THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1 (2024)

Studio:   Lionsgate
Director: Renny Harlin
Writer:   Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland
Producer: Courtney Solomon, Mark Canton, Christopher Milburn, Gary Raskin, Alastair Burlingham, Charlie Dombek
Stars:    Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez, Gabriel Basso, Ema Horvath, Ella Bruccoleri, Richard Brake, Brooke Johnson

Review Score:

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Summary:

Three masked intruders terrorize a young couple trapped inside a remote rental home.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Masked killers Scarecrow, Dollface, and Pin-Up pursue corporate financer Jeff Morell through an Oregon forest. Upon catching him, Scarecrow attacks Jeff with an ax.

Celebrating their five-year anniversary while on a road trip, Maya and Ryan stop at Carol's Diner in the small town of Venus, Oregon. On their way in, the couple is eyed suspiciously by nearby mechanic Rudy and his assistant Dougie. Maya and Ryan continue to receive strange looks inside the diner from Sheriff Rotter, Deputy Walters, and Carol. However, Maya and Ryan get a friendly greeting from fellow couple Eden and Neil.

After eating their meals and noticing a missing person poster for Jeff Morell, Maya and Ryan discover their car will not start. Rudy offers to fix the vehicle, but Maya and Ryan are told they will have to wait overnight. With the local motel reportedly closed for repairs, Rudy and Shelly, the seemingly friendly waitress who served Maya and Ryan, recommend renting a remote Airbnb house from a man named Joe Gressis.

Maya calms Ryan after he accuses Rudy of sabotaging their car as part of a possible scam. Two odd boys hand a religious flyer to the couple. Shelly offers to drive Maya and Ryan to the Gressis house since it is supposedly on her way home.

After Maya and Ryan settle into the house, a young woman comes to the door asking if someone named Tamara is there. Maya and Ryan don't see the woman's face because the porch light was unscrewed. After sending her away, Ryan notes it was strange for someone to be out at night in the middle of nowhere.

Ryan takes a motorcycle back into town to retrieve his asthma inhaler from the car. Left alone, Maya FaceTimes with her friend Debbie. The mysterious woman comes back to ask about Tamara again, which starts a series of events that unnerve Maya.

Ryan has an uncomfortable run-in with Rudy when he retrieves his inhaler. Locals who recognize him from the diner then tease Ryan as he orders burgers to bring back to the house. Ryan refuses another church flyer from Lucy and Larry, the two burger stand owners who also eye him suspiciously.

Realizing intruders sneaked into the house, Maya hides from Dollface. Ryan comes back, but he tells Maya she must have imagined seeing someone since the house appears empty to him.

The woman asking about Tamara returns outside. She runs away when Ryan attempts to confront her.

Maya and Ryan become alarmed when they find a mutilated bird in the kitchen. Scarecrow suddenly breaks down the front door with an ax. Maya and Ryan attempt to escape on the motorcycle, but Scarecrow blows it up by igniting gasoline.

While crawling under the house to sneak away from Scarecrow, Dollface, and Pin-Up, Maya punctures her hand on a nail. The couple makes it to a shed where Ryan recovers a shotgun he uses to frighten Scarecrow away from Maya. Ryan then uses the gun to shoot at a man he believes is Scarecrow, but it turns out to be the home's owner Joe, who came to the house to fix the fridge.

Maya and Ryan try to escape in Joe's vehicle, but Scarecrow crashes a truck into them. Maya flees into the forest with Dollface in pursuit. Momentarily trapped inside the car, Ryan uses the shotgun to fight off Scarecrow.

Maya hides from Dollface in a pit containing a corpse. Maya also calls 911, but Dollface captures her.

Ryan confronts Pin-Up at gunpoint. Ryan demands to know where Maya is, but Pin-Up merely laughs and behaves bizarrely. Scarecrow knocks Ryan unconscious from behind.

Maya and Ryan recover to find themselves tied up inside the house. Amid the terror of the three masked strangers looming over them, Ryan proposes marriage. Maya tearfully accepts.

Pin-Up stabs Ryan. Scarecrow then kicks over Ryan's chair. Ryan collapses on the floor.

Maya asks, "Why are you doing this to us?" Pin-Up responds, "Because you're here." Scarecrow then stabs Maya and kicks over her chair, too. Scarecrow, Dollface, and Pin-Up leave when they hear sirens approaching.

Maya recovers in a hospital. Scarecrow is seen lying next to Maya in her hospital bed.

