I Just Saw

So I just saw Da Strange Peeps: Chatper Wun, and surprise surprise, it was a colossal mound of turd. Full disclosure: I’m not really the person to review this movie because I hate the Strangers franchise and concept. The first film, written and directed by then-newbie Bryan Bertino in 2008, was in his words loosely based on a series of break-ins in his hometown as well as, of course, the real-life Manson Family murders. But it was just an excuse to tell a story with no story and characters that have no character. The plot was that a couple (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman), dithering about whether they should marry, spend the night at an isolated cabin when three killers – a man and two women – in babyface masks show up to terrorise them. The central tease comes down to a simple dialogue exchange: “Why are you doing this?” a victim asks. “Because you were home” one of the killers replies. 

This was supposedly enough to make everyone in the naughty ‘00s fill their pantaloons. (One hilarious bit of contemporary marketing sees an interviewer try to convince Tyler and Speedman that he needed to call friends for moral support once the film was over, but then the bit goes too far and it seems like they’re discouraging people from spending their money on the product, so Speedman suddenly panics and starts backtracking.) Here’s the thing, though: while plenty of scary killers on the big screen have had “no motive”, they have had context. Michael Myers of Halloween (1978) didn’t have a reason to kill, however, we know that he was a little boy who killed his big sister and then after many years of being institutionalised escaped to stalk other young women. 

By contrast, what do we know about the Strangers? That they don’t have a motive. Also, they wear masks, two porcelain Betty Boop-type things for the women, sackcloth like Jason’s mask in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) for the man. Also, they engage in obnoxious cat-and-mouse games that seem to be more for the audience than the characters and frequently make them seem supernatural, which they’re not, so… plot hole. 

The details that Bertino did add to the original film seem to contradict each other as well. The Strangers say that they’re attacking the couple because they happened to be home, implying that they’re thrill killers. Later, however, they say to each other that next time it’ll be “easier”, implying that their motive is pathological or maybe even spiritual. Making them reluctant killers. So which is it? Who knows? Certainly not Bryan Bertino.  

The franchise represents one of the laziest approaches to horror, where you’re not even telling a story, just presenting some basic elements with the least development possible. I guess I do sort of admire Bertino’s chutzpah in making millions from a screenplay that anyone could write. The romance writer Jacqueline Susann wrote her first drafts on yellow paper, before adding motive and character to successive drafts on different-coloured paper. The Strangers feels like it was only ever written on yellow paper. 

The Strangers: Chapter 1 is really just a loose remake of the original, to a point where all of the same beats are there, so by reviewing the 2008 film I’ve pretty much covered this one as well. Though it markets itself as a prequel in the title and promises to show you how the Strangers “began”, it’s clearly a rehash intended to capitalise off David Gordon Green’s Halloween reboots (two more “chapters” are planned; hopefully they go the way of Green’s plans for sequels to his terrible Exorcist film). Renny Harlin directs in his hackiest “paycheck, please” mode, while two writers without Wikipedia pages are credited with the “screenplay”, which I put in quotation marks because it’s hardly their work. 

The only real difference is that this time the film adds some elements that hint at an actual story and motivations. Here there’s a prologue where a guy who we later find out was a wanted criminal is chased by the Strangers. After that, we see an honestly kind of offensive bit of text about how many violent crimes happen in America (as if the non-events of this movie resemble real tragedy in any way).  

Following this, the Tyler and Speedman stand-ins Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) arrive “somewhere in Oregon”, where locals treat them with vague hostility before directing them to an Airbnb for the night while some greasy rednecks fix their car. Cue a lot of nothing until the Strangers show up, at which point we see a lot more nothing, but with running and mild violence. (This is the tamest 15-rated horror film I’ve seen in a while.) 

The added story stuff is reminiscent of something like The Woods Are Dark by Richard Laymon, a 1981 novel about a rural California town that’s in league with a cannibal race to whom they feed tourists. Harlin doesn’t bother to expand on anything, however. Presumably, he’s saving the actual plot for the sequels, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t, since this franchise has already spun three films out of absolutely nothing. 

Rating: 0.5/4