anchorman 1 movie review

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Sometimes the key to satire is to stay fairly close to the source. "Anchorman," like "This Is Spinal Tap," works best when it's only a degree or two removed from the excesses of the real thing. When the news director goes ape over stories about cute animals at the zoo, when the promos make the news "team" look like a happy family, the movie is right on target. But when rival local news teams engage in what looks like a free-for-all from a Roman arena, it doesn't work. Most of the time, though, "Anchorman" works, and a lot of the time it's very funny.

The movie centers on Ron Burgundy ( Will Ferrell ), the legendary top local anchor in San Diego in the early 1970s. Ron has bought into his legend, believes his promos, and informs a blonde at a pool party: "I have many very important leather-bound books, and my apartment smells of rich mahogany." His weakness is that he will read anything that is typed into his prompter. Anything. The words pass from his eyes into his mouth without passing through his brain.

There are viewers in every city who will think they know who this character in based on. Certainly anyone who was around Chicago TV news in the 1970s will instantly think of one name. I will not reveal the name here, but I will tell a story. A friend of mine was an assignment editor on this nameless anchor's station. One day he gave a juicy assignment to the man's co-anchor and rival. The next day the nameless one leaned casually against my friend's door:

"Say, John, that was a great story you had for Maury yesterday. What do you have for me today?"

" Contempt ."

True story. "Anchorman" also shows promotional spots in which Burgundy and his news teammates smile at each other lots and lots. Last week Richard Roeper and I reviewed promos at PROMAX, the annual convention of TV promotion people. One spot showed the members of a news team doing magic tricks, performing with a Hula Hoop, playing a ukulele, etc. Yes, it was intended to be funny. And it was funny, especially if that's how you want to think of the people you trust for your news.

As "Anchorman" opens, Ron Burgundy faces a crisis. Ed Harke, the stations news director, played by the invaluable Fred Willard , wants to add "diversity" to the newsroom by hiring a woman -- no, a WOMAN! -- as Burgundy's co-anchor. This cannot be. It is not right. It is against nature. Burgundy is appalled. The new co-anchor will be the efficiently named Veronica Corningstone ( Christina Applegate ), and yes, reader, she was the blonde that Burgundy tried to pick up with the leather and mahogany line.

The other news team members include the wonderfully named Champ Kind ( David Koechner ), Brick Tamland ( Steven Carell ) and Brian Fantana ( Paul Rudd ). And yes, sometimes when they're together, they actually do sing "Afternoon Delight." They are united in their fear of adding a woman to the team. "I read somewhere," one of them ominously warns, "that their periods attract bears." Odors play an important role in the movie. Hoping to attract Corningstone, Brian Fantana splashes on a high-octane cologne that smells, the newsroom agrees, "like the time the raccoon got in the copier."

If the movie simply focused on making Ron and his team look ridiculous, it might grow tedious, because that would be such an easy thing to do. But it has a kind of sweetness to it. Despite his weaknesses, Ron is sort of a nice guy, darn it all, and Veronica Corningstone, despite her desire to project a serious image, kinda likes the guy -- especially when he reveals an unsuspected musical talent in a lounge one night, after he's asked to "sit in on jazz flute."

The movie contains a lot of cameo appearances by other stars of the current comedy movie tour. Their names I will not reveal. Well, a character's name I will reveal: An anchorman named Wes Mantooth is Burgundy's arch-enemy. When the news teams clash in a free-for-all, it's over the top. But a lot of the quieter moments of rivalry are on target. I have known and worked with a lot of anchorpersons, even female anchorpersons, over the years, and I can tell you that almost all of them are good people -- smart professionals who don't take themselves too seriously. But every once in a while you get a Ron Burgundy, and you kind of treasure him, because you can dine out on the stories for years.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

Rated PG-13 for sexual humor, language and comic violence

Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy

Christina Applegate as Veronica Corningstone

David Koechner as Champ Kind

Steven Carell as Brick Tamland

Paul Rudd as Brian Fantana

Fred Willard as Ed Harken

Chris Parnell as Garth Holliday

Directed by

• Will Ferrell

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Christopher Nolan Has 1 Genius Rule That Explains His Creative Brilliance

Cillian murphy officially returning for 28 years later, vin diesel teases fast 11 will include key brian car in bts video, anchorman might have made a good 3 minute skit, but there's not enough here to fill a movie that feels like it's 4 hours long..

