Posts Tagged Renny Harlin

Atmosphere, Tension, and Performances in The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

May 25, 2024 at 8:34 am · Filed under Film & DVD Reviews ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

805 words, 4 minutes read time. Contains spoilers.

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“The Strangers: Chapter 1” is a suspenseful yet occasionally perplexing addition to the horror genre. Directed by Renny Harlin, this 2024 release aims to reinvigorate “The Strangers” franchise with a new standalone trilogy. While it successfully delivers moments of tension and fear, it also features character decisions that might leave you scratching your head. Let’s delve deeper into the film, examining its plot, performances, and overall impact.

Origins and Universe

The original two “Strangers” films focused on three masked murderers who terrorized innocent homeowners. These films were box office successes despite mixed reviews from critics. Unlike a direct remake or reboot, “Chapter 1” exists in the same universe as the past movies. It delves into the origin stories of the masked intruders from the original films. While it maintains the core ideas, it introduces fresh characters and plotlines, paying homage to the old films with Easter eggs.

The earlier movies featured intense moments of bloodshed, including accidental shootings and executions by the Strangers. The new film follows a similar formula but focuses more on unnerving scenes where the protagonists, Maya and Ethan, remain unaware of the Strangers’ presence. The tension builds as the masked intruders lurk in the shadows.

Plot Summary

Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ethan (Froy Gutierrez) are a young couple on a road trip to mend their strained relationship. When their car breaks down in the middle of an eerie, seemingly deserted small town, they decide to spend the night in a remote cabin suggested by locals As night falls, ominous knocks on the door awaken them, and they realize they are being stalked by three masked strangers: Dollface (Rachel Shenton), Pin-Up Girl (Megan Suri), and The Man in the Mask (Gabriel Basso). These assailants delight in psychological and physical torment with little explanation of their motives. The remote location creates a sense of isolation, cut-off from possible help.

Performance Highlights

Madelaine Petsch, known for her role in “Riverdale,” delivers a standout performance as Maya. Her portrayal of fear and vulnerability adds depth to her character. Froy Gutierrez as Ethan provides a solid counterpart, although his character’s decisions sometimes undermine the tension. Rachel Shenton, Megan Suri, and Gabriel Basso excel as the masked tormentors, their silence and body language amplifying the horror.

Atmosphere and Tension

The film excels in creating an eerie, claustrophobic atmosphere. The remote cabin setting, combined with the constant threat of the masked strangers, keeps viewers on edge. Sound design and cinematography work together to build a sense of dread, with every creak, piano stroke and shadow adding to the tension.

Key Scenes

The Man in the Mask Reveal: As the tension builds, there’s a scene where the camera focuses on a dark corner of the room. Suddenly, the Man in the Mask steps out from the shadows, catching viewers off guard. The combination of lighting, audio stings, and the unexpected appearance creates an effective jump scare.

Shower Scene: In another intense moment, a lone woman is unknowingly watched by a masked man as she showers. The suspense builds as the audience anticipates the inevitable jump scare. When it finally happens, it’s a heart-pounding moment that plays on the fear of vulnerability, objectification and invasion of privacy.

Critical Reception

While “The Strangers: Chapter 1” has its strengths, it also faces criticism:

  • Lack of Originality: Critics argue that the film closely follows the plot and structure of the original “The Strangers,” leading to a sense of déjà vu. The lack of new elements makes it feel repetitive.
  • Overreliance on Jump Scares: The movie frequently resorts to jump scares, effective in the moment but sometimes feeling cheap and formulaic.
  • Poor Character Decisions: Characters often make illogical choices, straining credibility. For instance, Ethan’s decision to shout into the woods instead of hiding and preparing to ambush the masked intruders diminishes tension.

Despite these flaws, there’s an element of fun in questioning the characters’ decisions. Watching Ethan continuously reassure Maya that “everything will be alright” despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary adds an unintended layer of dark humor. This aspect of the film can be amusing for viewers who enjoy dissecting character logic in horror movies.

Conclusion

“The Strangers: Chapter 1” offers a blend of suspense, fear, and occasional frustration. It succeeds in creating a tense, atmospheric experience with strong performances, especially from Madelaine Petsch. However, its lack of originality and reliance on jump scares can make it feel like a retread of the original. The illogical decisions made by the characters provide both unintentional humor and a point of critique.

For fans of the franchise and those who appreciate a good scare, “The Strangers: Chapter 1” delivers enough thrills to be worth a watch. Just be prepared to occasionally ask yourself, “Why would they do that?” as the terror unfolds.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

Picture credit

By Lionsgate – http://www.impawards.com/2024/strangers_chapter_one_xxlg.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75055307

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Q&A with Director Renny Harlin

December 26, 2009 at 7:56 am · Filed under Interviews ·Tagged ,

Exorcist: The Beginning is released nationwide in the UK on 29th October, 2004 by Warner Bros. Pictures. It’s a Certificate 15 and runs for 114 minutes. Counter Culture is pleased to present this Q&A session with Director Renny Harlin.

