red headed stranger movie review

Once Upon a Time in a Western

Red headed stranger (1986).

Larn Claver (Royal Dano) and his sons control the only source of water for the town and rule the roost — albeit a pretty dismal one — as a result.

The Rev. Shay decides it’s his job to provide hope to the townsfolk. He does that by helping dig a well so they can stop cowering.

They stop sure enough. The Clavers try to burn down the windmill that operates the well; Odie Calver kills a man in the process.

He’s caught and hung at the request of the townsfolk.

But then Julian encounters a problem of his own. His wife, who’s never been happy out West, runs off with another man.

Julian follows, leaving only Sheriff Reese Scobie (R.G. Armstrong) to defend the town when the Clavers decide it’s time to strike back for Odie’s hanging.

Willie Nelson as Julian Shay, trying to convince residents of Driscoll, Montana to take a stand against the Claver family in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

R.G. Armstrong as Reese Scobie, warning Julian Shay about the state of affairs in Driscoll, Montana, in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Much better than one might expect and easily the best Willie Nelson Western.

That’s partly because it has a touch of realism few Westerns accomplish, partly because the film’s laconic pace matches Nelson’s performance and the songs that help tell the story.

The film also benefits from excellent performances from two veterans of the genre — Royal Dano and R.G. Armstrong.

The latter plays an aging sheriff who has accepted life as it is in Driscoll, knowing he can’t stand up to the Clavers on his own. Scobie winds up wanting revenge against Julian for abandoning him when he needed help the most.

Katharine Ross plays the single mother who helps Julian find redemption after his own quest for vengeance.

For those wondering, this was unfortunately the only film role for lovely Marinell Madden, who plays Odie’s girlfriend.

Royal Dano as Larn Claver, ruling Driscoll, Montana with an iron fist because he controls the water in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Paul English as Avery Claver, one of wolf hunter Larn Claver’s five sons in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Directed by: William Wittliff

Cast: Willie Nelson … Julian Shay Morgan Fairchild … Raysha Shay R.G. Armstrong … Reese Scobie Royal Dano … Larn Claver Sonny Davis … Odie Claver Paul English … Avery Claver Bee Spears … Eugene Claver Dennis Hill … Calvin Claver Mark Jenkins … Victor Claver Katharine Ross … Laurie Bryan Fowler … Nathan, Laurie’s son Ted J. Crum … Cauley Felps Marinell Madden … Cindy Logan Joanne Russell … Wanda Berkley Garrett … Rev. Longley Elberta Hunter … Mrs. Longley

Runtime: 105 min.

Morgan Fairchild as Raysha Shay, frightened by a wolf head left on her family’s door in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Katharine Ross as Laurie, confronted with two strangers with lustful intentions in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Memorable lines:

Julian Shay: “I know it will be difficult for you to leave after all these years.” Rev. Longley: “Difficult? Coldest snake I ever touched — this town … You’ll be fighting the devil on his own ground here, sir.”

Larn Claver, as the townpeople prepare to hang Odie: “Don’t you sniffle, Odie. Don’t you sniffle. I ain’t gonna let go of this. These sons of bitches will rue this day — every god damned one of them.”

Cowpoke, accompanied by his partner, after catching Laurie alone at home: “Do you fancy him? Or me first? Laurie: “I’d as soon step in one pile of cowshit as another. Guess I’ll take you.”

Laurie: “This man you’re looking for — who is he?” Reese Scobie: “He used to be a preacher before he took to killing.”

Laurie: “What made you do that? Just show up here that one day and start plowing?” Julian Shay: “I guess I’d already gone as far as I could go the other way.” Laurie: “Well, you got a ways to go before you learn how to plow. Left a lot of crooked rows in my field.”

Willie Nelson as Julian Shay and Morgan Fairchild as his wife Raysha, arriving in Driscoll, Montana, in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Marinell Madden as Cindy Logan, watching Julian and Raysha Shay arrive in Driscoll, Montana, in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Royal Dano as Larn Claver and Mark Jenkins as his son Victor trying to locate Julian Shay and Reese Scobie in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Sonny Davis as Odie Claver, one of Larn’s sons, facing a hangman’s noose in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Dennis Hill as Calvin Calver, alerting his father that the windmill has been restored in Driscoll in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Bee Spears as Eugene Claver, wary as Julian Shay and former sheriff Reese Scobie show up at his family’s ranch in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Bryan Fowler as Nathan, Laurie’s son, wondering whether or not he can trust newcomer Julian Shaw in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Marinell Madden as Cindy Logan, pleading her case to save boyfriend Odie Claver’s life in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Ted J. Crum as Cauley Felps, greeting Julian Shay when he comes seeking water in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

The man Raysha left behind, then runs off with, watches her celebrate her marriage to Julian Shay in Red Headed Stranger (1986). Does anyone know who plays this part?t

Morgan Fairchild as Raysha Shay, getting an early warning that life in Montana might be unsettling in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Willie Nelson as Julian Shaw, looking haggard after a spree of revenge in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

R.G. Armstrong as Reese Scobie, defending the new water tower in Driscoll from the Claver family in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

Katherine Ross as Laurie triming the beard of Julian Shay (Willie Nelson) in Red Headed Stranger (1986)

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Red-Headed Stranger Reviews

• 1 hr 45 mins
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A parson turns outlaw when his wife runs off with another man.

Julian Shay (Willie Nelson) is a Philadelphia preacher who moves his new bride, Raysha (Morgan Fairchild), to the wilds of Montana where he plans to take over a ministry. Raysha, who is against the move, is really in love with another man. Their new town, though, is suffering under the thumb of an evil rancher (Royal Dano) who has controlled the local water supply since the town well dried up. When Shay's wife leaves him, his mind snaps and he straps on a gun. RED HEADED STRANGER boasts outstanding production values, nice cinematography, and a good cast. Unfortunately, the film is poorly scripted, haphazardly directed, and badly paced.

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Red headed stranger.

