‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’: The “New” Strangers Are Close By… - Trailer

Apr 21

From Ryan Cordaro

I like to consider myself a fan of horror movies in general, but everyone has their blindspots in a genre they like. For me, I haven’t even heard of The Strangers until this trailer dropped. It already had two movies made: one that starred Liv Tyler & Scott Speedman in 2008 and its sequel, The Strangers: Prey at Night, with Christina Hendricks and Lewis Pullman. From what I’ve looked up and what I’ve seen of this entry, it feels like a set of good old-fashioned home invasion movies. I’m a fan of home invasion movies, especially if you include movies like George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, which I suppose could be considered a home invasion movie. Or any Purge movie really, mostly the first one. So, I’d end up having my eye on The Strangers at some point in time. It also happens that there’s not one new movie but a whole trilogy coming out *this year.*

In Chapter 1, Maya drives across the country with her longtime boyfriend, Ryan, as the pair begin a new life together in the Pacific Northwest. Along the way, their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon and they are forced to spend the night in an isolated Airbnb home. Through the night, they are terrorized by three murderous masked strangers. Writer-director Renny Harlin, along with cast member Ema Horvath, have mentioned that this is a relaunch of the series. It’s not exactly a sequel or reboot because it’s a whole new cast of characters in Chapter 1, but it will be set in the same continuity as those original films and pull references from them. No matter how these movies are, I think how The Strangers will go on as a trilogy throughout the year will be an interesting experiment to witness.

The first movie in this new trilogy is led by Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale, Sightless), Froy Gutierrez (Cruel Summer, Hocus Pocus 2), Rachel Shenton (All Creatures Great and Small, Switched at Birth), Gabriel Basso (The Night Agent, Super 8), Ema Horvath (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, What Lies Below), and Ella Bruccoleri (Polite Society, Extraordinary).