2024 has been a remarkable year for awful horror movies. Every single month we're getting a brand spanking new disaster of horror delivered to the big screen and being charged over $10 for, which would be criminal for movies that are this bad, like Tarot and now Strangers Chapter 1. It blows my mind just how frequently they're putting out these revolting messes. No matter how you look at this movie or how generous you try to be with it, there is nothing to like. It is a pile of dog shit.
It's actually worse than that because real dog shit, like the tangible poop, it's at least free. This is dog shit you're paying $10 to sit through and be bored and miserable. It's just... Point is, Strangers Chapter 1 isn't very good. I'm sure no doubt most of you were able to sniff that out.
I was trying to be very subtle with my critique off Rip. be unbiased but it's just hard with how bad this movie was and it's made worse by the fact that I really like The Strangers the first movie from 2008 I actually think it's a classic the second one I didn't like nearly as much I actually forgot it existed until I went back and saw that they actually had one from 2018 and I was like oh that's interesting I must have missed it and then I watched the trailer I was like nope I saw it I remember this now it like opened up a repressed memory Anyway though, Strangers Chapter 1 is far and away the worst in the franchise here, and one of the worst horror movies of the year. I don't think it's worse than Tarot, but Tarot was like genetically engineered to be the worst possible horror movie you could create. They had one of the writers for Moonfall direct that fucking thing.
So like, it's gonna be really hard for any movie to be worse than Tarot this year, but this one certainly tried to give it a run for its money. Now, Strangers Chapter 1 has a really interesting story, not in the actual movie itself because the story is complete trash, but they actually filmed an entire trilogy for Strangers, and I don't mean like 2008 and 2018, I mean Strangers Chapter 1 is the start of their new trilogy that they've already filmed. Apparently they've filmed all three movies, and they're going to be releasing this entire trilogy over the course of the next year. That's very ambitious, especially when you have something as weak as this to start with. I don't know how they're going to justify the existence of chapter 2 or the final chapter, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious now.
Because how could it possibly get better? I know it can't get worse. This is definitely the worst I think it can possibly be for the strangers.
But what could they do to make it better? I don't know. The film ends with a to be continued, and nobody wants to continue this. But now I have this morbid curiosity with where this might go.
Like I have half a mind to expect this to start bringing in aliens and time travel or something. Like I think it's gonna get really off the rails, but let me just talk about what makes this movie so bad. And I'll actually start with this quote from the director.
Nothing is too ambitious for me. If it had been a straight remake or sequel, I would have definitely passed because at this point in my life, I wouldn't touch a classic like the original The Strangers. Hey pal, you just blow in from stupid town? What are you talking about?
Strangers Chapter One is literally a one-to-one remake of the 2008 Strangers movie, except the characters are stupider, they're more shallow, like these are the dullest characters I've ever seen in a horror film, and that is saying something extraordinary, because I thought Taro had the worst characters, but the two characters, the main characters here, are so unlikable and have no depth to them at all. Somehow Taro characters had better depth. Like, what do you mean? That you didn't want to just make it a straight remake and you would have passed if that's what the assignment was. You did do that!
Everything that was present in 2008 Strangers is present here, but worse. It's as if AI was tasked with recreating The Strangers 2008. And it just chat GPT threw this together to try and make it a close emulation, but lost all of the soul and what made that one so good. This movie is that.
If you've seen 2008 The Strangers, you've already seen The Strangers Chapter 1. It's the exact same story, the only thing that changes is it's an Airbnb. But everything else is completely intact, including some of like the iconic scares done one-to-one but worse. It loses all the tension of the 2008 Strangers. It's trash.
You did remake that movie. Whether or not you set out with that goal, ultimately that's what you delivered. The best thing I can say about Strangers Chapter 1 is that at least it's only 91 minutes. So it's nice and short. You get in there, you get frustrated, you get bored, you leave.
and you forget about the movie entirely because it sucked. At least it's not long. So thank you for that, I guess.
So the story revolves around a man and a woman. They've been dating for five years. The guy hasn't proposed to her, which is a plot point that really doesn't do anything. It never leads to anything except for like a single line here and there about that. They're deeply in love and they're on a trip.