Directed by William D. Wittliff

Reverend Julian Shay (Willie Nelson) strode into the saloon, pulled out his six-shooter, and killed his adulterous wife (Morgan Fairchild) and the man she had left him for. It was the beginning of his violent transformation from God-Loving preacher to ruthless outlaw.

Willie Nelson Morgan Fairchild R. G. Armstrong Royal Dano Katharine Ross Sonny Carl Davis Ted J. Crum Marinell Madden Bryan Fowler Paul English Bee Spears Dennis Hill Mark Jenkins Berkley Garrett Elberta Hunter Mark Voges John Dodson John Browning Julius Tennon

Director Director

William D. Wittliff

Producers Producers

Willie Nelson William D. Wittliff

Writer Writer

Editors editors.

Stephen Purvis Eric A. Williams

Cinematography Cinematography

Production design production design, composers composers.

Willie Nelson Bucky Meadows

RHS Studio Productions

Releases by Date

31 oct 1986, releases by country.

105 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Geoffrey Broomer ★★★½

Willie Nelson's double platinum 1975 concept album - about a preacher on the run from the law for gunning down his wife - was turned into a screenplay by William D. Wittliff. After languishing in production hell at Universal (who wanted Robert Redford to star), and later HBO, the duo produced Red Headed Stranger independently with Wittliff directing.

Nelson stars, with Moran Fairchild as his ill-fated spouse. The expanded narrative sees Nelson installed as the preacher of a town without water - whose efforts to restore a well put him at odds with a stream monopolizing trapper (Royal Dano). The Preacher's only ally is the sheriff (R. G. Armstrong), whose complicated friendship is the heart of the picture. During this…

Review by Proselyte Magazine 3

this movie was co-produced by wrangler jeans (not kidding)

Review by Mason ★★★★ 5

Maybe the best of indie 80s westerns. *Are* there other indie 80s westerns? Apparently originally meant for HBO, starring Redford and directed by Peckinpah it all fell through and Willie (who'd always intended to play the part himself) and the screenwriter (who decided to direct) raised the money themselves. Shot on Willie's property in hill country, the immersion and authenticity is stellar. Fairchild is the weak spot but sometimes you need a name to get investors.

A dark and bloody tale of old grudges and hard headed men with nothing to lose. Willie is stellar, maybe his best performance.

Doesn't appear to be available on disc or streaming in the US. I found an ok quality HD online and I…

Review by Nick Tacony ★★★★

Easily the greatest movie ever produced by Wrangler Jeans

Review by rosey

“did you mean to kill her?”  “I did at the time.” 

I was expecting a revenge-porn flick, but so little time was spent on the revenge, and so much more was focused on who he was before and the outworkings of what he did in a moment of rage.... kinda liked that approach, to be honest. it surprised me, much more of a thoughtful approach than I expected. 

I appreciate that it was trying to say something and actually had some decent scenery and music. the acting was a little sub-par for the supporting cast, and maybe I would have liked it more if I could take willie nelson seriously. 

anyway. not too shabby.

(it felt kind of like the result of an oyan ipod challenge, with the music element involved. if you know what i’m talking about, you know. 🙏)

Review by Chamcken ★★★

*watches scene with my own eyes*

*Willy Nelson sings about what I just saw just to make sure I didn’t miss anything*

Review by ZaneSimon ★★★½ 2

A surprisingly decent, if slightly wandering western starring Willie Nelson, who does a shockingly alright job carrying the part of preacher turned outlaw turned family man. 

The actual narrative transitions are a bit on the hurried side and it’s a little too much plot for the movie’s 105 min run time, but it’s well acted and has a great score, with Nelson doing all the music himself. 

Costuming’s not bad too, but the hair and makeup on the women is off by about 100 years. Really looks like they teleported swimsuit models back to the old west. 

Not so special that I’d run back to it or recommend it quickly, but if you love westerns this is a totally solid one.

Review by Wirthit ★★★★ 5

Finishing up whats worth seeing on Peacock before I cancel. Decided upon a Willie Nelson western night, so I checked out both Barbarosa and Red Headed Stranger. I know NOTHING about Willie Nelson, never even heard a song by him. But I heard both movies were worth seeing. I'm including my reviews for both here, since Red Headed Stranger was the more interesting film.

Barbarosa is a weird little western, enjoyable, but, well, anything starring Gary Busey and Willie Nelson is bound to be a little strange. It's pretty well directed, and both Willie and Gary give good performances. The fact that the film is about each of their tortured family dynamics is the most unique part of the picture…

Review by Isaiah ★★★½

Willie Nelson plays a badass renegade preacher. Better than I anticipated

Review by Jay D 's Watching ★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Three things about Red Headed Stranger, no particular order.

1. Honestly, makes a nice stiff drink for anyone who's sort of wrapped up in cheerful elderly mellow old Uncle Willie imagery these days - based on the concept album of the same name, I'm not sure who the shovel-faced guy on the poster is supposed to be, but the film features Willie as a rather stoic, grim preacher-turned-murderer-turned-gunfighting-farmer-because-a-man-has-to-find-some-peace, damnit. He's not a terrific actor, but he's good enough, and he has some genuine interesting presence (the strongest scene comes probably at the midway point, just after he

kills his wife and the man he ran off with)

2. The actual bad guys here, a family clan seemingly based on…

Review by It’s Me ★

Willie Nelson looks like absolute shit here, a real trash bag.

Review by Puneet ★★★½

lame brain compliment but some great shots and blocking in this one

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Red Headed Stranger

Where to Watch

Willie Nelson (Rev. Julian Shay) Morgan Fairchild (Raysha Shay) R.G. Armstrong (Sheriff Reese Scoby - Driscoll, Montana) Royal Dano (Larn Claver) Katharine Ross (Laurie) Sonny Carl Davis (Odie Claver) Ted J. Crum (Cauley Felps) Marinell Madden (Cindy Logan) Bryan Fowler (Nathan - Laurie's Son) Paul English (Avery Claver)

William D. Wittliff

Revisionist western about fallen preacher Shay, who guns down his wife Raysha for running off with another man. Wandering, he meets single mom Laurie. However, helpless sheriff Scoby wants Shay to help him fight the villainous Clavers.

