The Strangers: Chapter 1 [Blu-Ray]

Director: Renny Harlin

Cast: Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez

Release Date: July 23, 2024

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 4.5/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

Synopsis:

After their car breaks down in an eerie small town, a young couple (Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez) are forced to spend the night in a remote cabin. Panic ensues as they are terrorized by three masked strangers who strike with no mercy and seemingly no motive in THE STRANGERS ― CHAPTER 1, the chilling first entry of this horror feature-film series from master director Renny Harlin.

The first chapter in a new horror trilogy, ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ accompanies a young couple who end up being forced to spend the night in a remote cabin when their car breaks down in a small town while they are on a road trip. With no choice but to wait until morning, the couple soon finds their potentially peaceful night eradicated when a trio of masked strangers begins taunting and harassing them for no apparent reason, kicking off a night of terror that will see both forced to fight if they are to stand any chance at survival.

Directed by Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight) from a screenplay written by Alan R. Cohen (Due Date) & Alan Freedland (TV’s Impastor), based on a story and the 2008 film by Bryan Bertino, Harlin does a decent job in the director’s seat for ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ capturing the eerie tone and uncertainty within but largely unable to do anything unique or noteworthy with the rehash. The film’s cast includes Madelaine Petsch (TV’s Riverdale) and Froy Gutierrez (Hocus Pocus 2), along with Ben Cartwright (TV’s Coronation Street), Stevee Davies (The King’s Man), Richard Brake (31), Pedro Leandro (TV’s Citadel), Ema Horvath (TV’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) and some others who offer mostly decent and fitting performances in each of their respective roles.

‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ delivers a largely underwhelming and lackluster retread of the beloved 2008 film ‘The Strangers’ and keeps much of the general tone, chain of events and overall concept very similar, simply changing up a few elements like character traits and backgrounds as well as a few other tidbits revolving around the small town itself along with its inhabitants, although most are only briefly included here; since it is only the first part of a trilogy we can likely expect many of them to reappear down the road in way or another in the future installments.

Chapter 1 may not do a great deal to shake up or alter things from what fans of the beloved original are familiar with, yet we can hope that the next two films will offer a new take on the property as promised because it’s only fair that they would have to revisit and mostly remake the first film in order to adequately expand on it after all. Certain elements are of course changed as most would expect and there’s almost too much time spent with the characters simply running randomly in the woods. Many of the effects and backgrounds look quite good, although other elements almost feel straight out of a made for video horror offering. It’s difficult not to be somewhat unimpressed with what this first chapter manages to do, but it’s hard to judge it too harshly until we have the opportunity to see what comes next.

Overall, ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ is a fairly entertaining although largely unoriginal rehash of the original film that for the most part revisits and recrafts the events of that movie while altering a few moments and concepts along the way, but for the most part fails to find anything unique or clever to do with it throughout. ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ isn’t groundbreaking and for the most part just retreads the events of the original film, but the promise of the future two installments has me optimistic and the film is still recommended for those like me that are fans of the franchise and curious where Renny Harlin may take the next two films which will hopefully make this one more worthwhile in the long run. I would urge newcomers to try and rent the film as opposed to making a blind purchase though just to be safe.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the film’s original 2.39:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks very good as a whole and provides a sharp, clean and nicely detailed presentation from start to finish that never suffers from any notable problems to be uncovered along the way with the exception of some occasional noise and artifacts in a few extremely dark moments. Detail is sharp and solid throughout, with character faces and clothing, along with the indoor setting of the cabin and the expansive, fog-shrouded woods looking great, while black levels remain deep and clean along the way for this often very dark film aside from a few moments that are brief and not overly distracting. Overall, this is a solid high definition video presentation that looks quite great throughout and should satisfy fans as well as first time viewers.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 channel compatible) soundtrack. Please note that this review pertains solely to the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio presentation. This multichannel soundtrack delivers a crisp, clean and immersive audio presentation throughout. It repeatedly takes advantage of all seven available channels in order to send music, along with creepy sounds, nature and vehicle effects, in addition to other tidbits moving throughout the various speakers when appropriate, while still making certain that any dialogue or other audio elements that may be occurring alongside one another remain clean and fully audible. Overall, this is a great Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 compatible) soundtrack that holds up capably and contributes some additional tension and eeriness to the viewing experience.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ includes an ‘Audio Commentary with Producer Courtney Solomon and Actress Madelaine Petsch’, in addition to a couple of behind the scenes Featurettes that include interviews/comments with the cast and crew, plus behind the scenes footage and more. The included Featurettes are ‘Reimagining a Classic: Making The Strangers: Chapter 1’ (running approximately 17 minutes in length) and ‘A Hostile Environment: The Visual Design of The Strangers: Chapter 1’ (running approximately 11 minutes). The film’s ‘Theatrical Trailer’ (approximately 2 minutes) is also included.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Film Rating: 4.5/10
Disc Rating: 7.5/10

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‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ Arrives on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & DVD July 23, 2024 & is Now Available on Digital from Lionsgate

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You can purchase ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ on Blu-ray at Amazon HERE!

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