First reactions say The Strangers: Chapter 1 is tense setup for trilogy

The third movie in The Strangers series, the appropriately subtitled prequel Chapter 1, had its Los Angeles premiere earlier this week, and based off of the initial reactions, it’s looking like a solid homage to the 2008 original and a way to establish the rest of the trilogy.

Our own Tyler Nichols was at the premiere for the movie, where he also chatted with director Renny Harlin and some of the movie’s stars. As for his thoughts: “The Stranger: Chapter 1 is sure to be divisive as it feels like a soft reboot of the original with a more slashery approach, but its usage of tension is what elevates it. Petsch is a great final girl and I can’t wait to see what is to come.”

Check out some of the other reactions to The Strangers: Chapter 1 below:

Maybe The Strangers: Chapter 1 isn’t looking to break any ground, but it also doesn’t need to. Most of the reviews are far from bonafide raves, but Lionsgate and Renny Harlin are all in here (as odd of an endeavor it may seem for the guy who brought us Die Hard 2 and The Long Kiss Goodnight), with this first movie arriving on May 17th and the second and third installments also hitting theaters this year. Harlin even has plans for a four-and-a-half-hour cut of the trilogy.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 has also had a pretty invasive viral marketing campaign, with characters from the movie creepily moving about last month’s Coachella and Lionsgate launching a TikTok livestream that ultimately got shut down for freaking people out. As such, the studio might want to reconsider their marketing strategy going forward – and there will be a lot of it to plan.

As for how the story itself will evolve over the span of a trilogy, Harlin said, the The Strangers: Chapter 1 “is close to the original movie in its set-up of a young couple in an isolated environment in a house and a home invasion happening for random reasons” while the subsequent movies will “explore what happens to the victims of this kind of violence and who the perpetrators are of this kind of violence. Where are they coming from and why?” That’s actually pretty compelling for an arc we never expected.

Will you be checking out The Strangers: Chapter 1 when it breaks into theaters next week? What do you think of a full trilogy?