You're probably familiar with the theory that with comedies, the funniest parts are usually in the trailer, not leaving much unseen when it comes to the film itself.

I'm here to tell you that Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy sadly, does not break that rule. Having recently seen the very funny Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story , I really was hoping for the best here.

It starts out with a voiceover talking about local news shows and how much weight they carried back in the days before cable. Yes, for some of you reading it may come as a shock, but cable TV did not always exist. There was some promise in the opening, which described the state of affairs back then with just enough tounge-in-cheek to make me think I was in for a witty backhanded salute to the early 70's (which seems to be when the movie takes place).

At first I wasn't disappointed, although the most the movie elicited from me (and the audience) was a slight chuckle here and there. I was expecting the early part of the film to be a warm up for the good stuff, but unfortunately from there (with a few exceptions), the film slides into just plain silliness, and from there dumbness.

The jist of the film is the end of the male newsanchor era, with the first woman (Christina Applegate) trying to break into the business, and how the guys behind the newsdesk are fighting it. Christina was actually the bright spot in the film, and whenever she was on screen things improved considerably. The male news team is led by Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and they're just a bunch of stereotypical characters. You've got the ringleader Ron, then there's the guy who's a ladies man in his own mind, the tough-guy sportscaster who gives unsubtle hints that he's in the closet, and then the requisite stupid character (the weatherman, with a self-professed IQ of 48).

We have your basic story of gorgeous, intelligent woman who for some bizarre reason falls in love with egotistical, moronic man. In addition, without exception every male character in this film is portrayed as an idiot. Fred Willard as the station manager shows some bit of intelligence, but that is shot through by the running gag concerning his lack of handling his troublemaker son in Catholic school.

The film gets weirder as it goes on and attempts to pay homage to a number of movies and TV shows, including Planet of the Apes and The Six Million Dollar Man .

Bottom line, Anchorman would have been a funny SNL skit (actually it was, wasn't it?) and it felt more like 4 hours than 90 minutes long. If I wasn't going to see another movie afterwards, I probably would have walked out.

If you're in the mood for a comedy, go check out Dodgeball before it's gone. Trust me.

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13 September 2004 1:07PM

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Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy Review

10 Sep 2004

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Will Ferrell is no longer just that funny one from that film with Ben Stiller/Vince Vaughn/either of the Wilson brothers. Since Elf, he's been anointed as one of the new kings of comedy, the big hulking dunderhead part of the "Fratpack" - that group of near-middle-aged men who should know better but have provided the biggest guilty laughs of this year.

But Anchorman isn't quite Ferrell's finest creation, having the hit-and-miss quality of an extended Saturday Night Live sketch. His writing credit is indicative of the fact that most of what makes it to screen is clearly just Ferrell and co. making it up as they go along, plot be damned. That sometimes leads to baffling lunacy which borders on the embarrassing, but equally it offers episodes of such inspired idiocy that the only reasonable response is to laugh yourself stupid.

Ferrell's also wise enough to surround himself with a supremely gifted supporting cast. Applegate stirs many a giggle by playing it (relatively) straight in a confederacy of dunces and, mark our words, Steve Carell, who plays dim-witted weather man Brick Tamland, will be giving Ferrell trouble at the box office this time next year...

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• DVD & Streaming

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Content caution.

In Theaters

• Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy; Christina Applegate as Veronica Corningstone; Paul Rudd as Brian Fantana; Steve Carell as Brick Tamland; David Koechner as Champ Kind; Fred Willard as Ed Harken; Chris Parnell as Garth Holiday

Home Release Date

Distributor, movie review.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is yet another wreck of a vehicle for Will Ferrell’s comedic talent. He plays Ron Burgundy, the top-rated TV anchorman at KVWN in San Diego. Pompous and chauvinistic (yet occasionally kindhearted), Burgundy is master of all he surveys: smoking and drinking on the TV set (“I love Scotch.”), hitting on the women he works with (“How are you? You look nice today. Maybe don’t wear a bra next time.”) And he reigns supreme over a posse of men who comprise his “news team”: rowdy sportscaster Champ Kind; sauve field reporter Brian Fantana; and the clueless weatherman, Brick Tamland. The team works, plays and debauches together, with Burgundy leading the way.

