Directed by: Renny Harlin
Starring: Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez, Gabriel Basso, Richard Blake, Ben Cartwright
The Strangers: Chapter 1 (it is expected to be a trilogy) deserves credit for being more about suspense than gore. The material here doesn't seem like it could stretch out to three movies, but I suppose I'd have to watch the next two chapters to find out. Is it a temptation I can resist? We will find out.
The Strangers is a remake of a 2008 movie (unseen by me), or is it a prequel? The prologue tells us how frequently violent crimes occur in this country and how this movie is about "one of the worst ones". Maya (Petsch) and Ryan (Gutierrez) are traveling cross-country through Oregon. They've been together for five years, although not married, and their GPS accidentally leads them to a small town without pity where the clientele looks at you funny when you enter a diner.
When they leave, they find their car won't start, and the shady folks recommend they leave the car for the night in the repair shop across the way and hole up at an Airbnb house in the middle of the forest until morning. Unlike other movies that take place in a dense forest, the cell service at least sometimes works. Ryan goes into town to get some food, while Maya soon realizes she is not in the house alone. Some people with creepy masks are following her around the house and hiding in the shadows. Maya smoked a joint earlier so maybe it's that. It turns out not to be the case. When Ryan returns with food, he and Maya find it frightening when blood from a beheaded animal impaled on the fan above the kitchen table drips onto their sandwiches.
One wonders how someone could place the head up there without being heard and one further wonders how long the creepy people have had that disembodied head in their possession. There is some genuine suspense until the masked folks make themselves known and chase the couple throughout the forest. The Strangers then takes place in the dark where it hard to see what's happening, which for reasons I can't fathom is a style choice these days. Maya and Ryan are caught, tied to chairs, stabbed and left for dead before police arrive.
The Strangers clocks in at a little over ninety minutes. I don't normally call for long movies because some these days have ridiculous running times, but another thirty minutes or so could've wrapped up the story. This way, we don't have to sit through two more movies.
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