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Without The Carter Family, it's impossible to imagine the course of country music. As if spreading the …

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Red-Headed Stranger

Film details, brief synopsis, cast & crew, william d wittliff, morgan fairchild, katharine ross, r. g. armstrong, willie nelson, technical specs.

Reverend Shay and his wife travel from the East to Montana so that he can do his good work there. However, when his wife leaves him for another man, the preacher uses his pistol in revenge. After this, he tries to regain his footing on the path to righteousness.

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States Fall October 31, 1986

Released in United States on Video September 1987

Released in United States September 1, 1987

Shown at Denver International Film Festival October 18, 1986.

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Reverend Julian Shay (Willie Nelson) strode into the saloon, pulled out his six-shooter, and killed his adulterous wife (Morgan Fairchild) and the man she had left him for. It was the beginning of his violent transformation from God-Loving preacher to ruthless outlaw.

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37 Years Ago: Willie Nelson’s ‘Red Headed Stranger’ Film Premieres

Thirty-seven years ago today, on Feb. 19, 1987, Willie Nelson 's Red Headed Stranger  film premiered in Austin, Texas. The movie, which also starred Morgan Fairchild and Katharine Ross, was based on Nelson's 1975 album of the same name.

In Red Headed Stranger , Nelson plays Rev. Julian Shay, who travels to Montana to preach, along with his wife, Raysha Shay (played by Fairchild). When his wife leaves him for another man, Julian Shay guns her down ... and then tries to find redemption for his actions.

William D. Wittliff wrote and directed Red Headed Stranger ; he also co-produced the project with Nelson. (The two men had previously worked together on the films Honeysuckle Rose and Barbarosa , both also starring Nelson.) Wittliff's first draft of the movie was finished almost 10 years earlier, and Universal Studios expressed interest in the film -- but they wanted seasoned actor Robert Redford to play Nelson's character instead. When Redford turned the role down, Nelson and Wittliff returned their advances to regain the rights to make the film their way.

HBO also expressed interest in the movie, but when Red Headed Stranger 's original director, Sam Peckinpah ( Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and The Wild Bunch ), left the project due to budget constraints, Nelson and Wittliff bankrolled the film themselves. Most of the production, which took two months, occurred on Nelson's Luck, Texas, ranch and in other areas in central Texas.

Nelson starred in another Western, a made-for-TV movie called Stagecoach , in 1986. The country icon appeared in that film alongside Kris Kristofferson , Johnny Cash , Waylon Jennings and David Allan Coe , among others.

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Red Headed Stranger

By Rebecca Bengal

November 19, 2017

Red Headed Stranger, Willie Nelson ’s 18th studio album, arrived in the world on May Day, 1975, to little fanfare. It would prove to be an ominous year. Two of Nelson’s fellow Texans and country music heroes, Bob Wills and Lefty Frizzell, would die. At the Country Music Awards, Charlie Rich would set fire to the slip of paper that announced John Denver as Entertainer of the Year. Denver topped mainstream country charts with his friendly ditty “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” which traded places with the lush, bright, radio-friendly productions of Glen Campbell ’s “Rhinestone Cowboy,” and Linda Ronstadt ’s “When Will I Be Loved.”

It was the year of Tonight’s the Night , Blood on the Tracks , Physical Graffiti , Metal Machine Music , Zuma , Horses , and Born to Run . And it was the year that Willie Nelson finally signed a record deal that allowed him “quote artistic control endquote” as he described it to Rolling Stone. In the span of about a week, summoning a core stable of musicians to a little studio in Garland, Texas, and for just $4,000, Nelson made an album that defied logic, transcended the industry-defined borders separating country from rock’n’roll, jazz, blues, and folk—and it became an artistic and commercial success. Red Headed Stranger remained on the Billboard charts for 120 weeks. It was as if he’d written himself a permission slip for the next four decades of his career. On first listen, one studio head wondered aloud whether it had been recorded in Nelson’s kitchen. It sounds like just Willie and his guitar, another remarked. Waylon Jennings, who was present for the initial listening session, leapt to his feet. “That’s what Willie is all about!” he reportedly hollered.

Nelson’s first four decades had been hard-earned. He was on his third marriage, father of four kids. He had washed dishes and sold encyclopedias door to door until he decided that it went against his beliefs to push them on people who couldn’t afford them and took a job peddling vacuum cleaners instead. He had done his share of time in a trailer park and he had seen his own house burn down. He had played honky-tonks across from Texas to Washington, and he’d worked as a radio disc jockey with the handle “Wee Willie Nelson.” One particularly despondent night, early in his Nashville days, Nelson walked outside Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge—the famous songwriter haunt where he warmed barstools alongside Kris Kristofferson , Hank Cochran, and Roger Miller . Nelson laid down on a snow-covered street and waited for a car to run him over.

The story is one Nelson tells frequently of his Nashville days. For more than 10 years, he made a name for himself recording well-received albums that failed to get the same acclaim as the No. 1 hits he wrote for others; he resisted record company producers and their suggestions of “different styles” while at the same time demanded better marketing for his records. Was it worth it working for nothing to fit someone else’s mold?

It’s those dark minutes, lying in the snow listening and half hoping for traffic, that were on his mind when he scribbled the first few lines of 1973’s Shotgun Willie , his first true outlaw country anthem, on the back of a “sanitary napkin” envelope in a hotel bathroom. “Mind farts,” his good friend Kristofferson bluntly offered. Nelson remained unvexed. “I thought of it more as clearing my throat,” Nelson said. That album contained what remain some of the most beloved songs in the canon of Willie—“Whiskey River,” “Slow Down Old World,” “Sad Songs and Waltzes”—and it set the stage for an album that would challenge an industry’s prejudicial notions, one that would earn Nelson overwhelming and long overdue respect not as a country artist but as an artist, period.