This boys’ club is thrown into instant disarray upon the arrival of Veronica Corningstone, a talented, feisty female determined to succeed in the male-dominated TV business. Of course Burgundy and his team greet Veronica’s “intrusion” onto their turf the only way they know how, by asserting their perceived dominance. “It’s anchor man ,” Champ opines, “not anchor lady .” “We need to bed her quick,” says another.

Veronica easily rebuffs the crude passes of Burgundy’s lieutenants, but, sadly, falls prey to him. She hopes to keep their love affair under the table. Burgundy, truly smitten, doesn’t. The resulting interplay between their love and rivalry drives the story to an unlikely showdown between Burgundy, Veronica and the news team—and a family of grumpy grizzly bears.

Positive Elements

One of the film’s funniest scenes hints at the emptiness of promiscuity. Following Burgundy’s announcement to the newsroom that he and Veronica slept together and that he’s in love, Brian asks, “What’s it like?” Burgundy responds, “The intimate stuff?” To which Brian says, “No, the other part: being in love.” Sex is almost the only subject Burgundy and his boys talk about, yet for just a moment, Brian longs for something deeper.

Burgundy’s touching affection and loyalty to his dog, a little terrier named Baxter, reveals a kind spot in his heart. (Burgundy and Baxter sleep in matching pajamas and retainers for their teeth.) [ Spoiler Warning ] By film’s end, Burgundy accepts Veronica as an equal. Instead of hogging the spotlight, he voluntarily shares it with her. And he begins to acknowledge Veronica’s skill as an anchorwoman, not just as a sex partner.

Spiritual Elements

Burgundy says to his dog, “You’re like a miniature Buddha.”

Sexual Content

Crude conversations, salacious joking, over-the-top visual gags and sexual innuendoes go on and on. After the station wins a ratings sweep, the employees celebrate with a private pool party attended by women wearing bathing suits and lingerie. Burgundy meets Veronica at this party; twice he propositions her crudely. Another character at the party tries to impress a woman by telling her the name he’s given his genitals.

Each of the four news-team members makes a pass (or worse) at Veronica. Champ gropes her breasts; she responds by hitting him in the crotch. Brian tries to woo her using “Sex Panther” cologne; she tells him it “smells like a diaper filled with Indian food.” Brick clumsily tries to tell her he has a “party in his pants.” And when Burgundy asks her out at the station, he gets an erection that receives a lot of camera time.

Veronica briefly resists Burgundy’s amorous advances, then caves in and has sex with him. (There’s no nudity, and the camera doesn’t linger on anything beyond kissing, but animated inserts and “cutesy” dialogue let the audience know what’s going on.) What the filmmakers failed to take into account is that the fact that she has sex with him so easily greatly undermines their attempt to ultimately portray her as a victorious, worthy woman.

It’s hinted at that Champ may have homosexual tendencies. And it’s implied that station manager Ed Harken’s young son has a stash of pornography. (Ed tries to minimize the problem by saying everyone looks at pornography.)

Violent Content

Burgundy tosses some litter out of his car which results in a nearby biker having an accident. In retaliation the biker picks Baxter up and punts him off a bridge into the ocean.

Burgundy and Veronica have a knock-down drag-out fight in the office, hurling office equipment (a typewriter) at each other and crushing desks and furniture. Veronica also maces Burgundy in the face, twice.

One of the subplots is the news station’s rabid rivalry with the other stations in town. It runs so deep that five different news crews arrive in an abandoned warehouse district for an old-fashioned rumble with knives, bats, chains and guns. The fight gets violent in a Monty Python kind of way: One character gets his arm hacked off with knife; another ends up with a pitchfork in his back; still another is lit on fire. The violence is surprisingly graphic, yet it’s executed with a tone that’s supposed to be funny.

Burgundy, Veronica and the news team also end up in a ridiculous battle against a family of grizzly bears. They come through more or less intact, but the news reporter who lost one arm in the gang battle has his other arm ripped off when one of the bears jumps up and grabs it.

