The Strangers: Chapter 1 Review: Renny Harlin’s Horror Reboot Carries Too Much Setup, Not Enough Bite

   July 16, 2024

Review: The Strangers: Chapter 1 is not all bad. I just really like these dirty, grimy home invasion thrillers and wish this experimented more with new scares and ideas. Perhaps it’ll age well with the releases of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, but for right now, I’m rather lukewarm on the setup.

the strangers chapter 1 2024 movie
Dollface and Scarecrow in The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

The Strangers continues to be a cult favorite among many of the sicko horror fans in the community, and like every other well-regarded version of IP from the 21st century, it was only a matter of time until they tried to turn this lo-fi terrorizer into an extended universe.

And I can’t wholeheartedly complain because I was rather excited when this three-parter was initially announced. The Strangers is an uber freaky home invasion movie, and one of the better iterations of that exact subgenre that’s been put to film. And in 2008, it felt like a breath of fresh air compared to the usual shlocky studio horror. That’s to say that the 2008 film is genuinely terrifying – one that feels so real and lifelike that it’s hard not to watch between your fingertips.

The 2024 reboot, aptly titled The Strangers: Chapter 1, tries to follow that same formula to varying degrees of success. The next two chapters have already been announced by director Renny Harlin, so it’s hard to judge this one solely on its own merit because it has a lot of setting up to do.

And in a way, it sets up the trauma and backstory for presumptive final girl Maya (played by Madelaine Petsch). After she and her longtime boyfriend Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) find themselves stranded in an Airbnb in remote Oregon, the murderous trio of Scarecrow, Dollface, and Pin-Up Girl come out to play and wreak havoc on the innocent couple.

Madelaine Petsch’s performance as Maya is scarily good in Chapter 1, conveying the terror and heightened sense that the walls are caving in to great success. It’s the kind of performance that’ll sit among the genre’s best in 2024, and I hope she finds more roles in horror outside of just this trilogy because she brings the physicality and demeanor that it takes to escape three psychotic killers.

Froy Gutierrez plays opposite Petsch, and while I don’t want to boil down my criticisms of Chapter 1 to this character and his portrayal, he’s vastly outshined by his counterpart. There’s a versatility to what Petsch is doing that Gutierrez can’t quite keep up with. He comes off as stiff and quiet in an otherwise rambunctious film.

And the plot doesn’t do enough to hold the movie together, either. It’s an awkward rendition of the original that tries to stay at arm’s length despite the obvious similarities. At least with 2018’s The Strangers: Prey at Night, the movie was trying a bunch of different things by either expanding the lore or adventuring to new locations. Conversely, Chapter 1 stays put and meddles for far too long.

It also comes down to whether or not this is the best use of this franchise, and whether three chapters are needed to tell a story centered on three serial killers with purposely little background. These movies are supposed to be lean and ambiguous, and building them out over the course of a trilogy might prove to be the wrong strategy to reanimate this franchise.

And its evident that Renny Harlin is struggling to come up with new scares for this world. Chapter 1 builds to a few different set pieces, and they all look and feel like imitations from the film’s contemporaries or prior entries in this franchise. They even sneak one more into the post-credit scene, which teases the next film without giving any insight or clarity for where we’re heading next.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 is not all bad. I just really like these dirty, grimy home invasion thrillers and wish this experimented more with new scares and ideas. Perhaps it’ll age well with the releases of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, but for right now, I’m rather lukewarm on the setup.

Score: 5/10

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