They're making their way out to Oregon, but they encounter... Some car trouble and they ended up getting stranded in a place called Venus, Oregon and they get directed to an Airbnb to stay for the night while they wait for a guy named Rudy to fix their car. And most people in this small town are real sketchy.
So it puts one of the main characters on edge, the guy. I already forgot his name. That's why I'm just referring to him as the guy.
I actually don't remember their names and I really don't feel like looking it up because it's not even worth remembering their names. The guy and his girlfriend, they go into a diner because they're hungry. And the guy immediately just starts rolling a one on every charisma check. So everyone he interacts with for the entire first half of the movie ends up hating him. Because he tries to be like quippy with everyone and nobody likes it.
So anytime he makes like a little quip, like for example, one of the diner waitresses said like, Oh, you've been dating for five years? Why haven't you put a ring on it yet? What are you waiting for?
And he goes, Well right now I'm waiting on my turkey melt and nobody laughs so he just says tough crowd and he does that like six fucking times. He's so annoying and every character hates him. This guy has negative charisma in his stats.
So anyway whatever. Point is he's unlikable by everyone in the movie and everyone watching the movie too because he has nothing to do. Like he's not interesting. He has no real writing around him.
He is just this hollow character that spits out a couple of bad quips. and makes terribly stupid decisions. So, they're now staying at this Airbnb, and things are getting a little weird, because there's someone that knocks on the door, they're banging on the door, and they're asking for a Tamara.
They're like, eh, not here, go away, weirdo. So they go away, and they come back again, where's Tamara? Hey, I already told you, there's no Tamara here, you're gonna fucking scram, take a hike.
And, you know, him and his girlfriend, they're like, trying to make the best out of this situation, she seems to really like it. And the guy takes his six pack of beer and he tries to put it in the fridge He's like damn fridge isn't working So he takes it out and then his girlfriend finds a number to call if they if they need assistance or anything for the Airbnb Owner and I shit you not it's like 1 a.m And he's and she grabs this number and calls the Airbnb owner to leave a message to send someone out to fix the fucking Refrigerator at 1 a.m. So she they could cool their beer.
What an inconsiderate guest. Why would you do that? You're there for like maybe six hours why are you going to have someone come out at 1am to fix your fucking refrigerator so your boyfriend can put beer in it but they end up just drinking all six beers anyway without them being cold like it's so dumb this is so stupid i'm all over the place and breaking this down because this movie just really sucks and there's a lot i want to complain about but okay back to uh that person knocking on the door uh eventually the boyfriend realizes that he doesn't have his inhaler his girlfriend says that she forgot to put it in the car when they got to the Airbnb because someone drove them there.
And he's like, all right, that's fine. I'll just scoot back into town on this motorcycle I saw outside. So this Airbnb has a motorcycle.
I want you to make a very strong note of that. A working motorcycle that the boyfriend, with no trouble whatsoever, takes into town, which is like five miles away or something like that. So he goes to get his inhaler and she is now left alone in the house and creepy stuff's happening. One of the strangers is singing Rockabye Baby. Like all of the cliches you can possibly imagine for a horror movie are in this movie.
Every single possible horror movie cliche. And they're done so much worse than you've ever seen them done before. So she's getting like on edge. She's hearing these things and you see like all the stranger creepy people are standing behind her and she doesn't see them. But we see them.
Whoa, spooky, frightening. And then jump scares out the wazoo. And it eventually culminates with them turning the power off.
And she's got her phone flashlight out. and she sees one of the strangers in her mask standing right in front of her. So she runs upstairs and closes herself in and then her boyfriend zooms back around on his motorcycle.
He's got his inhaler and he's got a cheeseburger. I also want to make note, while he was in town, he actually encountered some not weird people because the town was all sketchy. They were like really nervous around, you know, outsiders.
But when he went back into town, everyone was super friendly, like normal young people. And they were talking like, hey, why don't you just like hang out with us? He's like, nah, I got to get back to the house. So I want to make that clear that there are normal people there.
He goes back to the house with the inhaler and a cheeseburger. And he's like, hey, what's going on, lady? What are you sitting on the floor for? What's going on, girlfriend? That's so weird.
And she's like, no, there's someone in the house. I saw someone standing in the house. And he's like, someone in the house? Really? Have you been smoking?
