the most infuriating horror movie of the year (The Strangers: Chapter 1) 

The strangers was such a weird choice to try to turn into a franchise. The only things you can do with it are a) rehash the first movie, which is pointless, or b) get into the backgrounds and stories of the strangers themselves, which defeats the entire point of the movie

If you're an adult with asthma, you should probably take more personal responsibility with keeping your inhaler around.

Honestly, you left at the PERFECT time. It just got worse. But thank you for this, it was very validating lol

I don’t understand why studios are continuously ruining their reputation in order to make a quick buck. The Strangers had NO business being made into a franchise.

If I'm in a cabin for one night with no one else coming over, and someone knocks on the door, I'm not using the peep hole. I'm hiding behind the couch until they drive away. Just like I usually do.

The indoor light not making the outdoor person visible is possibly one of the stupidest things I've ever seen in a horror movie. I can suspend my disbelief that these people are stupid, I can't suspend my disbelief that physics don't work.

there’s a girl i follow on tiktok that got a really cool PR package for the movie and was really excited, and then in her review after seeing the movie she was basically like “this movie sucks, don’t watch it” and the dichotomy of the two videos was so funny

I saw this with a friend and I NEED you to be aware of the very final scene: It's not just "scarecrow is lying beside her" it's literally: she wakes up in the hospital bed, she sits up to reveal scarecrow LITERALLY IN THE SAME BED AS HER. you know how big hospital beds are?? He was (seemingly) PRACTICALLY SHOULDER PRESSED AGAINST HER LYING DOWN. And she even sat up! Fully awake as if she couldn't feel a giant wide-ass man literally in the same bed as her. Actual insanity

As someone that has worked at hotels, the going outside for calls but smoking inside is totally fucking real and infuriating AF. Smoke if you gotta but not inside.

Also love that she’s taking a shower alone in a cabin without her boyfriend when there was a creepy girl. Like what the actual fuck

Horror movies are getting dumber and dumber. Actually I think every movie is getting dumber and dumber. They just think we are stupid as an audience.

Gurl, if I'm in a cabin and someone comes to my door at night--expected or not--sometimes I even have to hype myself up to look through the peephole. Knowing there is a stranger that close to me (even with a door as a barrier) can be super scary! Men out here raw-dogging life with strangers are WILD to me. Edit: let me take that back. I had a female roommate who would leave the windows open without the safety lock on our ground floor apartment because she couldn't be bothered. Too many people out here have no sense of self-preservation.

As a guy I look outside the peephole and windows every time. I am a nervous person. I also couldn’t stand her boyfriend, I really thought he was a tool.

I'm not gonna pretend like the original Strangers was some masterpiece. It was slow and cliché, but it had atmosphere, memorable lines, and Dennis Reynolds getting shot in the face. Chapter 1 has none of that. It's the Diet Coke of Strangers. It's hollow and filled with unbelievable characters doing stupid things resulting in stupid outcomes. If my popcorn didn't have the perfect butter to salt ratio, I would've been more annoyed.

Another Ryan here. I sometimes look through the peephole for fun, even when there's nobody there, ffs😂. That guy obviously wasn't trained properly at the University Of Ryans before being let loose in the wild.

This movie is the orange-flavored La Croix to the original film's Fanta.

Imo, it would’ve been more interesting if the hunted becomes the hunter. If scarecrow actually died, it could’ve turned into the couple hunting down the last 2 strangers. Then, the “strangers” could’ve been the couple.

I don't get why these people when getting to this Airbnb not look around to see every part of the house. I do it out of habit from my times staying at one

I still went into this movie after all of the negative reviews thinking I could find something that made it redeemable but no, lol. The decisions made by the characters truly are poor and laughable. Spoiler: when they’re trapped in the one bedroom NEXT to a window that they can easily open and escape through, and just sit there waiting for the stranger to axe the door down lol.