The song ”Red Headed Stranger,” written in the 1950s by Edith Lindeman Calisch and Carl Stutz, is the dark tale of a bereft cowboy, “wild in his sorrow, riding and hiding his pain,” who goes into a grief-stricken rage. It was a song Nelson used to play as a disk jockey on Fort Worth radio and it stayed in his head long after. In the spirit of fieldworker blues, gospel, country, and traditional Mexican songs that reverberated through the rows of Texas cotton Nelson picked as a child, it follows an ancient plot. It’s a murder ballad, a noir tune of damaged characters and fateful, human errors. When his own children were small, Nelson sang it to them as a lullaby.

On a long drive from Steamboat Springs, Colo. to Texas, the song got in his head again. As he sat behind the wheel, Nelson envisioned the Stranger’s song as part of a larger story, mapping out the narrative in chapters. In his telling, the Stranger of the song becomes a Preacher who discovers his wife in the arms of another man and kills them both (“And they died with their smiles on their faces”). Doomed to wander the countryside alone on his horse, he seeks a redemption that may never be realized. Nelson worked his old ballads into a roster of country standards that, he reckoned, would naturally inhabit the Preacher’s mind. Eddy Arnold’s “I Couldn’t Believe It Was True,” a brief, jaunty number, stands in for the moment when the Preacher discovers that his wife has forsaken him. In the next iteration of the recurring theme, “Time of the Preacher,” the recognition of loss sinks in: “And he cried like a baby/And he screamed like a panther.”

Deliberately spare arrangements echoed the Stranger’s existential loneliness. Relying mostly on guitar, piano, and drums, Nelson summoned a small crew of musicians in the studio—his sister, Bobbie Nelson, longtime drummer Paul English, Bucky Meadows, Mickey Raphael, Jody Payne. Little else was needed to evoke the sound of the Preacher’s violent ride, the relentless, loping, strumming gait: “Don’t fight him don’t spite him/Let’s wait till tomorrow/Maybe he’ll ride on again.” The horse in the studio was, of course, Trigger, the Martin guitar Nelson had customized in Nashville a few years earlier, Frankensteined with a pickup from his old Baldwin guitar and named after Roy Rogers’ television horse. Nelson heard Trigger “as a human sound, a sound close to my own voice.”

Musically, Nelson has always subverted plain, pure song with utter, starlit mystery. He had an uncanny ability to bend the listener’s perception of time. “I could put more emotion in my lyric if I phrased it in a more conversational, relaxed way,” he wrote in 1988. His vocal phrasings snake around the surfaces, altering its inflections, anticipating a beat or falling just behind it; his guitar appears to stretch and shorten the meter without ever breaking it.

As a single punched into a dusty jukebox, Fred Rose’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” is a beautifully realized if painful love song, the harmonies on the line “Only memories remain” landing with a little sting. Threaded into the Preacher’s story, it becomes the heart of the album. Like Nelson and Trigger lingering on certain phrasings, parsing missed chances and regrets, the Preacher and his black stallion haunt the canyons, retracing steps. He’s mindful that the love he lost is a place to which he can never return, but he can’t stop himself from trying to get back there.

Country music had always been one of the truest genres, gritty and realistic songs of broken hearts, the farm, the factory, the bottle. But until Red Headed Stranger, music critic Chet Flippo wrote in Texas Monthly, the genre had offered scant escapism and “almost no fantasy.” Nelson, for the first time, allowed country music to dream big and beautiful. Nelson converses with the genre’s roots but sends them into uncharted and previously forbidden territory, fusing his essential influences—the tragic brilliance of Hank Williams and the melodic expression of Django Reinhardt. His anti-heroic story has elements of Homeric myth, a moody, Sergio Leone sensibility, the devastating lyrical force of Cormac McCarthy, whose Border Trilogy Red Headed Stranger in many ways prefigures.

When he left Nashville for Austin in 1972, Nelson had gladly traded his jackets and ties for bandannas and jeans; he’d grown his own red hair long. And in casting himself as the title character of Red Headed Stranger , he had chosen for his story an essentially archaic thing, tough and worn and mythic; an incessant wanderer and broken spirit, at war with himself. The artist lying on the street in the snow.

You can have an appreciative listening of Red Headed Stranger as a clear, uncomplicated tale about manhood and morality and infidelity, about the characteristic lonesomeness of the cowboy drifter, about some bygone notion of Americana, as listeners and critics did in 1975, layering on desperado descriptions. It is possible in 2017, when interpretations still overwhelmingly shrink to the literal-minded, to return there too.

And yet that would be missing out on so much. Sure, by 1975, Nelson had weathered and been implicated in his own share of stormy relationships, allegedly standing on both sides of infidelity. But to dwell on a reading of Red Headed Stranger primarily as a tale of manhood and waywardness or as one entrenched in bygone notions of America feels dated, particularly if you are anywhere on the margins of that story. Women, empathetic listeners by nature and necessity, learn to be very good at imagining ourselves into narratives framed around the literal experiences of boys and men. And in Red Headed Stranger , the story that resonates loudest is not the most obvious one but a universal one, about what it means, in dark and thrilling ways, to follow your instincts when you have everything at stake and nothing to lose.

With Red Headed Stranger, arguably the biggest artistic gamble of his career, Nelson framed it as an album about creativity and risk, about bad decisions and lonesome paths, about learning to listen to instincts, and, moreover, about distinguishing instinct from impulse. If Shotgun Willie was Nelson’s newfound manifesto, Red Headed Stranger forged into mythic weirdness acknowledging that this is a kind of wandering that can never end. Such is the nature of the itinerant solitude and perpetual dissatisfaction of the artist—the life that the restless and relentlessly prolific Nelson chose for himself—on the road again.

As the album draws to a close, after searching in Denver dance halls and in strangers’ arms, the Preacher claims to have found some version of solace and maybe even love, if we can take him at his word. His declaration is followed by one of the album’s wordless instrumentals, quiet and beckoning as a campfire, as Mickey Raphael’s harmonica reverberates and fades out. The memory of the lyrics of the previous song linger like smoke: “I looked to the stars, tried all of the bars/And I've nearly gone up in smoke/Now my hand’s on the wheel/I’ve something that’s real/And I feel like I’m going home,” the Preacher-Stranger had just sung in “Hands on the Wheel.” It’s not clear, though, whether he’ll ever truly arrive, or if he’d let himself stay long.

