Proving that old Hollywood adage of nothing ever dies, the trio of mask wearing, Tamara inquiring, thrill killers known as the Strangers have returned to the big screen once again to terrorize and slaughter any loving couple who ventures into their crosshairs. However, this time, we’ll be promised answers to the many probing questions that have swirled around the franchise since 2008 – but I have to be honest, the only question that’s on the forefront of my brain right now is: why are we bothering?
Look, let’s be honest here, despite having an affinity for slashers and horrors with a stripped down, throwback attitude, I’ve never really got the big deal with The Strangers movies, so to suddenly see the series suddenly get the Halloween/Blumhouse treatment and get an entire trilogy devoted to their shenanigans seems a little strange. Anyway, I’m an open minded guy, and The Stangers movies usually are competently shot, so I guess I’m down to finally take a peek under those masks.
Longtime couple Maya and Ryan are young, infuriatingly attractive and utterly besotted with one another in a way that makes you want to stick two fingers down your throat if you’re single and we join them as they drive across country in order for Maya to score a new job. However, on the way, the two stop off in the small town of Venus, Oregon to grab a bite to eat, only to find that once they try to leave, their car won’t start. Ryan is pissed, convinced that there’s some sort of scam at play here, however, Maya, obviously the diplomat of the two, manages to calm the situation down and thanks to a handy Airbnb home in the area, the couple settle in to stay the night while the part their car needs will get collected in the morning.
So far, so standard slasher setup – but things get even more familiar when there’s a rap on the door from a strange, silhouetted young woman who cryptically asks for a Tamara before leaving in a suspicious manner. Making things worse, Ryan has to head back to town to grab his inhaler from the car, leaving Maya all alone in this strange place, and from here, things start to go viciously south.
While Maya remains blissfully unaware that she’s actually sharing the property with a trio of masked stalkers who are all wielding some sort of bladed weapon or other, the gang of the Man In The Mask, Pin-Up Girl and Dollface soon up their attack when Ryan returns and before the couple have time to comprehend what’s going on, they’re in a fight for their lives.
But who are these strangers, what do they want beyond death and fear and why do they want it? Yeah, tough titty for you, because all these answers and more are presumably stashed away in the upcoming sequels…
While I don’t hate The Strangers movies, I have to admit that maybe I didn’t see these movies during the time they should have been seen. Maybe watching Bryan Bertino’s minimalist home invasion flick and Johannes Roberts’ perkier sequel during their orginal theatrical run would have endeared me to them more, but as it stands, I find them to be beautifully shot, but rather empty affairs that usually lean on the wrong side of derivative. However, I can give credit where credit is due and the tone, atmosphere and some of the set pieces help me understand why some people totally love them. Still, getting an entire back-to-back trilogy of these things directed by none other than Renny Harlin seems like a strange move. Apparently, its mission statement is to not only expand the world of The Strangers, but clue you in on some of those secrets, but anyone hoping to get them right out of the gate is going to be vehemently disappointed.
In interviews, the filmmakers have stressed that The Strangers: Chapter One isn’t actually a remake, which is quite an important statement when you realise that this first installment is virtually identical to the original film. Returning to the lone couple format of the 2008 film, it’s home invasion business as usual as we watch Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez’s saccharine couple retreat to a secluded house and succumb to a damn good stalking. All the basics are there, but this newest outing seems to think that with two follow-ups already in the can, all it has to do is go through the motions to get everyone up to speed before Chapter 2 has to get busy with some (hopefully) heavy lifting. As a result, we get a virtual retread of the first movie – right down to a spot of mistaken identity involving a shotgun – that not only seems overwhelming derivative of an already derivative movie, but it actually takes steps to make its human characters less interesting.
Now don’t get me wrong, Petsch and Gutierrez make a nicely sweet couple who manage to barely keep their characters in settling into pretty mannequin territory, but in the first film, Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman’s couple were experiencing drama due to a marriage proposal gone wrong while the sequel saw a crumbling family trying to hold its foundations together before the wayward daughter is banished to boarding school. Here, however, Maya and Ryan seem to have no personal drama going on whatsoever, which ultimately makes them a blander couple than bread and water, which only adds to the basic nature of the script.
While I obviously don’t advocate murder, stalking or breaking and entering, frankly, it’s a relief when the Strangers arrive, and while Renny Harlin’s days of multimillion productions like Die Hard II, Cliffhanger and Deep Blue Sea are a long way behind him, he still manages to stage some decent tension as the masked maniacs do their thing. There’s even an underdeveloped list of suspects as, for once, we get to see a few more of the local residents. However, once again, despite some cosmetic changes (the Man In The Mask has dropped the suit and tie in favour for a more rustic bomber jacket), and a few tantalising clues located in their body language, it’s still business as usual for these slasher also-rans.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is, while The Strangers: Chapter One lack of originality makes a certain amount of sense if taken as the first film of a trilogy for newbies, the fact that it’s the third Strangers movie to be made just makes it feel like it’s horribly underachieving to the rest of us who have to wade through the same old stuff in order to make it to anything approaching an orginal idea. Of course, that’s not even going to happen until near the end of the year at least, so unless Chapter Two manages to blow our minds with enough force to sweep those masked maniacs clean off their feet, this little enterprise in “Strangering” is just too overly familiar for comfort.
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