I actually wanted to scream "PUT ON SOME PANTS AND GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOW" for the longest time once they got to the cabin. It's wild to me that everyone who made the film was so out of touch with the psychology of vulnerability.

8:15 As someone who’s very into film criticism, I’ve noticed a trend online of people excusing “dumb horror movie characters” because of an overall shift in online commentary towards favoring positivity. So nowadays if you try to criticize a movie for characters making dumb decisions, you’ll get a lot of “no one acts logical in dangerous situations stop nitpicking”. And I do think that there is a point there about how much horror criticism is dumb nitpicks! But this movie serves a good example of when dumb, stupid characters aren’t “realistically flawed”, they’re just dumb stupid characters. It’s impossible to get invested when they don’t feel like real people doing their best to survive, they feel like people who need to make the worst decision because that makes the writers jobs easier.

“This isn’t Michael Meyers. This is a dweeb in a mask.” 💀💀💀

From experience, if I get a random knock on my door at night I just pretend I'm not home. I don't even get close enough to the door to check the peephole

So the board game Final Girl has an expansion thats "inspired" by The Strangers, and since the games concept is mixing killers and settings, theres so many cool locations you can take them on in. Such as an asylum, a suburb, a summer camp, a fairytale woods, a research base in Antarctica, a spaceship in the future. So many options that would have been interesting to set the Strangers in besides one they've already done.

There needs to be a compilation video of William abusing his power.

i don’t think movie studios understand that people can only suspend their disbelief so much, old horror movies had dream villains like freddy kruger- and yet, the realism of the fear of having a dream come to life, makes it easy for people to be entertained cause it’s in a dream. but when you’re setting things in reality, they NEED to have some realism in it.

I actually understood why she wasn't thrown off by her phone moving. It's because she thought she forgot she placed it there. Unfortunately happens to me quite often, because setting your phone down is a very autopilot thing at times.

Whilst not all together or theatrically released; the Fear Street trilogy was released over a period of three weeks and is definitely made to be marathoned (such is Netflix's model)

Amidst all the weird decisions in this movie, the one thing that really gets me is that Maia took a shower. Like it's not a motel or anything! You're in a STRANGER"S HOUSE on super short notice and you just take a shower?? Where's the awkwardness? The irrational terror of slightly inconveniencing someone? 0/10 movie, completely unrealistic

my brother watched the strangers: chapter 1 the other day and came home ranting about how stupid it was, then convinced me to watch the original with him because he didn't want to alone. it was a good movie and he was scared out of his mind, so seeing you post about how bad it was as well is kinda funny to me

for every Abigail we get a strangers chapter 1

The Strangers don’t need an origin story. That defeats the whole purpose.

The motel movie exists and it's called Vacancy (2007), an American slasher film that stars Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson as a married couple who book at the motel after their car breaks down and are soon stalked by masked killers.

Not being able to come up with original ideas is no excuse for butchering other movies and/or franchises! Film studios need to spread their antennas a little more and wider instead of just going 'well what franchise belongs to us? Ah yes, this, let's make a stupid remake or whatever, who cares'

Im not answering the door at an AirBnB period frankly.

in this situation the minute my boyfriend left i would be locked in the bathroom and on the phone to my mama until he got back 😭

Only semi-related, I actually got to be on set a couple nights for filming for Strangers: Prey at Night. Damian Maffei was super nice to lost-little-intern me and helped me feel less awkward. There is an extremely low chance that one shot of a van driving up a bit of street has me in the passenger seat because the crew member driving it had a concussion and I was along for "safety."

ugh so disappointing to hear. Directors seem to forget making your characters stupid detracts from the realism and terror of if they were truly trying and making smart decisions yet failing to escape anyway. Thanks for saving me £9 to go see this 😅

If. any. of these two dumb friggen MCs made any just like- normal decision, this movie could've been good. but like its just *soooooo* infuriating.