Ed is told his son is shooting people. Burgundy threatens to hit Veronica in the ovaries. Wes punches the news van.

Crude or Profane Language

The film is liberally sprinkled with profanity and vulgarities. The s-word, f-word, and Jesus’ name each pop up once. “G–d–n” is used twice. Milder profanities make numerous appearances. Characters use many crude euphemisms for different parts of the body or bodily functions.

Drug and Alcohol Content

As are many movies that depict the ’70s, this one is marked with almost constant use of alcohol and tobacco. Burgundy and Veronica, as well as most of the other characters, smoke and drink their way through the film. And they’re usually consuming hard liquor, such as Scotch, not just beer or wine. Burgundy’s overindulgent use of these substances on the TV set is most obvious, perhaps a satirical attempt to represent the excesses of the decade.

Ed remarks that his son was on acid and was shooting arrows into a crowd. At his lowest point, Burgundy temporarily looks and acts like a drunken homeless man.

Will Ferrell is one of America’s fastest rising comedic stars. In addition to his long stint as a Saturday Night Live regular, his success in the films Old School and Elf has elevated him to “must see” status—and broadened his audience base.

Ferrell’s appeal lies in his straight-faced (if not straight-laced) humor. In one Anchorman scene he’s “talking” to his terrier, Baxter, at the end of the day. Baxter barks, and Ferrell responds as if he’s having a conversation with a wise mentor. Near the end of their “conversation,” he deadpans, “You know I don’t speak Spanish.” He’s adept at making many of his lines, like this one, belly-laugh funny—and teens are eating it up.

But teens (and most adults) aren’t going to automatically understand what Ferrell claims is the point of Anchorman . His inspiration came from a documentary on the blatant chauvinism of male TV personalities in the ’70s. “It was such a fun era to look back on,” he says. “We’ve kind of forgotten now what it was like because, for the most part, things have become more equal in terms of gender roles. But when you look back at the attitudes then, it seems so silly. It’s great to be able to play on the fact that these guys are male chauvinists. We are not glorifying male chauvinists, we are making fun of them.” (Ferrell and former SNL writer Adam McKay co-wrote the script. Thus, the film has a skit-like, SNL feel to it.)

What most moviegoers are going to walk away with instead is a twisted view of women’s worth as human beings. Ron Burgundy makes some progress. But I question whether his character development is adequate to offset the onslaught of coarse humor and misogynistic themes—let alone the pervasive profanity, alcohol abuse, smoking and violence.

Here’s the question I’m compelled to ask after seeing films such as this one and others of it’s ilk ( Dodgeball, anyone?): Does everything have to be quite so crude? The likes of Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller and Mike Myers certainly have the ability to craft great comedy without constantly resorting to such lowbrow tactics. Why can’t they reach deeper into their bags of funny tricks and rely less on sexual laugh-getting ploys?

As it is, Anchorman is merely the latest in a long string of hugely disappointing films from funnymen who would serve their young fans better if they pulled their minds and their scripts out of the gutter.

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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Anchorman: the legend of ron burgundy.

Directed by Adam McKay

They bring you the news so you don't have to get it yourself.

It's the 1970s, and San Diego super-sexist anchorman Ron Burgundy is the top dog in local TV, but that's all about to change when ambitious reporter Veronica Corningstone arrives as a new employee at his station.

Will Ferrell Christina Applegate Paul Rudd Steve Carell David Koechner Fred Willard Chris Parnell Kathryn Hahn Fred Armisen Seth Rogen Paul F. Tompkins Danny Trejo Scot Robinson Ian Roberts Darcy Donavan Renee Weldon Jerry Minor Holmes Osborne Charles Walker Shira Piven Lili Rose McKay Thomas E. Mastrolia Jay Johnston Peter A. Hulne Laura Kightlinger Adam McKay Joseph T. Mastrolia Judd Apatow Debra McGuire Show All… Kent Shocknek Monique McIntyre Bob Rummler Charles Poynter Esmerelda McQuillan Angela Grillo Lionel Allen Trina D. Johnson Mary Alice G. Goodin Yasmine Nickle Fred H. Dresch Glen Hambly Stuart Gold Bill Kurtis Jack Black Ben Stiller Luke Wilson Frank Gorgie Missi Pyle Tim Robbins Vince Vaughn Jerry Stiller Holly Traister Matthew Vlahakis Richard Yett

Director Director

Producers producers.

