The Strangers: Chapter 1

This Strangers: Chapter 1 was definitely something—a horror on the exterior, yes, but one thing that makes me doubt that claim is how funny this film was. I laughed HARD. This seems to be a recurring pattern with these films recently, and at times they feel like they go into the world of the Scary Movie franchise or are making choices they hope will make the franchises new films. It’s the only explanation because when the editors are looking at the final piece, how do they see the main antagonist—one that is supposed to strike fear into our hearts—run like that and think we won’t laugh?

At some point in the film, you kind of stop feeling tension and can only scream at the screen or giggle away. For a couple trying to hide from murderers, they are pretty loud. They spend about 5 or 10 minutes trying to stay absolutely silent, and at this point, yes, the tension is quite high. But then they get to a place where they should be just as silent, maybe even more, and the dickhead boyfriend screams, “GO TO THE SHED!” Like, bro, come on. While I was sitting there, I didn’t know what to think, whether the couple was just really lucky at points or the strangers were just really bad at trying to kill people. Overall, it’s just one of those silly horrors where, in reality, these strangers would be dead in minutes, whereas for the film’s sake, they drag it out.

However, this is really sad to me since if it is lightly based on a true story, you would think that they would try their hardest to bring the element of fear to life at its peak impactful self. Since this is one of the scariest situations I could ever picture, and for this to be a reality makes my skin tingle, you would think the film would be anything but funny. There is so much material and human emotion they could have worked off and manipulated. Everyone, from being a child, has feared the idea of unknown people being in our one idea of safety—home.

Overall, I was quite disappointed in this film; however, I could have guessed that from the trailer. The actors did quite a good job, and Madelaine Petsch really gave it her all. I believe if there was more attention to the detailing of the plot and having the crew/director look at this from the shoes of the characters—like, you’re telling me these characters have a gun and they’re just holding it for the fun of it. Come ONNNNN! Well, I had a fun laugh, but I’m waiting for these horrors to become HORROR, scare me, make me paranoid—that’s what we want when we go to watch these films.

Hopefully, the other Chapters will find a way to bring horror back to the genre.

Were you scared watching The Strangers: Chapter 1? How many stars would you give?