Conspiracy theory : they are making this just to sell masks of the Strangers characters because they would be easily recognizable and a quick and easy halloween costume

AMANDA THE JEDI JUST POSTED A REVIEW OF THIS MOVIE. 'If I nickle for every time an Amanda that I'm subscribed to reviewed Strangers Ch. 1- I'd have two nickles. That's not a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.'

The thing about the first movie is that while the neighbors were far away, the house was in a neighborhood. It makes it feel more realistic that the strangers would just pick a house at random or the first home where someone answered the door. This is a random cabin in the middle of the woods that people aren't going to just happen upon.

Thank you swell for watching horror so we don’t have to (I’m a wimp horror runs my nightmares)

I look outside the window everytime before opening the door. But i also straight up don't answer the door if I'm not expecting somebody.

So what I'm hearing is that 'The Strangers (Chapter 1)' is the feature-length version of the Geico "Good Choices" ad - "Why can't we just get in the running car?!" "Are you crazy? Let's hide behind the chainsaws!"

Saw this movie recently. Highly disappointed by it for the most part and while it was a pretty movie nothing really worked…

What if the Airbnb owner coming back late at night unconcerned about the door is the indicator we were supposed to interpret as his complicity with the Strangers? Like “welp, looks like they’re done with em. Time for me to go inside and ‘discover the bodies’ under the guise of ‘well they called me about a fridge and I just found them like this’”

Actually, yes, his inhaler being missing comes up again toward the end of the movie. He stopped somewhere, is trying to catch his breath and he ends up cracking an abandoned water bottle to turn it into a makeshift inhaler of sorts, it’s so wild. I also hated the way they ended things (without the mid credit scene featuring Scarecrow) and it should’ve ended with them laying there, bleeding, and Maya’s eyes open to reveal she’d alive. That would’ve given more stakes, or something, anything! Seriously.

Chapter 1: Strangers Chapter 2: Even Stranger Chapter 3: On Stranger Tides

The inhaler comes up again in the dumbest way possible, he starts having an asthma attack and you’d think it would be bad because he drove all the way to the town to get the damn inhaler, but no. He grabs an empty water bottle and twists it, then opens the cap and inhales that vapor, suddenly that helped and he’s ok. Screw albuterol I guess. I was so mad that I made a Letterboxd account just to trash it. I haven’t reviewed a movie before or since

It’s like why turn a singular movie into a new franchise/IP if you’re not going to maintain elements/narrative tone/VYBEZ IDK that made the first movie successful aka why they wanted to make it into a franchise in the first place! 😠

The boys in the white shirts are a reference to the original, where at the end the strangers leave the house in there truck and pass the boys and talk to them , then they find the couple they killed 🥦 honestly the original is the best . It has more suspense elements and true terror .

I have a door that has a window at eye-level. What the people on the other side of the door WON'T see... is me full on slithering across the floor so I can see who it is before they know whether or not I'm even home.

Its so funny how this movie made similar choices to the horror movie parody commercial Geico made

We walked out at the SAME EXACT SPOT. That is genuinely so funny

getting to the end of the video it really does seem like that it was the first but worse, i do like the idea she becomes a stranger by the end of the trilogy i also had that thought it would actually make the story better than the first IMO, it just seems lazy to say this is gonna be a trilogy with nothing really to lead into the second one. We'll have to see what the second and third look like i guess, but my hopes are not high

I will NEVER get sick of that intro. Makes me giggle every single time.

4:00 It would have been cool if they played off the idea of a double feature which was super popular back in the day especially for B horror movies. There’s literal precedent for horror movies being viewed back to back which could have been a good tie in for this kind of franchise. It used to be a thing to go to the theatre and they’d show cartoons, a main movie and the b movie so like it’s not super crazy. We’ve might have gotten away from that but I think movies these days need a draw to get people to actually leave their home and spend extra money to see something in theatre. Companies just don’t want to take any kind of risk though, there’s something weirdly dystopian about their lack of wanting to try anything, especially when it seems apparent they’ll fail under traditional models anyways. Like why not try? Something? Anything? The apathy coming from corporations, especially in the film industry, is really just the next layer on the capitalist sundae🙃

17:43 "No, I heard people in this fucking house, there were people in here!" "Nah, that's just your hysterical uterus making things up."

