Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Lionsgate, Movies | Tagged: exclusive, froy gutierrez, interview, lionsgate, Madelaine Petsch, the strangers, the strangers: chapter 1

The Strangers: Chapter 1 Stars on How Harlin Builds on 2008 Original

The Strangers: Chapter 1 stars Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez spoke to Bleeding Cool about horror experiences & director Renny Harlin.

Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez have the unenviable challenge of building upon the legacy of Bryan Bertino's The Strangers, initially released in 2008 and starred Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman. A sequel, The Strangers: Prey at Night, was released ten years later, directed by Johannes Roberts and starring Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison, and Lewis Pullman, that directly follows the events of the first film. Lionsgate has now prepped a new prequel trilogy starting with The Strangers: Chapter 1, which follows a new couple, Maya & Ryan, played by Petsch (who's also an executive producer) and Gutierrez, who travel cross country to begin their new life together in the Pacific Northwest, Along the way, their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon and they are forced to spend the night in an isolated Airbnb home. Through the night, they are terrorized by three murderous masked strangers: Man in the Mask, Dollface & Pin-Up Girl. The two spoke to Bleeding Cool as part of a roundtable discussion, including how their prior experience in horror helped their performances and how trilogy director Renny Harlin compares to what Bertino did in his original film.

The Strangers: Chapter 1: Madelaine Petsch & Froy Gutirrez on Prior Horror Experience & Director Renny Harlin

Bleeding Cool: How has your previous experience in horror helped mold your performances in 'The Strangers: Chapter 1?'
Gutierrez: Hmmm.
Petsch: Would you say 'Cruel Summer' was kind of like a horror?
Gutierrez: Yeah, I've done a horror film before, a slasher in like 2019 [Light as a Feather], and I also did 'Teen Wolf,' which is adjacent, 'Cruel Summer' and 'Hocus Pocus 2,' which is spooky adjacent. Some of the smartest people and people I look up to creatively the most in my life are avid horror fans. I didn't grow up loving the genre because I'm so skittish. I've learned to appreciate and love the genre more daily, like through the people I've worked with in my career. I'm now a big horror fan. I played 'Outlast,' a first-person horror game, and I enjoyed it. What about you?
Petsch: I feel like the thing that's helped me the most, having had previous horror experiences in my career, is stamina. To be a horror actor, you must have much stamina in more ways than one, and for my career, I've been able to build up my stamina to be able to carry three films in 52 days of shooting with the stamina that I practiced, especially on a show like 'Riverdale,' where it's like you're running around screaming and doing crazy shit all the time.

Working with a veteran director like Renny Harlin, with his extensive action background and experience in horror, how do you feel working with him on set, and how does he treat the material? Is there any comparison to how you thought about the original shot while filming?
Gutierrez: Renny is such a legend that we shot many of these scenes in one or two takes.
Petsch: This is crazy behavior.
Gutierrez: Especially when you're shooting three movies at once, you want to keep it moving, and Renny definitely kept it moving in the best way because he could nail it the first go-around. It made us feel more taken care of. He also paid attention to letting the shots linger and breathe and curating the ambiance of the space itself, of what the cabin feels like as a character.
Petsch: But I also don't want to discredit Bryan Bertino, who directed the original. He made such strong and visceral choices that I think we tried to lean into, more like we were very inspired by his filmmaking choices. If anything, Bryan inspired Renny and us more.

The Strangers: Chapter 1, which also stars Gabriel Basso and Ema Horvath, will be released in theaters on May 17th.

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