With The Strangers: Chapter 1’s release, viewers wonder if they need to watch the other Strangers movies first. Well, the question isn’t as clear-cut as you’d think. The way the latest Strangers movie fits into the franchise’s timeline is a bit confusing, especially since it’s part of a new trilogy.
Do I need to watch the other Strangers movies before Chapter 1?
You don’t need to watch the other Strangers movies before Chapter 1. While The Strangers Chapter 1 is part of the same continuity as the first two films, it’s a prequel to the original and a soft reboot.
Additionally, the previous Strangers movies weren’t overflowing with lore. The premise of both (and of Chapter 1) is that three lunatics stalk and kill an isolated group of people. If you want a small recap, read on below.
What happened in The Strangers and The Strangers: Prey at Night?
Luckily, if you want a synopsis of the previous Strangers movies, they’re pretty easy to sum up:
The Strangers
In The Strangers, James and Kristen spend the night at James’ isolated childhood home. Earlier in the evening, James proposed to Kristen, and she turned him down, so the two are in a sour mood. James calls his best friend Mike and asks him to pick him up in the morning, intending to leave the car for Kristen. Soon after they arrive, a young woman knocks on the door and asks if Tamara is home, and James tells her there’s no one there by that name.
After realizing Kristen has run out of cigarettes, James offers to buy her some. After he leaves, the same woman returns and asks if Tamara is there. As Kristen dismisses her, we see a masked man watching Kristen from inside the house.
When she finds an item misplaced, Kristen quickly realizes someone is in the house. She also discovers her cell phone is missing, and the front door has been forced open.
James returns and tries to tell Kristen no one is in the house. However, when he returns to his car to get his cellphone, he finds that someone has taken it and damaged his vehicle. The two try to escape in the car, but a masked woman slams into it with a pickup truck.
James finds a shotgun, and he and Kristen take refuge in a storage room. What James doesn’t know is that Mike has arrived, and as he enters the house trying to find the couple, James mistakes him for one of the Strangers and shoots him in the head, killing him instantly.
After recovering from the shock of killing his friend, Mike remembers there’s a ham radio in the barn. However, when he leaves the house to use it, he’s knocked unconscious. Kristen runs outside after James but immediately breaks her leg. She then crawls to the barn, but one of the Strangers soon discovers her and destroys the radio.
Kristen is pursued by the Strangers and eventually incapacitated. When the couple awakens, it’s morning, and they find themselves tied to chairs. When Kristen asks why the Strangers are doing this, she gets the response, “Because you were home.”
The Strangers then unmask themselves and take turns stabbing James and Kristen. The scene then cuts to two young boys going door to door handing out religious tracts. The Strangers stop their truck near them, and one of the women asks for a tract, and then they drive off.
As the boys approach James’ house, they notice the door open and enter. They see the carnage and find Kristen, who has crawled across the floor. It seems she’s succumbed to her injuries, but when one of the boys gets near, she grabs him and screams. The boys then call the police.
The Strangers: Prey at Night
The film begins when the Strangers arrive in a trailer park and murder Sheryl and Marvin, a middle-aged couple. The scene then cuts to their niece, Cindy, preparing to take a trip to the trailer park with her children, Luke and Kinsey, and husband Mike. Kinsey is heading to boarding school soon, so this is the last chance for the family to spend time together for a while.
The family arrives late at night and finds that Marvin has left them the key to a trailer. They make their way there and settle in, and shortly after, a woman shows up at the door asking if Tamara is there. Cindy tells her there’s no one there by that name, and the woman leaves.
In the meantime, Kinsey and Luke have gone for a walk and find a trailer with its door open. When they enter, they find Sheryl and Marvin’s mutilated bodies. As they return to tell their parents about their discovery, the woman knocks and asks for Tamara again. This time, Mike turns her away
Mike follows Luke to check the murder scene and Cindy and Kinsey return to the family’s trailer. However, they find that everyone’s cell phone has been smashed shortly before they’re attacked by a woman in a doll mask. The two retreat into the bathroom, and Cindy helps Kinsey escape using a skylight before being stabbed to death.
Mike and Luke arrive at Marvin and Sheryl’s trailer, where Mike finds a pistol. When they try to leave, they’re attacked by a man in a mask, but are able to escape. They return to the family’s trailer and find Cindy dead and Kinsey missing. The two then head out in the family van to try and find Kinsey before escaping the trailer park.
While driving around looking for Kinsey, the man in the mask returns and crashes into the van. Mike is impaled by a plank and unable to escape the wreck. He orders Luke to take the gun and find his sister and is killed by the man in the mask shortly after.
Kinsey runs around the park aimlessly and encounters the girl in the doll mask, who stabs her. However, Luke arrives and rescues her. He then hides her under a porch so he can run to the general store and use the landline there to get help. However, when he arrives, all three Strangers are waiting for him, and the landline is severed.
Luke evades the three and makes it to an area with a swimming pool. A woman in a pin-up mask almost gets the jump on him, but he kills her with a golf club. The man in the mask catches up to him and stabs him in the back before leaving him for dead. However, Kinsey arrives and helps him out of the pool before he can drown.
Kinsey is left on her own as Luke is mortally wounded. She leaves him behind and sets off to find help on her own. As she’s walking, she meets a deputy sheriff responding to an incomplete 911 call they attempted to make earlier. However, the woman in the doll mask kills him. However, Kinsey is able to make it into his patrol vehicle. There, she gains access to his shotgun and shoots the woman in the doll mask. She then asks her why the Strangers are doing this, and the woman replies, “Why not?” Kinsey then kills her with a second shotgun blast.
The man in the mask reappears and crashes into the patrol vehicle with his truck. However, this causes gas to leak, and Kinsey ignites it with a lighter, setting both cars up in flames. The man in the mask keeps chasing her in his flaming truck, then on foot, but seemingly succumbs to his wounds.
Kinsey then flags down a passing truck, but it swerves around her as the driver notices the man in the mask. Kinsey climbs in the truck, grabs a baseball bat, and bashes the man in the head, finally killing him.
The next scene shows Kinsey in a hospital with Luke. She awakens from a bad dream and there’s a knock at the door which makes the same sound as when the girl arrived at the trailer and asked for Tamara (implying that one of the Strangers may have survived).