One of the things I found so eerie about the first movie was that in the beginning, the cabin seems a lot more remote. At the end, you realize that the house that had seemed so secluded is actually just at the end of a suburban neighborhood. I felt like that added more to the horror of the “it could happen to anyone” motif. Obviously this is not the vibe with this movie. I was a big fan of the first Strangers movie, specifically the directing style. I feel like the scares of the original relied more on suspense and tension instead of mostly jump-scares like we see in so many movies. The characters and plot were lacking, but it was still a frightening movie to me, because it was just so eerie. Thanks for doing this video. I definitely wanted to see the new one once I saw the trailer and it was marketed as a “prequel”. I will now be saving myself the disappointment and the money I would have spent on a ticket.

“They don’t need a reason.” Works if they only made one movie about the strangers. That’s why when the strangers say “because you were home.” In the first movie is so chilling. It doesn’t work when you make multiple movies about the strangers. Because after a while the audience will rightfully so start asking “Why do they keep doing this?” “What is their motivation?” And so on. Could you imagine how frustrating it would have been be if we never got Freddie Kruger’s backstory? If they just left him as some random guy that killed people in their sleep?

man here. i check peepholes religiously. doesn't matter what time of day, where i am, if i'm expecting someone or anything. i ALWAYS check the peephole.

i mean frankly if someone knocked on my door at night I just wouldn't open it

“i’ll do it, someone give me money..” 😂 Same !!

"Are you mad I made a review of a movie that I walked out of." Swell that's like the most important thing you could have included in all of this, thank you for giving me 35-ish minutes of complaints about a really bad movie. I didn't even know it existed to begin with so I'll keep avoiding it.

I can't tell if she's been posting more or if I'm genuinely losing track of time- but I appreciate the content no matter what :)

It’s just the first movie but worse in every way.

After Ryan goes after maya in the woods and leaves the running truck he has a asthma attack and finds a water bottle empties it and twists it super loudly and breathes into it (I guess like a paper bag??) so technically him dropping the inhaler wasn’t completely dropped even though this scene was overall pointless

I really don't get how this was so gripping for people when it came around the first time. "Dude this could have actually happened man" yeah and other movies have done that better without treating the audience like morons

Horror movies are dumbing down characters to carry their plot, and I'm not living for it. I like it when characters are realistically smart and resourceful. Why can't movies be like that anymore?

