Overview
They don’t need a reason.
After their car breaks down in an eerie small town, a young couple are forced to spend the night in a remote cabin. Panic ensues as they are terrorized by three masked strangers who strike with no mercy and seemingly no motives.
Review
My soul aches for this one. Despite all the lackluster reviews of The Strangers: Chapter 1, I held out hope. I stripped away all the revelry of it being an extension of one of my favorite horror series. But even with keeping a fresh perspective, I came away with little positive to report on the reboot.
As reported, The Strangers: Chapter 1 is a straight retelling of The Strangers. What it does correctly, by mimicking the original, is foster that sense of tense dread lingering through the runtime. It doesn’t take long before the shit hits the fans and sticks there. Other than that, this new addition to The Strangers franchise is a flop, a total failure. Worse, it demeans the foundation of the series.
What really scared me about the original The Strangers was that the killers’ acts were so random and without reason. With The Strangers: Chapter 1, the killers are repeating a murder within the same killing ground. The movie opens up with the initial kill happening in the very same place the rest of the movie unfolds. So throw out the chaotic randomness of their acts. Now it seems they have a set motive. This really ruined the fear-factor.
The remainder of the movie is just paint-by-the-numbers. It’s a bummer, especially as this movie now serves as the relaunch for the series. My suggestion is to skip this and just enjoy the first two in the series (reviews below).
Rating: ★½ (out of 5)
