Perhaps no other cinema genre is filled with as many tropes as the horror movie, to the point where the “Scream” franchise is one extended meta tribute to the “rules” of slasher films and the “Scary Movie[s]” take it even further by lampooning the satire. I’m surprised we haven’t had a “Super Scream-y Scary Movie” that takes the Easter Egging to the next level.
Now comes Renny Harlin’s “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” which has a bit of a funhouse mirror element of its own, as it bears similarities to the nasty little horror gem (and sleeper hit) “The Strangers” (2008), though the filmmakers are billing this new movie as the first of a three-part standalone trilogy and not a reboot or remake. (Judging by the smart phones used by the main characters and a scene involving FaceTime, it would appear to be a sequel, existing in the same “Strangers” universe, rather than a prequel.)
With a “Story by” credit for Bryan Bertino, who was writer-director of the original “Strangers,” and a screenplay by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, shooting on all three of the new films took place at the same time in Slovakia in the fall of 2022 — so we’re essentially getting one big slasher movie chopped (sorry) into three parts.
As for those tropes: With a nod to Jeff Foxworthy’s old “You might be a redneck …” routines, for Madelaine Petsch’s Maya and Froy Gutierrez’s Ryan, the young couple in this story, “You might be in a horror film” if …
- You roll into a spooky town in the middle of nowhere in your shiny BMW and walk into a diner where everyone in the place, including the shady-looking lawmen, look at you as if you’re from outer space, what with your clean clothes and your brushed teeth and your questions about whether the menu has any vegetarian options.
- On the wall in that diner: a flyer offering a reward for finding some rich city-slicker type who passed through town a while back and POOF! Disappeared just like that.
- After your car mysteriously breaks down (ahem) and the creepy local garage owner (ahem) says you’ll have to wait until tomorrow before he can get a replacement part (ahem), you check into a remote Airbnb house in the middle of the woods (ahem).
This is just the tip of the ax, so to speak. (The trailer gives away more plot developments than you’ll glean from my little tidbits.) Filmed with great style by the veteran director Harlin (“Die Hard 2,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight”) and featuring strong and empathic work by Petsch (“Riverdale”) as a classic Final Girl who is very smart and resilient but makes some truly terrible decisions in the clutch, “The Strangers: Chapter 1” is a well-paced, 91-minute thrill ride that provides a steady helping of jump scares while ending on a note that has us eagerly anticipating the next chapters in the saga.
Even though we’re deeply familiar with nearly every beat, that very familiarity is what makes it so fun. (I mean, come on Maya, you’re going to take a long shower after it’s been clearly established there’s danger lurking just outside or maybe even inside the cabin? Come ON, girl!)
Maya and Ryan are celebrating their fifth anniversary as a couple and are on the third day of a road trip (Maya hopes to clinch a high-paying, big-city job) when they take a detour to the small town of Venus, Oregon, stop at that diner and wind up spending the night at that Airbnb — a hunter’s home deep in the woods with a coop of clucking chickens, an ominous-looking shed out back and an interior design in the main house that practically screams, “Slasher Movie Digest.”
They’re just settling in when there’s a loud pounding on the door, and there’s a girl standing in the dark on the porch and asking, “Is Tamara here?” She’ll return, more than once, before the night is over. After the second knock at the cabin, Maya and Ryan should have considered taking their chances in the woods.
It’s not long before the methodically menacing and mostly silent trio of Man in the Mask, Dollface and Pin-Up Girl we met in the first “Strangers” film are tormenting this innocent couple for seemingly no reason. In a pair of elegantly chilling sequences (the editing in this film is superb), Maya and Ryan fight for their lives against the needle-drop background of first “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues and later “The Best of Times” by Styx. You’ll never think of those classic rock tunes in the same way again.
