The Strangers: Chapter 1 is the reboot of the horror franchise that had its moments in the previous two installments. They weren’t the classic slasher films. They were based on a true story. This franchise has a grounded feeling to it other horror franchises don’t have. They make the slashers like Jason, Michael, and Freddie seem bigger than life, but in this franchise, the killers are locals who are killing just for the sake of killing. Runny Harlin hopes to bring something new to this tried and true premise.

Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) are a young couple traveling through Oregon on their way to a job interview for her. While traveling, they stop at a sleepy little town in the woods to get a bite to eat. While there, they end up with car trouble and have to rent an Airbnb for the weekend. As they are settling into their diggs, they start to notice things happening like the power going out and a little girl knocking on their door looking for a non-existent girl named Tamara. This leads to more strange occurrences as a family decked out in creepy masks and started to threaten the couple.

This reboot of The Strangers is meant to set up a trilogy of films.  Renny Harlin is a director who has had more bad moments in his career than good as a director. It was interesting that he chose to reboot this tired franchise.  Maybe he had some new ways to infuse energy into something that lost its momentum. There is enough here to build something new and original even though it’s based on true events. So was The Amityville Horror, though.

Like a lot of slasher films, The Strangers rely on similar tropes that others rely on. Jump scares and suspenseful moments as well as bloody kills. This one has a few jump scares, but most of it was stuff I’ve seen plenty of times before, so I wasn’t very scared at what I’d seen. There were a handful of bloody scenes that made the movie worthwhile to see, but once again, it’s stuff we’ve seen plenty of times. It’s the fact that there is more to come that makes me still interested in what this franchise could potentially say going forward.

There are clues in this first installment of this three-part story that make me optimistic for the future. There were scenes at a diner with characters that stood out to me, and the owner of Airbnb was someone I’d be interested to learn about. The back stories of some of the ancillary characters might contribute to this story going forward. The writers Alan R Cohen and Alan Freedland have something in store for horror fans and fans of this franchise.

The main problem with this particular version of The Strangers is that the two main characters aren’t very interesting. They just seem like any other two love interests in a horror film. They don’t have anything about them that sets them apart. The acting was okay, but not that outstanding in any way. In a horror movie, the leads have to stand out in some way, and these two don’t. It’s all the other stuff in the film that seems interesting to me. That’s not good for the movie audiences are currently watching.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 has some fascinating things about it regarding the future of where this story could go from here. I saw clues to the next installments and things that could happen in the next two parts of this story. The problem is that this movie itself doesn’t do enough to draw in viewers to want to see the other two parts of this story. The two lead actors aren’t that interesting and they had to sell this film and they don’t as far as I’m concerned. Harlin doesn’t go as far as he needs to to get this reboot moving in the right direction. I’m still interested to see where this story goes from here, but this wasn’t the best way to get this story started considering it’s part one of three.

2 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen