Couple of five years Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) spend a night in a cosy, remote cabin next to a town full of mildly creepy movie hicks. The home invaders known from the earlier Strangers films start on a campaign of low effort terror – though its an earlier effort at the whole thing, because this is a prequel.
It isn’t usually a productive question to ask “why was this made” when it comes to pop and commercial cinema, because the answer is usually “to make someone money”, but sometimes, you stumble upon product so needlessly dire, you really can’t help yourself.
In the case of the first of three (an additional why for that one) prequels to the The Strangers films, a movie that in no way fulfils any of the functions a prequel is supposed to, I couldn’t help ask it, for there’s really not a single moment on screen that suggests anyone involved in the movie even wanted to make it. This begins with the casting – Petsch and Gutierrez sure are pretty but have not the tiniest bit of onscreen chemistry – continues through production design and locations – if I’ve ever seen a cozy horror movie cabin quite so bland before, I can’t remember it – certainly does not stop at the script – there’s not only the expected lack of ideas and cribbing of the tiredest old clichés in the horror book but also a complete lack of enthusiasm in their execution – and ends with direction by Renny Harlin that’s so lacking in character and personality calling it bland would be an exaggeration to suggest greater excitement than this thing could ever deliver.
And that’s really all the attention this particular movie deserves. Perhaps The Strangers: Chapters 2 & 3 will surprise me by having a point beyond being a movie that sort of exists?
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