Judd Apatow Diane L. Sabatini David B. Householter

Writers Writers

Will Ferrell Adam McKay

Casting Casting

Juel Bestrop Jeanne McCarthy Blythe Cappello

Editor Editor

Brent White

Cinematography Cinematography

Thomas E. Ackerman

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Matt Rebenkoff Basil Grillo

Additional Directing Add. Directing

Executive producers exec. producers.

Shauna Robertson David O. Russell

Lighting Lighting

Michael Everett

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Harry K. Garvin Steven Hiller

Production Design Production Design

Clayton Hartley

Art Direction Art Direction

Virginia Randolph-Weaver Mark Molina

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Jan Pascale Barbara Mesney Sally Thornton Randall D. Wilkins

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Ray McIntyre Jr. Richard R. Hoover Diana Stulic Ibanez

Stunts Stunts

Rick Avery Sophia M. Crawford Joni Avery Jack Gill Joe Bucaro III Lisa Hoyle

Composer Composer

Alex Wurman

Sound Sound

Jim Stuebe Darrin Mann Donald Flick Piero Mura Richard L. Anderson Mike Chock Philip Rogers Joan Rowe Sean Rowe Mark A. Mangini

Costume Design Costume Design

Debra McGuire

Makeup Makeup

Kimberly Greene Erin Wooldridge

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Toni-Ann Walker Joy Zapata

DreamWorks Pictures Apatow Productions

Releases by Date

28 jun 2004, 19 nov 2004, 09 jul 2004, 10 sep 2004, 01 oct 2004, 21 oct 2004, 04 nov 2004, 26 nov 2004, 04 mar 2005, 13 mar 2005, 18 may 2005, 01 oct 2021, 28 dec 2004, 20 apr 2005, 28 jun 2006, 11 sep 2013, 02 oct 2013, 14 may 2007, releases by country.

• Theatrical M
• Digital Netflix
• Theatrical 12
• Theatrical 13
• Theatrical T

Netherlands

• Physical 6 DVD
• TV 6 Veronica
• Physical 6 Blu ray
• Theatrical M/12
• Premiere AP
• Premiere 11 Stockholm International Film Festival
• Theatrical 11
• Physical 11 DVD
• Physical 11 Blu-ray
• Theatrical 15
• Premiere PG-13 Mann's Chinese Theatre
• Theatrical PG-13 DreamWorks Pictures 94 minutes
• Physical NR DreamWorks Home Entertainment #93107 [VHS] / [DVD] 98 minutes

95 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Wesley R. Ball ★★★★ 5

I love... carpet.  I love... desk. 

Brick, are you just looking at things in the office and saying that you love them? 

I love lamp. 

Do you really love the lamp, or are you just saying it because you saw it?  I love lamp. I love lamp.

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How does Veronica Corningstone go for Ron Burgundy when Paul Rudd is RIGHT THERE ???

Review by Simon Ramshaw ★★★★ 4

"Why don't you go back to your home on Whore Island?" - Ron Burgundy

There's just something about Anchorman that makes it an absurdist cult classic.

Maybe it's the smell of rich mahogany that it gives off.

Maybe it's the yazz flute soundtrack.

Maybe it's the twisted science, where a woman's brains are 1/3 the size of the male's, and where bears can smell menstruation.

Maybe it's the loving of lamps. The loving of carpets. The loving of desks.

Maybe it's the intense emotional resonance of the glass case of emotion.

Maybe it's the fact that 60% of the time, the jokes work every time.

But one thing's for sure: it's kind of a big deal.

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“60% of the time, it works every time” is a great way to describe Adam McKays career.

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international women's day watch

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"And you ate the whole wheel of cheese? I'm not even mad. That's amazing."

Review by DirkH ★★★★ 10

I've long ago given up on trying to pinpoint what tickles my funnybone, but there has always been one consistent thing that gets me laughing and that is dead pan absurdism.

Anchorman has that in spades. It plays everything with a straight face and it's just absolutely ridiculous. The dialogue, the physical comedy, the plot and the spontaneous spells of absurdity make this film a cocktail that clicks really well with me.