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Review: 'The Strangers - Chapter 1' is a rote rehash that lacks the original film's creepy suspense

“The Strangers - Chapter 1” is the third film in an ongoing franchise, following the surprise hit of 2008’s “The Strangers” and its diminishing-returns 2018 sequel, “The Strangers: Prey at Night.” The new film is also the first of three movies shot concurrently and intended to be released within the next year.

Director Renny Harlin , new to the series, is no stranger to sequels, with a long resume that includes “Die Hard 2” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.” There is a journeyman’s proficiency to “Chapter 1” but little in the way of real spark.

Young couple Maya ( Madelaine Petsch, also an executive producer) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) are on a road trip across the country so Maya can interview for a job at an architecture firm in Portland. After a bit of car trouble, they find themselves unexpectedly staying the night at a remote Airbnb in a small Oregon town. A stranger knocks on their door asking for someone who isn’t there and they soon find themselves besieged by a man and two women, all wearing eccentric masks.

The wittiest moment comes just a few minutes in when a title card declares how many violent crimes have occurred in America since the film began. There is little else in the movie that signals that kind of self-awareness aside from scattered acknowledgment of elements lifted from the first film, such as a specific song by Joanna Newsom on a record player. The most visually inventive idea in the entire movie is the placement of the camera inside a refrigerator as Gutierrez sets a six-pack of beer down and his face remains perfectly framed by the bottles.

Before the masked invaders have fully launched their attack, Maya and Ryan enjoy a post-coital cuddle on the sofa of their sketchy rental place, with Maya wearing only a shirt that skims the top of her thighs. Ryan goes into town under some pretense or another — there is much needless business in the film about a missing inhaler — leaving Maya by herself. As the Strangers methodically begin their sordid work, Maya hangs out, smokes pot, checks the door and noodles on a piano. Rather than wanting to scream for her to look out for what’s behind her, audiences may want to shout for her to just put on some pants.

The first “Strangers” movie had an air of creepy suspense, as the besieged couple often looked off into blank space, bringing an unnerving tension to what was often nothing. The new film never conjures the same feelings of rustic menace.

“The Strangers - Chapter 1” ends with a — spoiler alert! — title card that reads “To Be Continued.” (Plus a brief mid-credits stinger scene.) Building out the mythology of the attackers or making this anything other than a brief, inexplicable and random encounter, as the subsequent films apparently promise to do, diminishes the core terror of the essential premise of the first film, that sometimes bad things just happen.

There is a strange courage to assuming that your horror sequel will demand/deserve two more outings. Wanting audiences to sit through a warmed-over rehash of a preexisting film to get to even the possibility of something new in the story of the upcoming installments feels like a big ask.

The original “Strangers” made the walk to the parking lot after feel weird, or inspired some securing of doors and windows at home. Not so with the rote stylings of the new film. The knock at the door of “The Strangers - Chapter 1” can simply go unanswered.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .

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2008’s “ The Strangers ” didn’t seem like the kind of film that would produce a series when it was released. But it’s about to explode into precisely that with the release of “The Strangers Trilogy,” three films directed by Renny Harlin that serve as sort of a remake but also a prequel to the Bryan Bertino hit. In the 2008 film, an average couple, played by Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman , found themselves terrorized in a remote vacation home by three masked strangers. It’s an effective piece of genre filmmaking—as is the lesser-but-solid sequel “ The Strangers: Prey at Night ”—partly because there is no explanation for the terror. When Tyler’s Kristen wants to know why she’s being attacked, Gemma Ward ’s Dollface memorably replies, “Because you were home.” What’s more terrifying than random brutality? And why would anyone think we need to fill in the back stories of the Man in the Mask, Pin-Up Girl, and Dollface?

I don’t usually believe in knocking a film (or trilogy, in this case) merely on concept alone. It’s possible that the other two chapters in this trilogy, reportedly to be released within the next year, won’t fill in the blanks in a way that drains the power from one of the things that made “The Strangers” a hit. Honestly, I don’t know yet because “The Strangers: Chapter 1” is essentially a remake of Bertino’s film, ending with a post-credits tag scene that hints at a potentially more ambitious second chapter. This one largely goes through the motions of a horror remake, often feeling like a faded copy of the first film. Harlin injects it with a bit of his workman craft—he knows how to do this in his sleep; one wishes it didn’t make viewers drowsy, too.

Maya ( Madelaine Petsch of “Riverdale” fame) and Ryan ( Froy Gutierrez ) are traveling across the country when they take a wrong turn and end up in the kind of small town that’s not on most of the GPS systems. When they stop at a diner to get a meal, they meet some of the locals, including a Sheriff played by genre legend Richard Brake , who I have to believe plays a bigger role in chapters 2 and 3 because it’s a cameo here. More importantly, the creepy mechanics who see Maya and Ryan pull in clearly meddle with their vehicle because it won’t start when the couple gets back in it. Told the part to fix it won’t be in tonight, Maya and Ryan are pointed to an AirBnB on the edge of town where cell service is bad and shadowy figures lurk in the woods. You can guess what happens next.

Unlike a lot of DTV horror sequels over the years, Harlin brings a certain level of craft to “The Strangers: Chapter 1.” He likes to walk right up to the expected jump scare and then turn back, keeping viewers on their toes by not releasing the tension with a shout. The mid-section, wherein the masked trio seem to be almost supernaturally able to appear and disappear in the background of a frame just quickly enough that Maya doesn’t spot them, is actually effective; not up to the standards of the other two films in this series but better than a lot of home invasion junk out there. There’s a particularly effective shot with Maya at the piano, where Harlin and his team make great use of the mirror above it.

