I do not mince words about what I love, and don't love, when it comes to horror movies (I don't mince words about 99% of most things but this is a horror movie review, so...).
One of the most irksome things in the media world is the ubiquitous remake/reboot/reimagining of past/dead franchises. I wish they would take a shot at producing some original ideas, rather than rebooting a film that came out less than 20 years ago.
That being said, in this case, I am not a fan of the original movie, The Strangers. In fact, I have never seen it, and yet, this one seems all too familiar to me. Beautiful, young, and idealistic city-slickers take a road trip and wind up in a remote, backwater town, with no communication (cell service sucks out there) and no transportation. So they are clearly stuck when the brand new, $70K BMW suddenly dies and they need to wait 24 hours for parts to come in.
OK, we are used to the setup for our ducks out of water. Next, we are exposed to a rogues' gallery of "townies" at the diner, where our young protagonists must surely be meeting their soon-to-be antagonists.
Maya and Ryan are about to have a date with destiny, in the Twilight Zone, or rather Venus, Oregon, Pop. 468.
Let's get this out of the way:
After their car breaks down in an eerie small town, a young couple Maya (Madelaine Petsch; Riverdale) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez; Perfect Addition) 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 motive in THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1, the chilling first entry of this horror feature-film series from master director Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger).
There's the setup, and then nothing really scary happens for the next 40 minutes or so. Even when an individual knocks on their door looking for someone - the wrong person - the Stranger, cloaked in darkness, isn't really scary. They go on their merry way, or so our young couple thinks. Naturally, when Ryan takes a motorcycle from the Airbnb they rented, and heads to town to pick up his asthma inhaler (forgotten in the car, at the service station), and to grab some food, Maya is left alone, and so, the stalking commences.
I will stop here for a moment to say that I loved the look and feel of the town and the cabin, both sufficiently remote. The town looked dilapidated, like it's been uncared for a long time, and adds a nice touch to the creepiness and forlorn atmosphere. What ensues is a game of cat and mouse...let me stare at you from the shadows while you perform banal tasks like playing a nocturne on the piano or taking a shower. There are a few moments, like when Maya is playing the piano and the camera pans out, and we can see one of her stalkers sitting in the chair behind her, in the mirror, above the piano, that have an element of horror but clearly not enough. It bothers me that no one has a sense of hearing, or acute peripheral vision in this film, and when they are being chased in the house (finally) our protagonists make stupid decisions, like running inside and hiding in a room that our killers see them run into. Why not continue running, and open the window and run for your lives? Instead, our main characters stick to where the danger is.
I wanted to like this movie, but when the writing leaves little room for us to cheer on the heroes, I find myself beginning to root for the killers. I shouldn't want the bad guys to win...should I?
On to the technical specs. This excellent 4K UHD offers Dolby Vision, 1080p, Dolby Atmos, and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1.
With most of this movie shot at night, and either in the cabin or the surrounding forest, there needed to be plenty of well-lit details. Some of my favorite scenes happen when Ryan and Maya are being chased through the woods, and they did an outstanding job of keeping the look and feel of nighttime in the forest while letting us see all of the action, not to mention the chase through the crawlspace. I really loved the scene where the camera pans up through the floorboards, from where Maya and Ryan are hiding, up to the living room, where one of the masked killers is listening for her prey. They did an excellent job of the look and feel of the film, too, albeit I would describe this as more thriller than horror. The location truly lends itself to the feeling of isolation and hopelessness for our two hapless heroes.
The audio on this release is excellent as well, with the creepy killers singing nursery rhymes, as well as a decent soundtrack of apropos tunes for all occasions. I did love the sound of the truck's engine the killers use to stop Maya and Ryan from escaping. They did an outstanding job of giving that old V-8 some serious "growl," as they proceed to smash their escape vehicle.
There were two short, but interesting, "Making of" features: Reimagining a Classic - The Making of The Strangers - Ch. 1, and A Hostile Environment, the Visual Designs. Nothing really to write home about but they give us insight into the thought processes of the Director, as well as the actors et al., involved in the project.
While I cannot say that I am not at all interested in the sequels as I would like to see what happens to Maya, Harlin really didn't do all that much to really pull me in with this one, and I am left feeling more than a bit underwhelmed.
I think at this point, the real strangers are we, the viewers, who are made to feel unwelcome at the thought of another pointless remake.
Grade: C