There's no point in analyzing this film. It's bonkers in all the right ways and reminded me a lot of Police Squad and Airplane. I usually like Ferrell, so that certainly helps, but Carell's schticky idiocy got the most laughs out of me. It's a trick he does, but boy does he do it well. So if that's your thing, definitely watch it (if you're one of the three people that hasn't yet).

Stay classy, Letterboxd. Stay classy.

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"Oh, Baxter, you are my little gentleman. I'll take you to foggy London town 'cause you are my little gentleman. Wow, this burrito is delicious, but it is filling."

Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★ 1

Turns out ANCHORMAN is still a funny movie when I'm not 13 years old. Somehow the least funny parts of it are what became quotable, though.

Review by lauren ★★★½ 1

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

im not even joking, I teared up when the dog was thrown off the bridge so you cant imagine my relief when he showed up again at the end. thank GOD

Review by Tasha Robinson ★★ 1

This particular brand of tongue-in-cheek eye-rolling, smirking, and self-congratulatory overacting is never going to be my comedic bag. This film has some great moments, but so much of it is lazy, dated character humor and repetition that it feels like an overstretched Saturday Night Live skit-turned-movie to me.

Review by Matt Singer ★★★★★

The scene with Ron and Brian and his cabinet of colognes may well be the funniest movie scene of my lifetime. Every line is funny. Every word is funny. There’s like two unfunny syllables. The rest? 24 karat comedy gold.

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Anchorman Parent Guide

Anchorman Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is about to have his 1970s chauvinistic views of womanhood challenged -- and on TV -- when the newsroom hires Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), an ambitious talent who is more than just a pretty face.

Release date July 8, 2004

Run Time: 94 minutes

Get Content Details

The guide to our grades, parent movie review by rod gustafson.

In mid-1970s San Diego, Ron Burgundy (Will Farrell) is the man. No, he’s not the mayor. He’s not all that rich either. But he has the power because he’s the top news anchorman in the city.

Anchorman rewinds the tape to the “glory” days of broadcast news when a good voice, the ability to read from a TelePrompTer, and being a male were the main ingredients to getting a spot under the bright lights. For Burgundy, a man who has a difficult time understanding basic human relations let alone international politics, it’s a good thing the requirements aren’t any more onerous.

Unfortunately, the word “diversity” literally isn’t in Burgundy’s dictionary. He soon discovers its true definition when Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) walks into the newsroom. Not only is the attractive blonde the wrong gender-but she’s smart, too-something the guys never expected from the fairer sex.

For anyone (like myself) who has spent some time in the television news industry, Anchorman will force you to crack a wry smile at these egotistical characterizations. While Burgundy may appear over-the-top, most industry insiders who date back to this era will identify with more than a few of his brash traits.

However, audiences simply looking for a comedy on the marquee may leave disappointed with the film’s lack of plot and direction. Burgundy’s fall from grace and feeble recovery is hardly engaging. Instead the film feels more like a set of skits from Saturday Night Live-the television program from which most of these cast members (including Ferrell who also co-wrote the script) originated.

Unlikely to be a film of interest for young children, parents may find the sexually oriented dialogue and sight gags too spicy even for teens. Priding himself as a man who has slept with a variety of women, Burgundy often makes chauvinistic remarks (intended to be taken as humor within this spoof), derogatory comments about gay men, and more explicit sexual cracks. He’s depicted seducing a woman after which sex is heavily implied, while another extended scene shows him clothed with an obvious erection that is the topic of conversation.

Perhaps the most bizarre moment is another longer-than-necessary sequence where the news team engages in a very violent street battle with competing broadcasters. Again, it’s all played for laughs, but characters are seen with graphic wounds, including a man whose arm is sliced off.

Sprinkled with profanities (including a single use of a sexual expletive), this innuendo-laden broadcast is unlikely to deliver good news for family viewing.

Note: Tis movie is also known as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy .

About author

Rod Gustafson

Anchorman parents' guide.

If you were responsible for hiring a news anchor, what skills would you look for? How would you weigh the qualities of image and intellect? What traits do you feel are essential to build an audience’s trust in a television personality?