I shit you not. He says, have you been smoking? And she's like, what? yeah a little bit and he's like show me where this person was standing so she takes him downstairs to where the stranger in the mask like frightened her and then he looks around he sees a picture on a wall of a clown he's like oh i know what happened here does this look familiar and he does this in front of her blocking the clown photo and then unblocking it he's like this is this is what you saw it wasn't somebody Standing in this house, you just saw the picture of the clown, and you're just so high that you fucked up.
And then he goes, the Freaky Brothers is strong stuff. That's a line in the movie. He says, the Freaky Brothers is strong stuff, referring to what she was smoking.
I have to imagine the director was on the Freaky Brothers when he was making this movie, because it is so fucking stupid. It is so fucking stupid. How in the world would you be like, hey, listen, it was definitely this picture you saw, not a human being standing here. That makes a lot more sense. You could be on PCP and probably not mistake a photo of a clown for a human being standing in front of you.
And yet this goober gaslights her and convinces her that that's what it was. So then they go about the rest of their night. And...
If either one of them was thinking logically, what should have happened there is they both get on the motorcycle and they ride into town and just spend the rest of the night around the normal people. Because there's normal people that invited them to just hang out. So they would have just rode back into town and be like, yep, Airbnb was fucked up, there's some creepy people scaring my girlfriend, let's go back into town with these normal people and just stay there until the car is repaired in the morning.
That would have been the logical thing because they have a working vehicle that they just used and it would have immediately ended the movie on the spot. That's not how it plays out, because no one was thinking. So instead, they just sit there, they listen to some records, and then eventually one of the strangers wearing the mask, like basically the scarecrow mask out of Batman Begins, slams his axe through the door, and that's when it hits the boyfriend like, Oh! my girlfriend's not crazy oh we're in danger so they run into one of the rooms duck and cover and just wait for everything to blow over where the one of the strangers with the axe just bust through the door looks at them and then walks away and immediately after he walks away like maybe five seconds the boyfriend goes and he's like all right they're gone we're safe now It's actually like an NPC out of an Oblivion or something where the second you break line of sight they're like, oh, must have been the wind. Just cease to exist.
So the boyfriend and the girlfriend are like, okay, we need to get some weapons, we need to prep just in case they come back. Because fucking obviously, it's not like they just vanished. So they start looking around for weapons to no avail.
Eventually, the girlfriend busts off one of the greats. And there's another thing I want to point out. The room they were ducking and covering in, there was a window right behind them.
They could have just went through the fucking window and then just taken their chances in the forest. But they don't do that. Instead, they... I also skipped something.
When they do get out of the room, they immediately go to the motorcycle. Way too fucking late for that because now all the strangers are there. And the motorcycle blows up.
So, motorcycle's gone. They run back in the house. They go into another room. And that's when the girlfriend takes, like, the air vent grate off the wall.
And they both climb in there. Now they're under the house, crawling around, trying not to make noise. And... The girlfriend... hits her hand on a nail and the nail goes through a scene that we saw one-to-one and done significantly better in a quiet place So as you got nail in her hand that you can't scream because obviously the strangers would hear them so now she has to deal with that he takes the nail out and they crawl around under the house and eventually make it to like this little door that opens up under the house and They open it up get outside and immediately start talking at full volume What the fuck?
Like they've only gone like maybe a couple of feet and they just start talking at full volume and obviously the strangers can fucking hear that. They just recognized that they needed to be quiet. They couldn't make a peep. She couldn't even scream with a nail going through her hand.
And then two feet later it's like okay now we can just use our outside voices. It's so dumb. They're so stupid.
But what's even stupider is now they're outside they could just run through the forest and their odds are... pretty decent there since there's so much land it'd be hard for just three people three strangers to locate these two individuals who are both in fine shape to be running but instead of just doing that what they decide to do is go to the shed next door which is something obviously the strangers are going to be checking for the shed right you but whatever stupid decision number 20 already they go into the shed looking for a weapon i don't know why they thought there would be a weapon there because obviously if the strangers are there they probably would have gotten rid of the weapons or at the very least been guarding them. So they go into the shed, they start waiting, and the guy goes upstairs and finds a fucking shotgun.
