The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024) Review

 "Why are you doing this to us?"
-Maya

-Also me to Renny Harlin



When their car breaks down, Maya (Madeline Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) have to spend the night at an isolated hunting cabin in the woods.  They soon find themselves terrorized by three masked figures.


What Sucks:

Does the synopsis sound familiar?  That's because this is almost beat-for-beat the same movie as the original Strangers.  I don't know if this is supposed to be a reboot or if this takes place in the same universe as the first two movies.  I've heard different things from different people.   It almost doesn't matter because either way this is just the same movie as the original.  It's actually shocking how little is changed from the original movie.  The lack of any sort of originality is pretty pathetic.

The characters are beyond moronic.  They make stupid move after stupid move and it's just irritating to watch.  And if they were likable or interesting, it might make it easier to get invested in these characters, but they're pretty bland and basic.  At least in the original movie, the characters were interesting because the story takes place in the aftermath of a failed marriage proposal.  There's nothing here to hook an audience.

So, we have an uninspired and wholly unoriginal story with bland characters.  Plus the kills aren't very good.  In the end, that leaves us with a thoroughly boring movie that I just wanted to end.  There is just nothing of interest here.


What Works:

The only redeeming quality of this movie takes place during a sequence where the main characters are crawling through a crawl space.  Maya accidentally stabs herself through the hand with a nail.  It's actually looks pretty good and is fairly gnarly to watch.  That's it.  That's all I've got.


Verdict:

The Strangers: Chapter 1 is embarrassingly bad with bland characters and an uninteresting story.  It's a rehash of the original film that does everything worse.  So far, this is my least favorite movie of 2024.

 1/10: Horrendous 

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