The Strangers
After their car breaks down, a couple driving cross-country to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest is forced to spend the night in a secluded rental, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers.
- Released:
- Runtime: 91 minutes
- Genre: Horror, Thrillers
- Stars: Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez, Gabriel Basso, Ema Horvath, Milo Callaghan, Rachel Shenton, Ella Bruccoleri, George Young, Janis Ahern, Pedro Leandro, Ryan Brown, Ben Cartwright, Miles Yekinni, Rebecka Johnston, Stevee Davies, Brian Law, Sara Freedland, Florian Clare, Rafaella Biscayn, Pablo Sandstorm
- Director: Renny Harlin
Comments
- ronaldvictoriano - 29 June 2024
Predictable & Mindless Protgonists
The movie started out with a couple on a road trip taking a less-travelled far from the highway road to eat. Seriously? Cant find a MickieD? Bad decision from the get go. Then more bad or worse, brainless decisions as the movie progresses. You would not root for characters like these. There were even numerous chances to stop the protagonists but noooo ... the director and writer had to take the movie making style of waiting till the bad guys catch them and get mutilated. They had a motorcycle, an axe, a gun then a car and they still get caught. Just like that insurance commercial parody of horror movies with bad decisions. Ohhh there will be succeeding movies ... pass. I should've checked who directed it before wasting my $16 bucks.
Two stars to be fair for the cinematographer and set people who made the movie feel creepy. But that is it. - shalsaleh-83784 - 26 June 2024
Very anticlimactic
Went to the movies with my friend and we almost left the movie after half an hour of being in there. The plot was going nowhere. There is no plot to begin with. It wasn't entertaining at all. Just two people being tortured without knowing why and nothing significant is really happening. The husband's acting wasn't so good. The strangers weren't introduced properly. When the husband killed the Airbnb owner didn't add much to the story was unnecessary. When he told the stranger he killed before it didn't mean anything because he didn't kill again. There were some shots that happened too quickly it didn't give the viewer the chance to comprehend what is happening. - haqzzaman - 19 June 2024
What A Drag!!
This movie was not what i expected, a real downfall for the franchise, way to many cliches, so many of the camera panning scenes where one moment you see the killer then they turn into Houdini and disappear. I understand its a good moment to have in a horror/thriller, once or twice is ok, even three times. But this took the biscuit...no actual story line or background to the town they visited. Disappointed overall. Movie dragged on also, some scenes where not needed or seemed liked they where being played out again but differently. A part 2 is not something i would be adding to a calendar. This movie was not cinema release worthy for sure. - gulezahraabid - 16 June 2024
Unbearably Bad!!!
If I could give this movie negative stars I would. Please don't waste your time. There's no common sense in the movie and it is full of clichés. Both the main characters are unlikable and don't know how to act at all. We walked out of the movie and if you can make it through this movie there's something wrong with you. The jump scares are so predictable. The story has no direction and is an exact copy of the first movie only addition is the smart phones and smart cars. I have never written a review in my life but this made me do it because if I can save even one person from wasting their time I have achieved my goal. - MB-reviewer185 - 14 June 2024
They don't need a reason
I did think the original The Strangers (2008) was an enjoyable enough simple home invasion thriller, and thought its sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018) was not good, but it had a few small entertaining enough good moments despite the issues it had; I was interested in seeing how a new The Strangers remake/reboot trilogy was going to go starting with chapter one, so going in I was hoping for something at least good or new, but instead I got a complete retread of the original except this time not as good. The recent remake/reboot The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) had standard performances, dumb characters, fine cinematography, fine camera work, a bad script, a nice setting, and killers who are creepy enough for a premise like this; since this was chapter one, I was expecting an ending that would be open ended in some way but did not feel unsatisfying in a way that could mess with the film, instead the film just ends with the words To Be Continued after a final scene before the credits that felt like a copy of the last scene from the sequel to the original that came before this.
The main couple played by Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez, though giving ok performances, they were dumb throughout the whole film, from staying at this Airbnb because of their car being repaired in the shop in this eerie suspicious town to doing dumb things when being attacked by the killers; what I did not like was how the at first the boyfriend character sounded smart when being suspicious about how weird this town is and how their car broke down at that moment, to him doing dumb things that could him or the girlfriend killed, along with the girlfriend character being oblivious of the weird town and the boyfriend's suspicions then she does the most idiotic things in this situation. The three killers do what they usually do going from just knocking on the door to breaking in and chasing after the leads, it is the exact same thing they have done in the previous two films before this; there is an occasional good moment where they are subtly in the background making it creepy, but other than that they show up to do some kind of cheap jump scare and act crazy.
The cinematography was not bad with there being a lot of nice shots of the woods and outside/inside the Airbnb, with some good enough camera work along with there being shots that shows the scene normally but has something in the background you can notice by a reflection or looking in the darkness; there were lots of moments that were frustrating when the characters did something dumb or started out smart but made an idiot later on in the film. A lot of the movie was stuff I have seen before in the original 2008 film and there were not that many suspenseful moments, except for one scene where the leads go through a crawl space in the Airbnb, but other than that there is no other scene that was effective; there are occasional new scenes in the film but the third act climax is too similar to the climax of the original. Lastly, I will just say I did not care about the leads that much because of how annoying they could get or how dumb they would get when it came to having an advantage against the killers or having a way to escape, along with the script just being bad with it having bad lines of dialogue; also, the To Be Continued ending and mid-credits scene just left me frustrated with the entire film and how it was continue with its second chapter later this year.
The film The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) had standard performances, dumb characters, fine cinematography, fine camera work, a bad script, a nice setting, and killers who are creepy enough for a premise like this; since this was chapter one, I was expecting an ending of sorts to get me interested in the next chapter, but instead I was frustrated by this first chapter and more interested in if the next chapters are going to get better than this. The film was bad mostly because of the very idiotic characters and the unbelievably bad script, even though everything around it was just everything I have seen before either in other films that are similar or in the original 2008 movie; though I am interested in what the next chapter is going to be about and if it will be better, this first chapter was not that good of a start to this new trilogy.