Ok here's a horror movie: Group of college students are gonna go out partying. They ask around and find out that one of them has a family cottage near a lake in a forest. Perfect scenic location. So they go. They drive out in a couple of campers they borrow from their rich families, stopping for gas at a station near the cottage, and buying some essentials, including a spare phone battery, a zippo lighter, and a hatchet. The five figure out lodging and establish their rooming arrangements, get to partying. What they don't realize is that the house isn't actually so unfamiliar to their host, who has taken the opportunity to *follow them* to the cottage. What follows is a voyeuristic spiral into gaslighting and madness as their uninvited guest systematically undermines their sanities and gaslights them into squabbling. As tensions rise and things get intense, one of the couples starts fighting viciously, old baggage getting drawn out and preexisting cracks in the relationship widening into full-blown schisms. Their friends are disturbed and almost come to their senses, but when a greasefire breaks out on the wood stove, their manipulator finally makes their play, crashing a camper van through the wall of the cottage and killing one of the students instantly. What follows is a very brief chase where the student evades the camper van in a field, taking advantage of its turn radius. The student doubles back through the cottage and goes looking for the couple, and eventually finds things have escalated off screen. we are not informed of what actually happened, but the surviving partner blames the killer for their partner's death, and the two set out in search of their fifth who fled the cottage when the camper crashed into it. The idea of calling the police is raised but immediately fails when they discover the cellular signal at the cottage is nonexistant. Leaving the cottage out the front they realize their stalker stole their camper, and reveals that the stalker is someone they know, because the new car is recognizable, but they can't remember whose it is. (it's very boring) The stalker has taken the keys to both campers and the car. They are forced to head on foot toward the gas station they passed by earlier, and on the way, they notice a trail of bloody footprints that abruptly end near the road, and follow them back to find their third friend bleeding, but alive. They say they were attacked from behind and left for dead. The two able survivors work together to lift their injured third and hobble together toward the aforementioned gas station when they hear an approaching vehicle. It's the other camper, which they have to hide to avoid. It doesn't appear to work as their pursuer stops the camper and gets out, apparently in direct pursuit. This is when their third party member's phone goes off, apparently receiving just enough of a signal at this distance to the gas station that it's capable of receiving a call. Covers blown, an attempt is made to run, but it's also at this moment that their wounded third reveals they aren't really wounded. One of the two remaining students is foiled in their escape attempt by the betrayer, and the fleeing student is pursued toward the gas station by the main killer. The killer and the student reach the gas station at the same time as we the audience learn that the betrayer successfully kills their quarry, and gets into the camper, bringing the body with them. The last survivor and the killer play a bit of cat and mouse around the gas station as the survivor seeks any leverage. The killer has a hatchet that they had bought at the gas station. The cat and mouse ends when the betrayer arrives in the camper and the two close in on their intended victim. Demands are made to understand the motivations of the killers and those demands are met with giggles. The betrayer goes in, but is surprised when the survivor uses a gas pump as an improvised weapon. He punctures the tubing and gets sprayed with gasoline, which the student ignites with the gas station zippo. infuriated, the remaining killer comes after the student, who again flees, this time using the corner of the gas station as natural cover to spring an ambush and briefly incapacitate their pursuer. The student breaks into the gas station, setting off the alarm, and finds a loaded gun beneath the register counter. They position themselves to take a stand against the killer, who is now recovering and trying to quietly locate them. They check their phone which is just barely clinging to life, and has just enough signal to make an outgoing call, and dial the police. The killer comes in just as the line connects and the student fires the gun at the killer, but doesn't get a clean shot due to not being trained to use a firearm. The shot goes wide but does clip the killer, forcing them to retreat. Now refocusing on the phone call, the student finds that the phone is dead, and remembers the spare battery. The student observes the trail of blood from the retreated killer, and notes that it doesn't go toward the parked camper next to the burned betrayer. She quickly examines the camper to see if there's any sign of entry from the killer, and then enters it. We see the killer watch this and start to close in on the camper. The student finds the battery in a backpack and plugs it in and calls the police immediately as the killer arrives outside the camper. Police arrive, responding to the gas station's alarm, and witness the killer entering the parked camper next to a dead body. As the student misses a second shot to hit the killer, the police are only able to stop the killer after they claim a final victim and exit the camper. This was done in a single sitting with only a couple of backfill edits to round out the gas station shopping list for reincorporation later.

Based on what you said about the diner patrons being very cold, I think it would have been scarier later had they been super sweet and kind to them. Or at least have a couple of them be kind when everyone else isn't (false sense of security) and have them be the strangers.

The “opening door with key even though it has a hole” shows they had the dumbest script supervisor ever, or of course maybe didn’t have one at all

Your editor is a DEMON for brief ten seconds of dead camera 😭

This was the first movie I genuinely felt like I didn't miss anything when I went to the bathroom.

Something I like about being able to see their hair in the original, is that you'd get these random flashes of it, and it would be so jarring. It was a reminder to the audience that these aren't supernatural-like untouchable slashers a la Michael Myers or Jason. These are normal people. It was so much more grounding and scary.

"This couple are happy - I don't like it" is honestly such a great take.

Not technically a man but I use my peephole even in broad daylight when I knew I ordered groceries

LOL...William needs a raise.

