The Strangers: Chapter 1

The third entry in a not-very-good series that began back in 2008 (and the first movie in a new trilogy), this home invasion horror movie makes no improvements and adds nothing new to the formula. The Strangers: Chapter 1 is the first film in a trilogy that director Renny Harlin shot all at once. Perhaps the future installments will expand on the story, but this time around it's pretty scant. Harlin, best known for his action movies, does have Nightmare on Elm Street and Exorcist entries on his resume, and this film looks professional, but it's lifeless. It makes all the same mistakes as its predecessors—such as having the "strangers" seemingly possess the ability to appear and disappear suddenly and noiselessly. The killers, who are definitely creepy in their masks and in the casual way they move, are otherwise totally uninteresting; they have no dimension, no flaws.

And, as ever, the heroes aren't terribly smart (although they may be a teensy bit more resilient than in the earlier movies). Characters are forever tripping over things or forgetting their phones. In one scene, Ryan returns from town and stomps and creaks all over the house looking for Maya, without ever calling her name (we're meant to think he's one of the strangers). Maya unwisely takes a shower while he's gone (has she seen no horror movies?). And the strangers use an ax to bash a door in when they've already shown that they can just magically appear inside. There are dumb jump scares aplenty, too. Weirdly, the whole thing starts with an opening crawl about the frequency of violent crimes in the United States, then makes no further comment. Ultimately, The Strangers: Chapter 1 seems like little more than a placeholder, a vacant attempt to wring more money out of a fizzled franchise.