Sixteen years after shocking moviegoers with random acts of violence in Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers, the trio of masked murderers are slicing back onto the big screen in Lionsgate’s The Strangers – Chapter 1, the first installment of a new trilogy of terror.
Daily Dead was thrilled and chilled to attend the world premiere of The Strangers – Chapter 1 in Los Angeles, and we have highlights from my spoiler-free red carpet conversations with the cast and crew as well as some special guests who showed up at the premiere, including Kel Mitchell (Good Burger 2) and Zaria (Pretty Little Liars: Summer School)!
Below, you can check out the highlights and photos from the red carpet that featured an impressive replication of the cabin from the movie as well as a few familiar masked faces that were observing the proceedings… And in case you missed it, go here to catch up on all of our coverage of The Strangers – Chapter 1!
Madelaine Petsch discusses her character, Maya:
We’re kind of reimagining the final girl. I think that’s something that’s been happening for a while, and I think Maya is another great step to that.
Madelaine Petsch on executive producing The Strangers – Chapter 1 in addition to starring in the film:
It was a dream come true. Courtney Solomon and Renny Harlin, to learn from such greats, I feel really honored to have a voice at the table and to be genuinely appreciated in that experience. It was obviously tough at times, but it felt like the perfect way to do it, the only way to do it.
Madelaine Petsch on the support of her Riverdale co-stars Camila Mendes and Lili Reinhart, who were in attendance at the world premiere:
I’m really lucky. I’m very lucky to have such close best friends that I worked with for such a long time still support me through my career, and I continue to support them as well.
Renny Harlin shared his excitement for seeing The Strangers – Chapter 1 with an audience for the first time:
So excited. I’ve never seen the movie with an audience. This is the very first time, so I’m very excited. I feel like a comedian who is going to tell a joke for the first time in front of a live audience, and hopefully they will react the right way.
Renny Harlin on what he enjoys about working in the horror genre:
I enjoy horror movies myself. And for a filmmaker, you really get to be the conductor of the orchestra, and the audience is your orchestra. If you’ve done the job right, you get the gasps and the screams and the jumps at the right time.
Renny Harlin on filming in Slovakia:
It was a great country and really fun to work there. The conditions were challenging, we were up in the mountains and in the forests and shooting at night, so it was challenging but really rewarding at the same time. I love going to rough terrains for sure.
Renny Harlin on what viewers can expect from the next two films in the trilogy:
We’re going to take a deep dive into the mental state of the victim of a horrible, horrible home invasion and a crime, and also study what makes these killers tick. We won’t tie up everything neatly and perfectly. We will leave a lot of answers and questions open, but we will tell the audience over the course of these three movies who Tamara is.
Kel Mitchell on how comedy and horror can be similar:
Oh yeah, of course. With comedy and with horror and with drama, I just love the stories. And a lot of comedians have been through a lot of hard stuff.
Kel Mitchell on his love of horror, especially Freddy Krueger:
Freddy’s a slasher, and I love thrillers, but Freddy Krueger is just one of the best.
Kel Mitchell on his desire to be in a horror movie:
Yeah, definitely. Something like Get Out would be amazing, I would love that. Shout-out to Jordan Peele, he’s amazing.
Zaria shares her favorite scary movie:
I think my favorite scary movie is Get Out. It’s such a classic and that’s something I can do, but I also like the Saw movies.
Froy Gutierrez on tackling the mental and physical aspects of his character, who goes through the wringer in the film:
It’s such a big bite to bite, if that makes sense. I couldn’t really think about it in complicated terms, I had to really break it down to, “Okay, what’s immediately in front of me? What are my solutions? What’s my goal here? How do I keep her safe? How do I get us out of here?” And that was kind of my day-to-day. How do I get through today? How does Ryan get through the next 30 seconds of this movie? So I just tried to keep it small.
Froy Gutierrez on filming in Slovakia:
First of all, it was so beautiful to be shooting out there in the woods. You’re away from home, you’re doing these night shoots, your sleep schedule is all out of wack, and weirdly enough, I felt quite at home. The crew there was incredible. The cast was incredible. We all really took care of each other. I really loved Bratislava, it’s a beautiful city.
George Young on working with Renny Harlin:
It was an amazing experience. Just look at the things he’s done before. Remember when he was long-haired in the ’90s? He’s such a stud. To work with him, I was really nervous, but then I started talking to him about other horror people I’ve worked with. I’ve worked with James Wan as well, so I mentioned that to him. He got so happy that I mentioned James, and I talked to James about Renny. I just love that about Renny, that he was genuine about everything and genuinely elated when I mentioned that I talked to James about Renny.
Executive producer Dorothy Canton teased what audiences can look forward to in the second film in the trilogy:
All I’ll say is that the last scene of the second movie is my favorite scene in the entire franchise.
Producer Courtney Solomon on the uniqueness of filming the trilogy back-to-back-to-back like one big movie:
Definitely unique. There’s no question that was definitely unique. Just keeping your head around it. You’d walk in and go, “Okay, so today we’ve got 2, 3, 1, 3, 2, 1, 3,” and you’re just calling audibles the entire time. But it was good, it was fun, it was rewarding and I’m down to do it again, honestly, because I like the giant movie.
Co-writer Alan Freedland discussed how he and co-writer Alan R. Cohen approached the process of writing and outlining the new Strangers trilogy:
We really severely or heavily outlined all three movies because we’re trying to do all three movies as a trilogy, and so we spent about four months just putting together the three movies together, the outlines, and then we actually went off and wrote all three movies one, two, three, because we knew that we were going to shoot them all at the same time.
Co-writer Alan Freedland on paying homage to Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers while also incorporating new elements to the story:
It started off as an homage to the original with a couple that is in this cabin, and we wanted to put our own spin on it and say, “Here’s a new couple and what they’re experiencing and what they’re going through,” learn about their backstory a little bit more, and take that as a launching pad. How can we make three movies out of that and take it into a whole new place and learn about not just these people and the people of the town, but also who are the Strangers?