‘Why are you doing this to us?’
I’ve argued for a long time that if film studios insist on remaking a horror film, then they should pick one with a great premise that wasn’t executed very well. That’s what a remake is for. To improve upon the original. What you don’t do is choose to remake something like The Strangers – one of the most chilling and effective home invasion films ever made. And yet here we are…
The plot is pretty much the same as the source material. A young couple, here played by
Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez arrive at a cabin in the woods and are soon terrorised by people in masks.
One of the great things about The Strangers is that we begin with the couple at the heart of the film (played by Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman in the original) in the midst of a fight about something. But they aren’t shouting and bawling. No. Tyler is quietly crying while Speedman looks to be in utter disbelief. It’s such an incredible opening sequence. This new iteration of The Strangers instead reaches for the most mundane and derivative plot conceit imaginable. Here, the couple stop for some food in some backward town only to find themselves stuck there overnight when their car breaks down (sigh). Is that really the best they could do? Well, that’s what we have here. An entire movie of ‘Will this do?’ hack ‘n’ slash that we’ve all seen a million times before.
I went into this remake, despite the terrible reviews, foolishly hopeful. Partly because I love the original so much, and partly because Renny Harlin brought the world Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. Flawed movies all, but entertaining movies nevertheless. I genuinely thought that he would at least bring something interesting to the party here. Alas. The Strangers: Chapter One (there are two more of these apparently) is a lowest-common-denominator, bland retread of the original – a truly pointless movie.
