Posted by The Strangers: Chapter 1; Written by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland, Story by Bryan Bertino; Directed by Renny Harlin; Starring Madelaine Petsch, Froy Guiterrez; Rated R; Lionsgate; 1h31m
The home invasion sub-genre of horror has a built in level of terror and tension. We all can fear someone, or a group of someones, coming into our space and terrorizing us. We hope and pray that strange noise we just heard downstairs in the kitchen is just an uneven bag falling over and not a masked menace ready to make our nights hell. The cat-and-mouse, ebb-and-flow of offence and defense in invasion and siege (the action bend to the subgenre) is a natural fit, leading to great films like Your Next, Inside, and the original The Strangers. Even when the larger film doesn’t quite work such as The Purge, Trespassers, or In Their Skin, it’s hard to for the basic premise to fail.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 fails, hard; embarrassingly so. How does this happen? Uninspired direction from a veteran (not necessarily good – but has a ton of experience) filmmaker, unlikable and laughably oblivious protagonists making incredibly poor choices performed by wooden actors, and a whole lot of unnecessary fluff around the edges.
The Strangers is the sort of story where every entry in the franchise is essentially a remake with slightly different parameters. In the 2008 original, Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are beset upon the trio of masked fiends because they were home, and the 2018 The Strangers: Prey at Night finds a family led by Christina Hendricks visiting a mobile home park, strangely empty except for the same three psychopaths ready to spill blood in a wider location (this one is easily my favorite, especially in the wild third act). Despite the trailer and title making it seem like a prequel, The Strangers: Chapter 1 essentially functions as a rather direct remake of the 2008 film, albeit worse in every way. You see, the Chapter 1 moniker is meant to indicate the start of a trilogy, le sigh, as this seems to be norm these days.
So, a remake of the original with a few shifts. Here we have Ryan and Maya, two instantly unlikeable entitled douchenozzles. They are the type of entitlement where they call the owner of the AirBnB they are staying at for a single night and it’s already nine PM to fix the fridge so their single six-pack of Budweiser, that they are going to drink immediately, doesn’t get too warm. They aren’t malicious, but absolutely oblivious to everything outside themselves. After their poor decision of a food choice off the highway (I still want to know why they are driving 3 days form New York to Portland for an interview) they stumble upon a “small town” 3 hours east of Portland, Oregon (note: Pendleton, a decently sized town, is there along with many others. But it’s a horror set up so I give a grudging pass) which seems to consist only of a diner, a hardware store, a garage. Those and a bunch of stereotype backwoods folks who glare at them city folk with their fancy cell phones and self-starting cars. Heeyuck. By golly one of themes even a vegetarian! Doesn’t help that the pair scoff at it all or dismiss with a “oh it’s so cuuuutte!”
I’m assuming these extra characters and aspects are set-ups for the mentioned proposed trilogy – all three films were filmed at once, so this won’t be a “oh no, it sucks and bombed let’s drop the rest.” (looking at you Exorcist Believer), or a disjointed mess (Star Wars sequel trilogy as much as I dig Force Awaekns and Last Jedi). However, the first film in any trilogy should stand completely on its own. Instead of creating teases of a world, it’s more of a “why is this here?” as they don’t work as even red herrings in the course of this film (though I feel they are meant to be); nor do they enter into the proceedings once they get going. My prediction: the town itself is a sort of cult, taking out outsiders who don’t immediately jump at the religious pamphlets. So the “Strangers” are actually the people being stalked. Why else hire horror stalwart Richard Brake, if not to use him to scare the skin off a character?
So when the car of Male Moron (Froy Guiterrez, Light as a Feather) and Female Moron (Madelaine Petsch, Riverdale) breaks down (for which the mechanic needs to go to Eugene to get a part – a city further away than Portland so I guess they just picked an Oregonian city from a hat), they check into an AirBNB cabin reocmmended by the waitress. As expected, eventually they get the expected knock and “Is Tamara home?” linking phrase of the films. In a slight change to the formula, Male Moron leaves for a bit to go to town (setting up another of each of the “oooh scary hicks!” and scoff at locals encounter-types), leaving Female Moron at home to not notice anything around her.
There is an expectation in the genre for people to be a little oblivious or a little boneheaded in decision making to keep the movie moving but these two are specifically egregious with just how much. They quite possibly may be the dumbest, most oblivious leads in the genre. There is a major difference to “not thinking clearly in the moment” to much of what this idiot pair elect to do. For sake of my no-spoilers policy I can’t get into them, as much as I want to, but whew boy, we have some doozies (check out the reddit discussions if you want the details).
I’ll give one example, to whet your whistle. Part of this series is seeing someone standing in the background, silently watching. That’s enough to create the tension, but it gets silly when Harlan has the stalkers stand or sit within FEET of our heroes. In ways that there is no way on earth the killers could not be seen or heard, or even “someone is looking at me” feel.
It doesn’t help that director Renny Harlin decided to shoot most of the film in extreme close-up. While this is meant to portray claustrophobia as the metaphorical noose gets closer and closer, but all it does it make everything another level of dumb. There is one notable time toward the end where there is no doubt the trio is standing directly in front of the characters but are not mentioned as if they are not (Gestures) RIGHT THERE. I guess if it’s not on screen, it doesn’t exist? Or can’t be heard (I’m listening for you inconsistant footsteps and loud trucks)? What isn’t shot far too close just comes off flat, failing to build to anything remotely scary. There isn’t any skill present. While Harlin isn’t the strongest director; his best films lean into the cheese – Deep Blue Sea, Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Cliffhanger or even Die Hard 2 (hell, I’d even give a note for the awful Covenant as an accidental comedy) over the more serious attempts like Driven or, well, this, but this doesn’t feel like he’s ever shot a film before, let alone a few dozen over forty years.
There’s more but I don’t want to get too ranty or spoilery. But I’ll stop at they have multiple chances to leave, but they don’t. Not like they are trying that hard to fight back, halfassing that as well. It doesn’t help the half-assed choices of the characters are not given much conviction by either Petsch or Guiterrez, playing more of a “you won’t believe the rules of this AirBNB we rented” over “we’re stuck in the middle of the woods while 3 people who can apparently teleport stalk us”. Between this and Tarot, it’s hard to choose which has the most checked out in spite of being surrounded by terror leads.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is ultimately a notable movie. Notable in being a flat, tension-less mess of a sub-genre that is hard to mess up. Since parts 2 and 3 are already filmed, I doubt they can learn too much from the errors of this film, but one can hope. My hope is the scope shifts and now that the familiar ground is tread upon, the next two entries head into a new direction that works better. (and I know I’ll see them regardless).
D
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