The problem is that we’ve seen this all before—like, literally—and there’s too little actual tension once Maya and Ryan realize they’re in serious trouble. The film falls apart when the hunt leaves the home and enters the poorly lit woods outside. The team here just doesn’t have the technical acumen to make these sequences work—they’re much better in the defined space of the house than the loose geography outside—and it makes all of “The Strangers: Chapter 1” feel more like an obligation before the team is allowed to break the mold in the next two films, which were shot concurrently with this one.

Once we're able to see Harlin's new trilogy as a whole, “Chapter 1” might feel more essential to the 4.5-hour experience. Right now, it just feels overly familiar.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

Madelaine Petsch as Maya

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‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’ Review: Crowded House

A reboot of the 2008 home invasion film “The Strangers” brings back masked assailants and brutal violence but leaves originality behind.

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By Erik Piepenburg

The key to a terrific scary home invasion horror movie is not just how domesticity gets breached but why. It’s great to have a determined aggressor, sympathetic victims and a brutal invasion that’s contained and sustained. But to what end?

Yet some of the best home invasion films — “Funny Games,” “Them” — don’t supply easy answers. “The Strangers,” Bryan Bertino’s terrifying 2008 thriller starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman as a couple under siege, didn’t either. It kept the invaders’ motives and their identities mysterious, amping up the devil-you-don’t-know terrors with a sense of randomness that was despairing. The premise and execution were simple. The payoff was a gut punch.

On its face, “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” the first of three new films in a “Strangers” reboot from the director Renny Harlin (“ A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master ”), checks all the same boxes. But the hapless script — written by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland and based on the original — offers nothing fresh in a tiring 91 minutes, and nothing daring to justify a new “Strangers” film, let alone a new series, especially when Bertino’s formidable film is streaming on Max .

This new tale begins with Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and her boyfriend, Ryan (Froy Gutierrez), taking a fifth anniversary road trip through the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in a rural Oregon town, they meet a seen-it-before who’s who of horror movie yokeldom: unsmiling boys, sweaty bumpkin mechanics, a diner waitress whose eyes scream “run, if you know what’s good.”

As Maya and Ryan wait for their car to be fixed, they decide to spend the night at a secluded rental cabin. Under darkness there’s a knock at the door and, true to the home invasion formula, our leading sweethearts get terrorized until dawn inside the cabin and through the woods by a trio of assailants with big weapons and indefinite end goals. They have face coverings too, making menace out of the same blank-faced creepiness the villains embodied in the original film and its 2018 sequel.

Harlin is known for action films, including “Die Hard 2,” and those chops come in handy here, especially when he’s left hanging by a sleepy middle section of frantic chases and failed attacks that feel like padding. Cat-and-mouse games can be compelling, but here , like a “Tom and Jerry” marathon, they get repetitive, dulling the impact of the violence. Petsch and Gutierrez have sufficient enough rapport, and border on sharing a couple’s chemistry as the final stretch comes to a too-predictable conclusion.

The film’s few thrilling moments have little to do with blood and guts and more with the juxtaposition of dread and song, as when Joanna Newsom’s lilting hymn “Sprout and the Bean” and Twisted Sister’s power anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It” pop up unexpectedly to disorient the action. These and other oddball musical interludes provide too-fleeting hints of what might have been had this film sought a novel household takeover, not the same old.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 Rated R for heaps of ruthless violence and general despair. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters.

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‘The Apprentice’ Review: Sebastian Stan Plays Donald Trump in a Docudrama That Nails Everything About Him but His Mystery

Ali Abbasi's film is arresting when it shows us Donald Trump being schooled by Roy Cohn. But was that enough to make him the Trump we know?

By Owen Gleiberman

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A lot of people would disagree with me, but I think there’s a mystery at the heart of Donald Trump. Many believe there’s no mystery, just a highly visible and documented legacy of bad behavior, selfishness, used-car-salesman effrontery, criminal transgressions, and abuse of power. They would say that Trump lies, slurs, showboats, bullies, toots racist dog whistles so loudly they’re not whistles anymore, and is increasingly open about the authoritarian president he plans to be.

All totally true, but also too easy. What it all leaves out, about the precise kind of man Donald Trump is, is this:

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And that, in its way, is the hook of “ The Apprentice .” Written by journalist Gabriel Sherman, and directed by Ali Abbasi (who made a splash two years ago with the Iranian serial-killer drama “Holy Spider”), the movie is a spirited, entertaining, and not overly cheeky docudrama about the years in which Donald Trump came to be Donald Trump. Which is to say: He wasn’t always.

And that’s when a pair of eyes fixate on him. Seated at a table in the next room is Roy Cohn ( Jeremy Strong ), the infamous HUAC lawyer and Red Scare architect who became notorious for being the man who sent the Rosenbergs to the electric chair. Twenty years later, he’s a private lawyer and fixer who’s friends with everyone that counts (mobsters, politicians, media barons). He eyes Donald Trump like a hungry dragon looking at a virgin. Cohn’s head is tilted down, his black eyes are tilted up (so that there’s half an inch of white at the bottom of them). This is the Cohn Stare, and it can accurately be described as a look of homicide. It’s not that he wants to kill you. It’s that he wants to kill something — it will be you, or it will be another party on your behalf.

Cohn summons Trump over to his table, and Jeremy Strong, speaking in a fast, clipped voice that fires insults like bullets, instantly possesses us. With silver-gray hair cut short and those eyes that see all, Strong does a magnetic impersonation of the Roy Cohn who turned bullying into a form of cutthroat vaudeville (and a new way to practice law), putting his scoundrel soul right out there, busting chops and balls with his misanthropic Jewish-outsider locker-room wit. He’s not just cutting, he’s nasty . And that’s to his friends! Trump, by contrast, seems soft — maybe shockingly soft if you’ve never seen a clip of him from the ’70s. He’s like a big shaggy overgrown boy, and though he’s got his real-estate ambition, his power-broker dreams (he drives a Caddy with a license plate that says DJT), he has no idea how ruthless he’s going to have to be to get them.

