phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2024

The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 31m
Country: USA, UK, Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland
Language: English
Genre Tags: Horror
Plot Summary: After their car breaks down in an eerie small town, a young couple is 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.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: What a snooze-fest. A remake that does exactly the same thing, but worse. I called literally every single plot point before it happened. The introductory section is full of character interaction that doesn't feature in the rest of the movie at all. I assume they'll pop up in the sequels, but that's just bad writing either way. The dialogue was apparently generated from a Script-O-Matic, because nobody speaks like a real human being, and all sound like the generic horror tropes they are. Nothing about this is interesting or new, or at least presented in a new or interesting way. I was hoping for just a little fun, but I really struggled to pay attention.


Outside Reviews:

Brian Tallerico
2 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

The problem is that we’ve seen this all before—like, literally—and there’s too little actual tension once Maya and Ryan realize they’re in serious trouble. The film falls apart when the hunt leaves the home and enters the poorly lit woods outside. The team here just doesn’t have the technical acumen to make these sequences work—they’re much better in the defined space of the house than the loose geography outside—and it makes all of “The Strangers: Chapter 1” feel more like an obligation before the team is allowed to break the mold in the next two films, which were shot concurrently with this one.


Matt Schimkowitz
C - Despite some solid scares, The Strangers: Chapter 1 is a little too familiar

Chapter 1's derivative script calls the whole three-movie endeavor into question. With two more installments and a four-and-a-half-hour mega-movie on the way, Harlin plans to expand the universe and settle the mysteries that made the series so destabilizing. Those creepy bike-riding kids, off-putting diner patrons, and menacing mechanics must mean something to the broader story, right? By looking at the minimalist Strangers through a maximalist lens, Harlin hopes to reveal a grander vision for the franchise, where we learn who Tamara is and why, exactly, the strangers are doing this. “Because you’re here” isn’t a satisfying enough answer, even if that’s the answer. Like so many horror movies subject to over-expansion, the more the films unmask their villains, the less threatening they become.