A scene from ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ | Photo credit: @LionsgateMovies/Youtube
31st May is Cinema Lovers Day, when one can watch a movie for Rs. 99. Yes, we could Furiosa: A Mad Max SagaOnce again, but duty calls and so here we were, in a theater packed with screaming, laughing audiences. And even though Renny Harlin reimagined Bryan Bertino’s home invasion chiller, the strangers (2008) had fewer thrills, scares and twists, but the holiday atmosphere made for a fun movie experience, with a girl in the audience screaming louder than the woman on screen.
The Stranger: Chapter 1 Follows the tunes of the original pretty faithfully. Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) are on a cross-country road trip to Portland, Oregon, where Maya is interviewing for a job with great prospects. Maya and Ryan have been dating for five years and probably need that conversation to move to the next level. Hungry, the couple heads to a small town called Venus to dine at the local eatery, where they see a notice for a person who went missing 10 years ago. It would have been nice to see Jack Reacher do fractal math while drinking a bottomless cup of coffee, but okay.
The Stranger: Chapter 1
Director: Renny Harlin
Mould: Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez, Gabriel Basso, Emma Horvath
Plot: A couple gets lost in a creepy town and when they’re forced to spend the night at an Airbnb, they’re surrounded by crazed, masked killers
Runtime: 91 minutes
The townspeople stare at the couple and all the creepy strings are put into place before the car is even packed up. A mechanic offers to take a look at the car and tells Maya and Ryan that a certain part needs to be replaced, and that the car will be roadworthy the next day. He suggests the two spend the night at an Airbnb in a secluded spot in the woods. Shelly (Emma Horvath) from the diner offers to drop the couple off at the Airbnb, which is beautiful yet extremely lonely. Just as Maya and Ryan are trying to take advantage of their forced break, there is a loud knock on the door.
Every horror movie cliché is in full swing, from the axe in the door and the misplaced inhaler to things scurrying away from the corner of your eye and the old faithful of the scary shower (which should have been flushed down the drain with the old Ramsay horror films).
Director Harlin – who is shooting chapter 2 and 3 simultaneously the strangersis a veteran of large-scale action blockbusters including Die Hard 2 And Cliffhanger as well as horror movies, (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master And The Exorcist: The Beginning) — is in familiar territory, but not moving forward with confidence. Everyone should know Petsch (Riverdale Cheryl Blossom) would be cut in two while screaming like Samuel L. Jackson after being swallowed by a rampaging shark in the middle of Harlin’s monologue. deep Blue SeaBound to be disappointed.
The scares provided by the three strangers – the Scarecrow (Mateusz Lajcak), the Dollface (Olivia Kreutzova) and the Pin-Up Girl (Letizia Fabbri) – are mediocre. The Stranger: Chapter 1 It’s average…neither amazing nor terrible enough for anyone to really enjoy.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is playing in theaters now
