The two previous Strangers films have passed me by, but this being a prequel to the 2008 original, it seems a good place to start. Renny Harlin, on a little of a career renaissance directs, and it stars Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez as a couple, Maya and Ryan, who are driving across country. They stop in a remote Oregon town for a meal but when their car will not start afterwards they are forced to stay the night in an Airbnb until it can be fixed the next day.
This is a classic set up. The locals in the backwoods town are suitably menacing and/or unsettling. The couple are completely isolated and Harlin provides some genuinely tense scenes when the presence of the three psychopathic masked strangers is hinted at rather than shown.
Once they appear, it becomes a much more standard home invasion chiller with Ryan and Maya making a series of bad decisions to prolong their agony.
This is efficiently enough made but with it being a prequel we know that The Strangers will not be vanquished which lessens its effect.
Rating: 6 out of 10