Cohn the reptile looks at Trump and sees a mark, an ally, maybe a kid with potential. He’s very good-looking (people keep comparing him to Robert Redford), and that matters; he’s also a lump of unmolded clay. As Trump explains, his family is in a pickle that could take them down. The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization for discriminating against Black people when it comes to who they’ll rent their apartments to. Since the family is, in fact, guilty, there doesn’t seem to be a way out of it. But Cohn, right there, floats a plan for how to do it. He says: countersue the government. It’s part of his strategy of attack, attack, attack (the first of his three rules for living).

That Roy Cohn successfully beat the government on behalf of the Trump Organization, neutering the discrimination suit, is a famous story. If Gabriel Sherman’s script is to be believed, “The Apprentice” tells an even more scandalous version. In the movie, Cohn is going to lose the case and knows it. (The Trump Organization has rent forms by Black applicants marked with the letter “C.”) So at a diner, he and Donald have a casual meeting with the federal official who’s authorizing the case. He won’t budge. But then Cohn pulls out a manila envelope. Inside it are photographs of the official frolicking with cabana boys in Cancun. Cohn, who is gay, turns his own closeted existence into a form of power. A deal is struck. And Trump is off and running, his empire built on a poison pill.

New York, at this point, is in its shabby edge-of-bankruptcy ’70s dystopian era, and Donald is determined to change that. His dream is to buy the boarded-up Commodore Hotel on 42nd St., right next to Grand Central Terminal, and turn it into a glittering luxury Grand Hyatt hotel. The area is so decrepit that most people think he’s nuts. But this is where we can see something about Trump: that he wasn’t just a charlatan with a big mouth — that he had a perception of things. He was right about New York: that it would come back, and that deals like his could be part of what brought it back. But the art of the deal, in this case, comes from Roy Cohn. He’s the one who greases the wheels to make it happen. And Donald is now his protégé.

Ali Abbasi stages the “The Apprentice” with a lot of jagged handheld shots that look a bit too much like television to my eyes, but they do the job; they convince us of the reality we’re seeing. So does the décor — as Trump starts to develop a taste for more lavish surroundings, the movie recreates every inch of baroque merde -gold vulgarity. And Sebastian Stan’s performance is a wonder. He gets Trump’s lumbering geek body language, the imposing gait with his hands held stiffly at his sides, and just as much he gets the facial language. He starts out with an open, boyish look, under the mop of hair we can see Donald is obsessed with, but as the movie goes on that look, by infinitesimal degrees, turns more and more calculated.

For its first half, “The Apprentice” is kind of a knockout: the inside look at how Trump evolved that so many of us have imagined for so long, and seeing it play out is both convincing and riveting. Yet I have an issue with the movie, and it all pivots around the mystery of Trump. I don’t think “The Apprentice” ever penetrates it.

There’s a moment when Trump is getting too big for his britches, ignoring another lesson that’s there in the Cohn worldview, which is that you have to maneuver in the real world. Cohn questions Trump’s obsession with building a casino in Atlantic City, a place Cohn says has “peaked.” He’s right. Trump winds up making bad investments, flying too close to the sun, and ultimately shutting Roy out ­— treating Roy the way that Roy treats everyone else. It’s an evolution of supreme hubris, especially when you think back to the slightly sheepish kid from Flushing who lined up to kiss Cohn’s ring.

The trouble is, we don’t fully see where that side of Trump comes from. In a relatively quick period, starting from around the time of the Atlantic City deal, and building through the moment when he pisses off the Mobster and Cohn crony Tony Salerno (Joe Pingue), which results in the half-built Trump Tower being set on fire by Salerno’s goons, Donald turns into the Trump we know today: the toxically arrogant man-machine of malignant narcissism, who treats everyone around him like crap. His marriage to Ivana devolves into a loveless debacle. He turns on his downward-spiraling alcoholic brother like a stranger. He becomes so heartless that he makes Roy Cohn look civil. He turns on Cohn, in part because Cohn has AIDS, which freaks Donald out.

We know Donald Trump did all these things. But what we don’t see, watching “The Apprentice,” is where the Sociopath 3.0 side of Trump comes from. His daddy issues, as the film presents them, won’t explain it (not really). The fact that he gets hooked on amphetamines, popping diet pills around the clock, is part of it. Yet the Trump we see goes through a looking glass of treachery, leveraging his empire — and what’s left of his emotions — to within an inch of his life. And once that happens, we’re simply watching a well-acted TV-movie made up of familiar anecdotes built around the Trump we already know. At that point, “The Apprentice,” good as much of it is, becomes far less interesting. The mystery the movie never solves is what Trump was thinking, deep down, when he chose to become Donald Trump.  

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (In Competition), May 19, 2024. Running time: 140 MIN.

• Production: Kinematics LLC, Baer Development/Gidden Media presents, in association with Rocket Science, Head Gear Films and Metrol Technology, Project Infinity, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland, a Scythia Films, Profile Pictures, Tailored Films production. Producers: David Bekerman, Jacob Jarek, Ruth Treacy, Julianna Forde, Louis Tisné, Ali Abbasi. Executive producers: Amy Baer, Mark H. Rappaport, Emanuel Nunez, Grant S. Johnson, Phil Hunt, Compton Cross, Thorsten Schumacher, Levi Woodward, Niamh Fagan, Gabriel Sherman, Greg Denny, James Shani, Noor Alfallah, Andy Cohen, Andrew Frank, Neil Mathieson, Lee Broda, Blair Ward, Anders Erdén.
• Crew: Director: Ali Abbasi. Screenplay: Gabriel Sherman. Camera: Kasper Tuxen. Editors: Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Olivier Bugge Coutté. Music: David Holmes, Brian Irvine, Martin Dirkov.
• With: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Ben Sullivan, Mark Rendall, Joe Pingue, Jim Monaco, Bruce Beaton, Ian D. Clark, Valerie O’Connor.

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3 action movies on Max you need to watch in May 2024

While there are great and terrible movies in every genre, it can be especially difficult to tell a great action movie from a terrible one just by looking at the titles. Max, which has an expansive library of great movies  across a bunch of different genres, can make the task of finding great action movies pretty difficult.