Q: Were you nervous about getting involved in Exorcist: The Beginning. The films are meant to be cursed aren’t they?

A: [Laughs] Well I don’t know about curses and whatnot. But I was involved in a car accident at the beginning of shooting and had to do most of the film in a cast, so maybe there’s something to it . . .

Q: Making this film seems to have been one of the biggest challenges of your career

A: Yes. But I got caught up in the excitement of how you construct a prequel to this film – which is one of my favourite films of all time. And how you illuminate those issues that are not explained in the original film – and to take the challenge of the schedule. That was exciting.

Q: How did you get involved? It had already been made once by Paul Schrader, right?

A: About a year ago in September, when the studio decided that they didn’t want to release a version of the film that Paul Schrader had made, and they invited some other directors to come and look at the film. They wanted suggestions of how, with a couple of reshoots they add some suspense element into the film. And I saw the film and my opinion was that I didn’t want to start interfering on another director’s film and that I didn’t know how to add things to a film that had a very definite structure and feel. So I said that I’d only be interested if they made a whole new film. I thought “they’ll never pay for that,” and that I’d never hear from them again. Then a few weeks later they called me up and said “we’ve decided to redo the whole thing, are you interested?” And I had to follow through with what I had said and I started working on a new script and a new approach.

Q: It must have been like stepping into a hornet’s nest?

A: Absolutely, I knew this from the beginning. I thought I would just give them my comments and I would never hear from them again, so when I was caught off guard when they said we’ll do what you suggested – I knew from that moment on that I was asking for trouble because I realised there was no way, no matter what we did, that we could satisfy all the fans of the original Exorcist. It was just an impossibility. Together with the fact that they had already made the film once and everybody knew that. So we knew that we had a real uphill battle, but at the same time I was a huge fan of the original film, so I thought it was an exciting film to do in terms of trying to explore where all those things in the original film came from. Where those ideas and thoughts had their birth. That’s what we tried to explore.

Q: Was there ever any suggestion that you’d have a completely new screenplay written?

A: Well, we had very little time. We had 10 months! In that time we had to do some recasting, build the sets in Italy and so on. So to be honest in retrospect when one looks at the situation the smartest thing would have been to completely reconceive the film. What we did was take the basic elements of father Merrin and his loss of faith, and this possession in an African village and so on and keep them. But it was not an ideal situation. I mean we had to start shooting in 2 months! And in that time we had to modify the script and so on. It was a really tight situation.

Q: What are Exorcist fans going to think of it?

A: Well we have made some changes. Fans of the first film have sort of made their rules about possession and exorcism is and how it works and so on. But if you study a little more and go beyond the film you realise there are lots of different kinds of possession. For instance in our film the kid gets touched by the demon, or infected by him, without getting fully possessed. There are endless differences like that. So we’ve varied from the first film – it’s not one person getting possessed and you watching them for an hour and a half like the first film. We felt we couldn’t do that; it would be making the same film that was made in the 70s. Some will buy into it and some won’t.

Q: Critics will inevitably say that you’ve dumbed the concept down. . .

A: That certainly wasn’t our intention. But obviously everybody’s entitled to their opinion. In defence of what we did we had an incredibly challenging task to try to live up to the movie that was made in the 1970s. It’s incredibly famous – it invented a whole new genre. And to make this film without making that film all over again was difficult. In terms of the dumbing it down, maybe people are talking about some of the sequences with the British army and so on – that we made it bigger and more “Hollywood”. Well, we were trying to probe whey people commit these horrible atrocities against each other and where evil comes from and is it some kind of demonic force and so on. Whether people think we succeeded is up to them.

Q: It must have been odd for the actors having to make the same film twice . . .

A: Well I knew Stellan Skarsgard because he was a friend. And he was concerned about this. He wanted to know what we would do and why and how and so on. But he became very much a part of the screenwriting process. We worked together very well. In the previous version his character is very introspective and very passive. In this version he has a traumatic back-story and is more of an active character. because he was part of the process he got really excited about. That was a great experience for both of us. They are two totally different kinds of films, and I think he enjoyed acting in both of them.

Q: Finally, do you believe in possession?

A: I don’t know. But in the research we did we found that the church employs over 300 exorcists. The Pope has his own exorcist, so they certainly believe it. I don’t know if you’d call me religious. But I was brought up to believe in God. And maybe demonic possession would be an explanation for some of the evil things that people do.

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