This movie was written by AI. I’m certain of it

The kids with the pamphlets were in the first movie at the end. Theyre the ones who discover the crime scene.

Movie pissed me off dumb dumb dumb! Little girl knocking on my door in the middle of the night and teleporting to the drive way within seconds HELL NO! when they was under the house and actually got out…why tf did they go to the shed?? When they got the car why tf did it take dude so long to floor it😂 when he accidentally killed the owner like wtf why was he creeping around 😂 why didnt he blow the girls head off in the forest he waited too long! The only time the guy was smart when he was telling the girlfriend they were being setup when their car mysteriously broke! All the girl did was scream the whole movie Lmaoo and yes I would definitely look through the peep hole if someone is banging on the fucking door in the middle of night like wtf! And back to the shotgun scenes everytime the guy would actually shoot it’s like they had enhanced movements and they were teleporting out the entire frame and never got hit 😂😂😂

oh my god the phones. in the 2018 movie the teenagers leave the trailer without their phones. i know they stormed out after a fight but still. teenagers without phones? and then later the parents are like “our kids are outside in the dark and there’s creepy people out there. we should go get them.” AND THEY ALSO LEAVE WITHOUT THEIR PHONES. and surprise the strangers find their phones in the trailer and wreck them. it made me so mad

Gotta make a video about a movie you walked out on, so there is financial compensation for emotional distress.

Watch them re-film chapter 2 and chapter3 after they watch this

Watching you rant about how terrible this cabin movie is really makes me want to watch Tucker and Dale vs Evil, a truly good cabin movie

I mean most characters in horror movies make dumb decisions, but the problem comes when they break verisimilitude. Also the entire point of The Strangers was that the couple didn’t really no each other that well which gave the film title a double meaning and an interesting theme to focus on. This doesn’t seem to have either of those.

MISTA GG collab when ?!👀

I clicked on this laughing because having watched this in theaters (after watching the first two movies beforehand) I knew what you'd say. This was such a remake of the first, and lesser in ever way. All the same beats, except the first movie did all of them better. I still think of the asthma non-starter part since they checkov gunned that so hard, then later he does something with a water bottle and things are fine? Like, is there an empty water bottle trick I'd never heard of. Basically 100% agree with everything, and yeah I too was officially done when he failed to utilize the WORKING TRUCK sitting there. They're really going to have to sell me hard on the next movies because I'm still mad they implied this wasn't a reboot when it was absolutely a reboot.

I remember the girl mc heard singing, went to go see where it could be coming from, gets distracted, and then completely forgets about it. Girl, singing in the middle of nowhere when you’re alone ? Someone is with you

Honestly love the audacity of movies, TV series, games, etc say chapter 1 as if they're so sure its gunna get so much traction to be a series

Do The Crow next 😂 Love Bill Skarsgard but the trailer was cringe af

The opening of "the Strangers" was one of the best parts of the movie. Walking in on a couple in a fight is always going to be peak uncomfortable, I think the same kind of thing worked really well in the movie "Vacancy".

These remakes make me cringe more than most things

Thanks for this swell video Swell!

i'm glad youre making another movie/documentary review video, i love when you do those!

actually the most sick and twisted thing is that i thought froy gutierrez was tyler hoechlin so discovering that the main character of this movie is not derek hale from teen wolf but ANOTHER character from teen wolf… and it’s LIAM… diabolical

I haven’t seen any movie from this franchise (and most likely never will, because I’m not that into horror), just spoilery summaries on RU-vid, and I gotta say, there’s always plenty of opportunities when making a movie and how many interesting directions you can take a story, so why does stuff like this keep happening in movies? Is this the cinematic equivalent of rage bait to get people to talk about the movie?

I understand that dumb people exist, and would probably be involved in a horror movie just by percentage of possibility but... all of them? I cannot.

I loved the original Strangers movie, this is so sad... They ripped out the original whimsy/allure of the original movie for some sort of formulaic horror... :( I'm so sad