“After their car breaks down in an eerie small town, a young couple (Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez) 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.”
Based upon The Strangers by Bryan Bertino, The Strangers Chapter 1 reboots the original films into a trilogy with the same masked trio terrorizing a new couple. The project intends to expand the world of The Strangers and give a deeper character study into our main antagonists. The intro sequence claims that the story was inspired by true events, however, it needs to be clarified exactly how true these events are or what inspired them.
The Strangers was filled with plenty of intense scenes, although predictable since it was a rehash of the original film in 2008. Any masked character can easily become a horror icon and The Strangers are runner-ups on that idea. I shall be going into the individual characters and the scenery they are placed in as those are major parts of the movie. I will be avoiding all spoilers so read at your leisure. Time for the review!
The Visuals and Scares
The camera is mostly focused on the individuals rather than the scenery itself. The small town has a cult-like feeling to it as the locals are in sync with their views and attitudes. They have a distaste for those not originally from the area and seem to prefer things to be kept quiet. The character Ryan has a valid suspicion of him and Maya getting scammed once their car breaks down easily.
The majority of the story takes place at night which is used to the advantage of the camera work. I love how the darkness is used to obscure our antagonists before the veil is slowly lifted off them one by one. The house is left dark and unfamiliar to our protagonists who stumble their way around trying to find an exit. Time seems to stretch on forever as the masked trio waits in the background simply observing our protagonists.
Aside from a few outright jump scares, most of the scares come from the tension that the movie brings as the killers are in a game of cat and mouse with our protagonists. It takes a good twenty minutes though before the masked trio even shows up. Not much else is very notable for the movie, but it did well enough with the little it has.
The Protagonists- Maya and Ryan
Our main characters Maya and Ryan are a couple celebrating their fifth anniversary together. The light-hearted banter remains entertaining at the beginning of the film as the scene of the small town is being set. Their deep bond for each other is refreshing compared to the trope of insecure couples who betray each other within the first fifteen minutes of a film. I’m surprised to say I don’t remember the last horror movie where I saw a relationship as genuine as the one portrayed here in The Strangers.
They are far superior to their predecessors in the original 2008 film who had a rocky start with a failed proposal driving them apart. However the original are much quicker in picking up a weapon to defend themselves than Maya and Ryan. It takes them a bit to get to the shed where they find all their supplies.
Madeleine Petsch (Maya) and Froy Gutierrez (Ryan) do a fantastic job portraying the terror of a home invasion. The expressions on their faces were very believable and raw, making one almost want to cry along with them.
Now let’s move on to our antagonists
The Horror Antagonists
They may not be very vocal in the film, but their actions do a lot of the talking. Having been based on real serial killings as well, the masked trio is cruel and efficient as they hunt down Maya and Ryan. This is not their first kill nor the first time they have killed in this location according to the flashback we see within the first seconds of the film. They know the area well and it works to their advantage as they silently sneak up on our protagonists several times leaving the audience to anticipate when they’ll finally notice they are not alone.
The masked trio seems to act like a family with a father, mother, and daughter figure. According to the credits they are known as Man in Mask, Pin-Up Girl, and Dollface. Pin-Up Girl was especially unnerving as the moment she speaks, we see how truly deranged the trio are, that they aren’t afraid of dying for the sake of whatever quest they have. How they go about harming our protagonists seems very ritualistic, and it leaves one to wonder if they have anything to do with the church that appears to have a hold over the town based on pamphlets that were handed out.
Any masked figure is truly a delight, but I love how each mask here is reminiscent of the character they each play. The Man in Mask is hulking and carries the axe for most of the film playing the heavy-handed hitter. Dollface is playful like a child, the one who originally knocks on our protagonist’s door several times much to their annoyance and horror. And finally, Pin-Up Girl is very theatrical and a bit of a show-off like the character upon her mask. She seems to regard everything as a performance.
The masked trio also appears to have a love for music as they play with the piano and the record several times throughout the film. It’s like those moments in horror movies where the tune in the background is used to perfectly set the scene, yet in this case, it is set up intentionally by our killers. The moment Dollface starts playing Moonlight Sonata picking off where Maya left off seems equal parts mocking and menacing. It’s nothing relevant to the plot but I think it’s a nice little detail.
Conclusion
Great characterization, but weak storylining for once again it copies many elements from the original and barely does anything new with the material. Clearly, since this is only chapter one, in the next movie we will get the lore about the strangers that have been teased in the trailers from the line “learn how the strangers became the strangers”. Overall, this was a great popcorn flick to see in the theaters.
That’s all for now! Have you seen The Strangers Chapter One? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!
