Harlin isn't a director I get excited about. I find his work often fairly saccharine and pedestrian. So when he was announced as being behind not one but three new chapters in The Strangers saga I was a bit concerned. There is something truly visceral about the horror in The Strangers (2008) in both its home invasion theme (something that can be quite chilling) and in its randomness. The idea of more films exploring this is intriguing but was Harlin the one to pull it off? I'm not sure the answer is yes.
The original film mostly worked but did suffer from a bit of standardness in its execution which kept it from being a horror masterpiece. Still it was chilling for a number of reasons. Perhaps part of what made it work was its lack of explanation and perhaps therefore it should have been left as a one off. While it's not clear, this new film appears to be a bit of an origin story and it seems to jettison the ambiguousness for somewhat of a background story which for me felt far less interesting. The small town paranoia just felt fairly been there done that and the actual stalking also felt like we'd seen it all before.
Harlin doesn't bring anything to the story that is interesting or original. In the promotion there was a lot of talk of "character study" but I couldn't find many threads of that in my watch. Perhaps that's coming in Chapter 2. When Haneke can play with the home invasion genre in Funny Games (twice!) in fascinating ways, the comparison with Harlin's run of the mill approach is so stark and disappointing. In all honesty I just found myself quite bored throughout Chapter 1. It didn't feel like the film had anything to say other than small town people are judgy and unwelcoming and perhaps killers?? Strange thesis.
I did appreciate how Harlin didn't turn it into torture porn. The actual attacks are brief and more realistic than most slasher films. The film tries to build up its tension from the stalking more than the gore (which is good) but the stalking often doesn't feel that coherent and lost me occasionally (which is not). So mostly I was underwhelmed and not scared.
I do see there is some potential here so I am open to Chapter 2 and I hope that this part will just be set up for something more interesting. However nothing in this film gives me the confidence that Harlin has something disturbing or creepy to deliver. Especially if the mid-credits scene is any indication. Hopefully it's just a dream/trauma response and not an actual event.
The Strangers: Chapter 1
Starring: Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez
Director: Renny Harlin
Writers: Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland
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