Furious 7 (2015)

The hunt for red october (1990), princess mononoke (1997).

If you’re looking for great action, then we’ve designed a list that will be perfect for you. These three movies are the ideal titles to check out on Max this May, and they prove that even within the broad genre of action, you can find a bunch of different corners that contain pretty different kinds of movies.

The story of the Fast & Furious  movies  has only become more and more complicated with each passing movie, but  Furious 7  is in some ways the platonic ideal of what these movies should be. The film follows Dom and his crew as they face off against Deckard Shaw, who is out for revenge following the death of his brother in a previous film.

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Furious 7  is ridiculous, over the top, and ultimately incredibly sincere, and it’s that bizarre combination that makes the movie effective. The final five minutes, in which Dom says goodbye to Brian, and we say goodbye to Paul Walker, are some of the most moving in the history of blockbuster filmmaking.

You can watch  Furious 7   on Max.

Although  The Hunt for Red October  is undoubtedly an action movie, it’s also in some ways a political thriller. Adapted from a Tom Clancy novel of the same name, the film follows Jack Ryan as he investigates a rogue nuclear submarine that is headed straight for American waters.

Although the movie is ostensibly about Jack Ryan, though, Sean Connery’s Russian submarine captain really steals the show as he continues to take assertive action without making his motives entirely clear. John McTiernan made plenty of great action movies over the course of his career, but  Hunt for Red October  may be the most thrilling.

You can watch  The Hunt for Red October   on Max.

Hayao Miyazaki is one of the great animation directors in the history of the medium, but he’s best known for making quiet, pastoral films about the beauty of nature. Occasionally, though, Miyazaki will make something slightly more action-forward, and that’s exactly what Princess Mononoke  is.

The film tells the story of a young girl raised by wolves who is sworn to defend the forest, which finds itself under threat by townspeople who want to bring industry to their region. While there’s plenty of battles in Mononoke , the film never loses its focus on the central theme of environmentalism that is core to so much of Miyazaki’s work.

You can watch  Princess Mononoke   on Max.

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The fringe benefits of subscribing to Amazon Prime are many, but one of the best is Amazon Prime Video, which gives you access to a whole library of great movies and TV shows. Finding something to watch on Prime Video can range from pretty easy to remarkably difficult. Because streaming interfaces don't always surface the stuff you're looking for, it can be a slog to actually figure out what you want to watch.

We've taken some of the pain out of the process, though, by selecting three underrated gems available on Prime Video that you should check out this weekend. Knock at the Cabin (2023) Knock at the Cabin - Official Trailer

Perhaps the most refreshing thing about Hulu is that its new movies aren't limited to the beginning of the month. Hulu doesn't offer the sheer volume of choices that Netflix does, but there's always something new to watch on Hulu almost every week of the year. This week is no exception.

This week's picks for the three Hulu movies that you need to watch this weekend include a romance/mystery that just arrived after a long stint on Netflix, as well as a brilliant family movie and a horror story that is better viewed without children in the room. Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

While many fans are content to stay at home during the hottest months of the year, the best movies of 2024 so far are going to theaters rather than direct to streaming. And if you don't want to wait months to see some of this year's biggest hits, then you're just going to have go out and have a movie night.

To help you keep track of the best new movies coming to theaters in 2024, we've laid out the top choices from the next three months' worth of films, which will take us almost through the summer. And each week, we'll be adding more movies from 2024 as we get closer to the summer.

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The film opens with a man running frantically through the woods, beaten and bruised, pursued by masked figures wielding knives and axes. His eventual demise, though inevitable, is barely shown, denying the audience any real sense of horror. We then cut to a couple, Maya (Petsch) and Ryan (Gutierrez), on a road trip to Portland to celebrate their five-year anniversary. Lost and hungry, they veer off the main highway and stumble upon Venus, Oregon—a town that time forgot. The local diner, filled with suspicious characters, sets the stage for what is to come. As they leave, their car mysteriously refuses to start. Two men from the diner offer to fix it, claiming it will take a day, thus forcing the couple to spend the night in an unknown place.

Ryan suspects a scam, but Maya, eager to avoid confrontation, accepts their fate and they end up staying at a log cabin listed on Airbnb. In the middle of the woods, the cabin’s eerie isolation is immediately apparent. Strange knocks on the door by a cloaked figure asking for someone who isn’t there sets the tone for the night. When Ryan leaves to get food, Maya is left alone to face the escalating terror. The masked figures from the opening scene soon begin to torment the couple, and the primary question becomes whether these two will survive the night.

Harlin’s direction and the cinematography rely heavily on tight close-up shots of the actors a technique seemingly employed to obscure upcoming scares, but this method backfires, as the audience quickly learns to anticipate every predictable jump scare. The killings lack any sense of horror or intrigue, leaving viewers to endure a protracted wait for a climax that ultimately falls flat. At least Madelaine Petsch is fun to watch. She chews up every scene as if she’s on an episode of Riverdale. This is the result of a script that has very little to work with.

In order to capture the attention of a new generation of filmgoers, particularly in a theatrical release where tickets cost upwards $17 in some cites, a reboot must offer something compelling. The Strangers: Chapter 1 is a film that should not exist, as the original already achieved what was necessary to be entertaining and memorable. This chapter marks the beginning of a series that isn’t destined to go far, but it will be a reminder that not all stories need to be retold, rebooted, or reimagined.

Maya and Ryan are written as painfully unaware and unprepared individuals, lacking any sense of self-preservation. They are archetypal horror characters who make nonsensical choices purely to drive the plot. This lack of character development results in a narrative devoid of creativity or originality. While elevated horror is not a necessity, a modicum of ingenuity is. Horror tropes can be effective and entertaining if utilized properly, but The Strangers: Chapter 1 fails spectacularly in this regard.

Title:  The Strangers: Chapter 1 Distributor:  Lionsgate Release date:  May 17, 2024 Director : Renny Harlin Screenwriter:  Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland Cast:  Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez Rating:  R Running time:  1 hr 31 min

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