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Review:

I'm not sure how "The Strangers: Chapter 1" wants viewers to feel about its protagonists. Following a senseless prologue that does nothing except satisfy an imaginary obligation for a pre-title jolt, Maya and Ryan fall out of their handsome Hollywood headshots and into a car driving "somewhere in Oregon." (Venus, to be exact; I don't know why text says "somewhere" when dialogue specifies the location.) With 300 more miles to go until Portland, Ryan suggests stopping for a bite. Since this is a horror movie, of course they stop at a small-town diner where all of the rural-looking locals eye these two city-slicking outsiders suspiciously.

There's no trucker with a mesh baseball cap, although there is a grim-faced sheriff, an unkempt mechanic with his arms crossed, a flannel-clad guy sporting a neckbeard, and a waitress who semi-snickers when Ryan asks about vegetarian options on the menu. The diner owner adds to the haze of discomfort by taking umbrage at the revelation that this picture-perfect couple has been dating for five years without getting married. These patrons act oddly, but they're not openly hostile. So I guess what I'm asking is, are we supposed to have sympathy for Maya and Ryan's minor mistreatment, or are they supposed to be seen as intrusive, privileged a-holes since they're discussing a friend's destination birthday in Greece and breaking greasy spoon decorum by asking about salad?

Maya and Ryan remain relatively respectful until they finish their meals and discover their car won't start. That's when Ryan wags a figurative finger at the weirdo mechanic by leveling an accusation of sabotage. Offending the locals, especially ones with the power to make you mobile again, is always a no-no in fright films. But Ryan seems right to be wary of how his new car suddenly died, and how this grim guy happens to have a whole itinerary up his sleeve for Maya and Ryan to rent a remote house while they wait for repairs overnight. Once again, whose side should I be on here?

In general, I'm not really sure what "The Strangers: Chapter 1" is doing with anyone at all. The first in a trilogy, "Chapter 1" tells an incomplete tale that doesn't work as a standalone story because it evidently requires two other chapters for any of the elements introduced to provide a payoff.

In addition to the side-eyeing country folk exchanging knowing stares only they understand, there are two instances where other kooks, a pair of biking boys and a pair of burger stand cooks, pass out flyers for a strange Sunday church gathering. Richard Brake clearly wasn't cast to sit in a single scene where he doesn't speak a word, so his sheriff character should presumably play a larger part in the sequels. Is the mechanic really up to no good? Are one or more of these townspeople secretly under the murderers' masks? And if the diner is also involved in some grander strangers-related conspiracy, why does the counter display a missing person poster for the man who gets axed in the opening?

None of those questions are answered in this movie, turning each of these inclusions into seeds that don't sprout fruit. As soon as Maya and Ryan step out of town and into the house, "The Strangers: Chapter 1" devolves into a rudimentary cat-and-mouse chase where the two of them run, hide, and occasionally fight back against masked intruders for 45 minutes. Look at the end credits, where actors are listed in the order in which they appear, and you'll see a long list of characters that don't actually show up onscreen. "Chapter 1" ends with only two faces featured in a hospital scene. But there was apparently supposed to be a full roster of new people including a nurse named Danica, an orderly named Richard, and a multitude of other names, including possibly two new strangers called Ghostskull and Witchface. Whatever all of this was intended to be was obviously cut, making "Chapter 1's" non-ending less of a cliffhanger and more of a cheat to chop off even more of the movie.

If "The Strangers: Chapter 1" means to mythologize its titular antagonists by fleshing out their fiction, then the filmmakers are missing the point of why the original movie became the hallmark of home invasion horror. "The Strangers" (review here) was skin-crawlingly eerie because its villains were exactly what the title said they were. We didn't know who was wearing the masks. We didn't find out what they wanted. We weren't told why they did what they did. That's why they were scary. Potentially giving them identities, backstories, and motivations isn't just a mistake, it's anathema to what makes the masked strangers so terrifying in the first place. But if this trilogy doesn't deliver on the additional development "Chapter 1" appears to be planting, then what will these three movies be other than redundant rehashes of a simple "three killers terrorize two people" plot that was already perfected in 2008?

Regardless of which way the trilogy goes, "The Strangers: Chapter 1" can't stand on its own two feet since at least one more movie is necessary to make any sense out of this film's first act. Ever since Marvel's massive success, studios have been putting carts before horses by announcing series that die after one dismal entry like "The Exorcist: Believer" (review here), or undoing plans for entire continuities like the aborted "Dark Universe" project. "The Strangers" doesn't have a chance to change course since all three chapters were filmed at once. But I'd bet if Lionsgate shelved the other two films due to "Chapter 1's" disappointing deja vu, forgetful fans would be perfectly fine not seeing how this recycled concept ultimately plays out.

NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.

Review Score: 30

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