The Strangers: Capitolo 1

The Strangers Chapter 1 follows Maya and Ryan on their way out of town when their car breaks down, they stay at a cabin in the middle of the woods when they're attacked by strangers. This film is a reboot of the original and saying reboot is hard to say. This film is literally the same exact film as the original with very very tiny differences. This movie had so much potential and to make the same exact movie is so disappointing. Not to mention the characters were just so so stupid, the basic dumb horror elements are so overused and played out. Unfortunately this film plays them out and makes them worse. Now let me just take a minute and talk about the character Ryan, he is the worst character, if his rude attitude at the beginning of the movie didn't tell you that, he makes just the dumbest mistakes that even for a movie is ridiculous and that alone makes this movie terrible. It's really unfortunate because I really wanted to like this movie. Unfortunately The Strangers Chapter 1 is not worth the watch. Skip this and if you're going to watch this movie wait until streaming. Hopefully the next chapter is better.

This reboot had a lot going for it. I unashamedly like Renny Harlin and think he's a competent director so was excited to see the start of a new trilogy.

The acting is a tad dire, and it's frustrating to see the characters just completely oblivious to their surroundings. I'm pretty sure you'd clock someone standing next to you in the shower.

And actually, the whole movie is just a retread of the original but with no redeeming changes. The ending had zero suspense and no stakes.

Saying this, I'm open to the trilogy as I feel like it'll tread into new territory (and I have some faith in Renny Harlin).

"The Strangers: Chapter 1" follows a young couple who get stranded in an off-the-beaten-path town in Oregon and end up spending the night at an Airbnb lodge in the woods. Unfortunately for them, three masked strangers are about to make their night a living hell.

To be clear, some may consider this review biased as I count myself as a major fan of Bryan Bertino's original 2008 film "The Strangers". To date, it is possibly the most nerve-shredding experience I've had seeing a film on the big screen. Sixteen years have passed since I first saw it, but I've never forgotten it. And while its 2018 sequel, "The Strangers: Prey at Night" took a notably different tone, it at least managed to function as a stylish and energetic slasher film in the same vein.

This reboot (or prequel, according to some sources--having seen the film now, I am unsure of how this could possibly function as such) does no such thing. Rather, it follows the framework of the 2008 original nearly beat by beat, save a protracted first quarter in which we are served the "city kids in redneck town full of leery locals who are sinister for no apparent reason" trope (by the way, I am a native Oregonian, and I can vouch that people there do not speak with southern accents, even in the backwoods).

The things that "The Strangers: Chapter 1" gets wrong are numerous, but the subtlety, stillness, and down-home feel of its source material is one of the glaring things that is most sorely missed. This film is loaded with dramatic musical cues, predictable scares, fog machine-shrouded forests, and trite dialogue. There is little to no gravity to be found here in the characters or the setting, and without that, a film with a barebones story like this swiftly goes off the rails into the land of cliche after cliche after cliche. The lead actors here do what they can with the material, but the stilted dialogue often renders them at the mercy of a lifeless and clunky script.

In the end, "The Strangers: Chapter 1" simply feels like a soulless paint-by-numbers imitation of the 2008 film, using the template as a vessel only to fill it with bland, uninspired recreations of that film's most tense and frightening moments. There are no scares to be had here, and even worse, there are few thrills either. "The Strangers: Chapter 1" is frankly boring, which does not bode well for a further two installments. "To be continued"? No, thank you. 2/10.

In my opinion, this was some pretty sloppy work. The kills and the cinematography were both just eh. The movie was so dragged out that I could cut the parts that weren't important, and the movie wouldn't even be an hour long. So many stupid mistakes too. Yeah, let's get high so your boyfriend thinks you're hallucinating. Let's play the piano, while a record is on, while you're on FaceTime at full volume for the dead silence outside the house, so everyone in the whole state of Oregon hears you. I think I'll wait till Chapter 2, and Chapter 3 comes out to rent on my TV, because that was a waste of my afternoon....

I don't want to waste too much energy on this review but I was quite disappointed. I was looking forward to this one and it just ended up being a lame reboot of the original.

It started out with a silly tone, cheesy script and even some tacky product placement. We get into it with two relatively unlikeable main characters that barley have enough background/plot to keep the story rolling. There are countless direct parallels (I'm talking exactly the same) to the original movie and even some from the second one. To the point where it didn't feel like an homage and I caught myself thinking... why am I sitting here watching the same movie I did in 2008, but like, worse...?

It was marketed as though it was a prequel, but there was not even an ounce of origin story and there were things such as smart phones and push to start cars that placed it in the future from the original. So if this wasn't a prequel, what are we doing here?? There were multiple plot points that were seemingly important that went nowhere... including an inhaler, dietary restrictions, a friends vacation and some strung up poultry.

I'm just confused and disappointed as to why they simply remade this movie with even less of a storyline, not as good actors and a lame ending... all without infusing anything new, interesting or original into it. All in all it was relatively entertaining as a stand alone I suppose... If you haven't seen the original and are super into jump scares, then go for it. Otherwise just rewatch Liv Tyler lol 3.5 rounding up to a 4, probably wouldn't recommend.