Over 15 years ago, the original The Strangers movie became a cult classic horror film for its atmosphere and simple premise of a couple being terrorized by a trio of masked invaders. While it eventually got a sequel in 2018’s The Strangers: Prey at Night, Lionsgate wants the gap between installments to be considerably shorter—hence, a trio of Strangers movies that’ll release throughout 2024.
During New York Comic-Con, Lionsgate revealed a first look at the starter to this trinity, fittingly titled The Strangers: Chapter 1. Directed by Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Exorcist: The Beginning), the movie stars Riverdale’s Madelaine Petsch and Teen Wolf’s Froy Gutierrez as Maya and Ryan, a couple getting ready to get married and move to the Pacific Northwest. Forced to spend the night in an isolated AirBnB, it isn’t long before the murderous trio—Dollface, Pin-Up Girl, and the Man in the Mask, played by new actors—break in and terrorize the pair.
Interestingly, Harlin told Bloody Disgusting that Chapter One will function as a remake of the original 2008 Strangers movie. But its two sequels will chart new ground, following on from the first movie and explore Maya as she tries to grapple with the lingering effects of that film’s ending, calling it “her journey that we are watching from the moment the first movie ends.” He continued by saying both sequels would explore “what could happen to…a young woman who is the victim of such senseless violence. What does that do to you mentally and physically, and what’s your journey after that?”
Harlin is a professed fan of the first Strangers film, and after receiving the 280-page script for the remake (written by Amber Loutfi, Alan Freedland, Alan R. Cohen), he recalled being “blown away by it.” He knew right away he wanted to split them up, and Lionsgate allowed him to shoot all three movies back-to-back. Getting to film the series this way was a blessing, he said, since it avoided the classic sequel problem of needing to lock the characters or world in some kind of stasis. If he has his way, this new trilogy will “go far beyond” that first movie and pave the way for more Strangers stories.
“By the end of the third movie, there are more questions than answers, really,” Harlin noted. “I can’t wait to make the next three movies because I just think that we do something so interesting here; personally, I can’t wait to see where it goes after this.”
The Strangers: Chapter One will release in 2024, with Chapter Two and Chapter Three sometime later in the year.
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