The Strangers: Chapter 1

As for the strangers, all they need to be is terrifying, a task at which they consistently excel. Just make sure to stay through the credits. That is, if you haven’t already rushed home to bolt the doors.

Personally, nihilistic horror hits me as more unpleasant and depressing than engagingly scary. Such bleakness bleeds out tension, making for a remake that is merciless but also exhaustingly familiar.

The Strangers no longer looks like something that can happen to anyone, but rather something that can only happen to someone in a Strangers movie.

The original was a tightly wound nail biter, full of looming dread, but this one runs on fumes: there's no tension or atmosphere, just recycled beats from the original, played like a cheap cover song.

Once we're able to see Harlin's new trilogy as a whole, “Chapter 1” might feel more essential to the 4.5-hour experience. Right now, it just feels overly familiar.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 is everything WRONG with the horror genre.

Despite Harlin's solid hold on pace and atmosphere, the narrative beats, jump scares and killers' catchphrases echo the original so slavishly that the film seems almost wholly pointless.

Harlin’s approach to the material is dull and workmanlike.

... But nothing that’s added makes this any better, or more frightening, a movie than its predecessors.

Concentric twists and harrowing repetition of situations occur as if in a dream, despite its dirty realism... [Full review in Spanish]