So the strangers are stupid too, because they clearly know the property, and there is a stranger in the shed who keeps stalking them, watching them pick up the shotgun and everything, just lets them have the shotgun, and then the guy starts like blasting at some of the strangers, of course missing every shot, because it's a horror movie, so they can't have good aim. And now the boyfriend and the girlfriend start having a little more confidence, so they're wandering around. They're creeping around the house, and they hear someone banging on the front door. They're like, okay, we've got the jump on him. We've flanked him, and we've got a shotgun now.
So the boyfriend... And says, stay here, I've got this. So he turns the corner and just like out of Gears of War, he pops out of the corner and fucking blasts him. Literally like blind fires the guy. And he's like, I got him, I got him.
And the girlfriend goes over and looks and is like, damn, that wasn't one of the strangers. You blasted Joe, the owner of the Airbnb. You remember earlier when they called about the fridge?
Well, Joe got their message, scoots out here at fucking 4 a.m., starts banging on their door ready to fix a refrigerator and gets hit with a shotgun in the face. Literally just blows his brains out and then the guy's like oh no. Oh Joe. I'm so sorry Joe She's like don't worry.
You're trying to protect us. I get it. It's okay And he's like wait his keys he drove a car here, so they get into Joe's car over his lifeless dead fucking cold corpse and Start trying to get out of there with the car But one of the strangers happens to be in his truck and he starts hitting their car with his truck and then he pins that Car against the tree and his truck and he keeps hitting it.
And then the guy's like, go save yourself, girlfriend. Go lady, please save yourself. I've got this. I'll be okay.
And then he remembers that he has a shotgun in the car because he took it with him. And then he gets the shotgun out and he's ready to shoot the guy. But the stranger's gone because he fucking waited until he stopped moving. Like he stopped hitting his car with his truck to get the shotgun out.
Why wouldn't that be the first thing he would do the second he got hit by that truck? The shotgun is next to him. Literally, like, as close to me, as close as I am to my mouse, is where the shotgun was.
And he gets hit by this truck, like, 20 times. He just backs it up, like the scene in Austin Powers, backs it forward into his car. Lets this happen, like, 20 times.
And he's like, alright, just get out of here, girlfriend. I'll, you know, save yourself. I'll sacrifice myself for you. Grabs the shotgun, and when he's finally ready, obviously the stranger's gone. Because it's been so many hits, and the stranger got bored.
But if he had just done that, like, maybe 10 seconds sooner... He could have just easily had the cleanest shot ever and killed that guy with a shotgun. So anyway, eventually he crawls out of the car. The lady's running through the forest. She like buries herself under some sticks to hide.
Then one of the strangers looks down, doesn't see her in the sticks. So the stranger walks away. And like immediately, immediately after that stranger leaves, deaggrows, she gets a cell phone out and calls the police.
While the stranger is still like maybe at best five feet away she would hear that but whatever she gets the call off to the police and then starts running through the forest again but now the stranger sees her and the guy's wandering around the forest with a shotgun trying to find the girl actually the guy flanks one of the strangers puts the shotgun to the back of her head and says where's where's my girlfriend drop the knife so the girl drops the knife doesn't say anything just starts laughing he's like give me one reason why i shouldn't kill you and she just keeps laughing and like shoving the gun in her face And he doesn't fucking shoot her! This dude just blasted an innocent man in the middle of the night who was coming to repair a refrigerator and he won't shoot the fucking people that are trying to kill them. It's painful. It's painful! So he doesn't shoot her and instead he gets knocked out by the guy, the girl gets knocked out by another one of the strangers, and then the strangers end up just stabbing both of them in the house and then the police show up and the girl survives.
and gives us a to be continued for chapter two. It's so bad. It's so shitty. It's so shitty.
There's like so much more I'm sure I could vent about if I really like stopped to think about more of the scenes, but it's just not worth it. It's just bad. And to think that they filmed two more of these, that's crazy to me.
So yeah, anyway, can't wait for a strangers chapter two. If I was to plug this into the moist meter, I'd probably give it like a 15% maybe. Like that's, even that feels a little high for this film, but whatever. It's just not good. That's about it.
See ya.