knock at the door scenes and The Man in the Mask creeping around the house.
“Is Tamara here?”
Image credit: dextero.com
The Strangers act very similarly to how they operate in The Strangers: Prey At Night. Each stranger hunting the victims in different ways.
This is one of the only good parts of the film, giving each of The Strangers helps to ground them.
The worst parts of the film start to show when The Strangers begin to torment the couple.
Both Maya and Jeff make incredibly stupid decisions that almost immediately lead to a jump scare from one of The Strangers.
This ranges from: Jeff borderline using Maya as bait, Maya staring at a shotgun for a minute before pointing it out, Jeff running through the woods screaming for Maya whilst The Strangers chase him, and so much more.
Bad decisions are a staple of slashers, but in this film almost every action taken by the lead characters makes zero sense.
As the film comes to a close, The Strangers capture Maya and Jeff after two excruciatingly dull chase scenes.
Chapter 1 re-creates the spine-chilling ending of the original, but without any of the tension that built up in the original.
It’s clear the film wants to cater to fans of the original duology, but also wants to please modern horror fans.
It’s caught on a line between both and it never commits to either. It doesn’t help for half of the film it’s hard to tell if it’s a sequel or a reboot.
Another big issue this film suffers from is its sound design. The original had very minimal sounds, the only sound scoring most scenes being the record player looping an ominous track.
Chapter 1 does away with the tense silence and fills the void with a groan inducing soundtrack that feels ripped right from any of the hundred films within the “Home Invasion” sub-genre.
“Because you were here”
Image credit: Variety.com
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is an incredibly dull remake of a modern classic, and a weak start to a planned trilogy.
I’m one of the only people who liked the universally panned The Strangers: Prey At Night, so I had some faith in this reboot and I saw sorely let down.
Do your best to stay away The Stranger: Chapter 1 it’s not worth your time.
If you’re interested in what happens in the rest of the trilogy, stay tuned to Brig as we cover the rest when they release.
Featured image credit: IGN.com
Fourth year Film and Journalism student
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