The most recent home video release of Anchorman movie is December 3, 2013. Here are some details…

Home Video Notes: Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgundy: The Rich Mahogany Edition (Unrated)

Release Date: 3 December 2013

Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgundy is releasing to home video (Blu-ray) in an unrated The Rich Mahogany Edition . Extras on this 2-deisc set include:

- Making of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

- Deleted scenes

- Music video

- Ron Burgundy Interview with Bill Kurtis

- Ron Burgundy A&E Biography

- MTV Music Awards Interview with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos

- ESPN Audition

Anchorman also known as Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy releases to Blu-ray on March 15, 2011.

Related home video titles:

The importance of image over abilities is also spoofed in the film S1M0xD8NE . A more serious critical eye is turned to the news industry in the film Mad City .

Related news about Anchorman

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The strangers: chapter 1, common sense media reviewers.

Nothing new in violent home invasion horror movie.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The movie opens with sobering statistics about vio

It's made clear that Maya is the hero of this movi

Although we know that a woman will eventually beco

Killings. Guns and shooting. Knives and stabbing.

Flirting, passionate kissing. A couple begins undr

Several uses of "f--k" and "s--t," plus "motherf--

Ally banking app shown and mentioned. Budweiser be

Main character smokes pot; another character sugge

Parents need to know that The Strangers: Chapter 1 is the third movie in a home invasion horror franchise that started in 2008 -- but it's also the first film in a new standalone trilogy. It's more of the same, with lots of killings, dead bodies, guns/shooting, stabbings, bloody wounds, pools of blood, and…

Positive Messages

The movie opens with sobering statistics about violent crime in the United States but doesn't really do anything with that or comment on the violence; instead, it just provides more fictional violence.

Positive Role Models

It's made clear that Maya is the hero of this movie/the whole ultimate trilogy, which is probably why she survives (it seems mainly due to luck). She has a couple of good ideas that help temporarily, but she also has some poor ideas (like taking a shower after the creepy stuff starts happening).

Diverse Representations

Although we know that a woman will eventually become the hero of the three-part series, she's not any more prominent than a man here. A White couple is at the center of this story, and the two characters are in almost every scene, either together or separately. Background characters in a small town appear to all be White; other characters are masked throughout.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Killings. Guns and shooting. Knives and stabbing. Oozing pools of blood, bloody wounds. Characters are punched and knocked unconscious. Jump-scares. Threats/menace. Character is impaled with an axe offscreen (there's a sickening "thunk"). Blood drips from a dead animal that's hanging from light fixture. Character impales hand on nail. Axe smashes through doors. Motorcycle explodes, bursts into flames. Characters trip over things, injured. A woman is attacked from behind, grabbed around throat. Decomposing skull. Vehicles crash into each other and up against a tree, with a person trapped inside. Character threatened with lug wrench.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Flirting, passionate kissing. A couple begins undressing but is interrupted. Suggestive dialogue. Couple lies on a couch in their underwear, implying post-sex cuddling. A woman spends several scenes wearing a long-sleeved button-up shirt and no pants.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "f--k" and "s--t," plus "motherf----r," "ass," "hell," "oh my God." Middle-finger gesture.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Ally banking app shown and mentioned. Budweiser beers shown.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Main character smokes pot; another character suggests that its effects may have caused her to "see things." Main characters drink beer, and there are empty Tequila mini-bottles. Secondary character smokes a cigarette.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Strangers: Chapter 1 is the third movie in a home invasion horror franchise that started in 2008 -- but it's also the first film in a new standalone trilogy. It's more of the same, with lots of killings, dead bodies, guns/shooting, stabbings, bloody wounds, pools of blood, and threats. A person is killed with an axe, a woman is grabbed by the throat, someone gets trapped in a smashed car, there's an explosion, characters are knocked unconscious, etc. Words like "f--k" and "s--t" are used fairly often, along with "motherf----r," "ass," "hell," and "oh my God." Characters flirt, kiss passionately, and start to undress each other but are interrupted. Half-dressed characters lie on a couch, suggesting that sex has taken place. People drink beer and tequila and smoke pot, and a secondary character smokes a cigarette. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (3)

Based on 3 parent reviews

too much nudity

they show real life nudity, my daughter is 98 and she’s still disgusted about the part where they took their clothes off

my mommy made me watch this movie! it was scary when they started showing nudity, even my mom, who is 123 years old is scared as well and writes a review like this one. wouldn’t recommend watching it unless your alone.

What's the Story?

In THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 1, Maya ( Madelaine Petsch ) and Ryan ( Froy Gutierrez ) are taking a road trip to celebrate their fifth anniversary. They stop for lunch in the small town of Venus, Oregon, but when they get back to their car, it won't start. A local mechanic (Ben Cartwright) informs them that that he has to send out for a part. A server at the cafe, Shelly ( Ema Horvath ), drives them to an Airbnb where they can spend the night. At first, it seems like a romantic evening, but trouble starts when a creepy figure knocks at the door and asks for someone who isn't there. Then Ryan has to head back to town to find his inhaler, and Maya begins seeing strange masked figures everywhere. When one of them attacks her, the couple realizes that they're in for the fight of their lives.

Is It Any Good?

The third entry in a not-very-good series that began back in 2008 (and the first movie in a new trilogy), this home invasion horror movie makes no improvements and adds nothing new to the formula. The Strangers: Chapter 1 is the first film in a trilogy that director Renny Harlin shot all at once. Perhaps the future installments will expand on the story, but this time around it's pretty scant. Harlin, best known for his action movies, does have Nightmare on Elm Street and Exorcist entries on his resume, and this film looks professional, but it's lifeless. It makes all the same mistakes as its predecessors -- such as the "strangers" seemingly possessing the ability to appear and disappear suddenly and noiselessly. The killers, who are definitely creepy in their masks and in the casual way they move, are otherwise totally uninteresting; they have no dimension, no flaws.

And, as ever, the heroes aren't terribly smart (although they may be a teensy bit more resilient than in the earlier movies). Characters are forever tripping over things or forgetting their phones. In one scene, Ryan returns from town and stomps and creaks all over the house looking for Maya, without ever calling her name (we're meant to think he's one of the strangers). Maya unwisely takes a shower while he's gone (has she seen no horror movies?). And the strangers use an axe to bash a door in when they've already shown that they can just magically appear inside. There are dumb jump-scares aplenty, too. Weirdly, the whole thing starts with an opening crawl about the frequency of violent crimes in the United States, then makes no further comment. Ultimately, The Strangers: Chapter 1 seems like little more than a place-holder, a vacant attempt to wring more money out of a fizzled franchise.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Strangers: Chapter I 's violence . Why do you think the movie opens with the crawl about the frequency of violent crimes in the United States? What do you think the movie is trying to say about violence?

Is the movie scary? What's the appeal of horror movies ? Why do people sometimes enjoy being scared?

What's the appeal of the "home invasion" horror subgenre?

How are alcohol and pot represented? Is substance use glamorized? Are there consequences? Why does that matter?

How does this movie compare with its predecessors? Does it try anything new?

Movie Details

• In theaters : May 17, 2024
• Cast : Madelaine Petsch , Froy Gutierrez , Ema Horvath
• Director : Renny Harlin
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
• Studio : Lionsgate
• Genre : Horror
• Run time : 91 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : horror violence, language and brief drug use
• Last updated : May 16, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

• In the 1970s, an anchorman's stint as San Diego's top-rated newsreader is challenged when an ambitious newswoman becomes his co-anchor.
• In 1970s San Diego, journalism was a well respected profession and people actually cared about what they saw on TV. And the top rated anchor man in the city is Ron Burgundy. He enjoys his run at the top, and has for the last five years. And his news team is equally as good as he is. Professional jock and former professional baseball player Champ Kind handles the sports, the curiously dim witted Brick Tamland - who's a few channels short of a cable subscription - handles the weather, and ladies' man Brian Fantana - whose collection of fine scents would be in the Guinness Book Of Records - handles the on-field reporting. But now all that is about to change forever. The TV station Burgundy works for, Channel 4, has embraced diversity and has hired a beautiful new female anchor named Veronica Corningstone. While Ron Burgundy and the rest of the Channel 4 news team enjoys fighting with competitors, drinking, and flirting with the ladies, Veronica quietly climbs her way to the top. And Veronica's success drives Ron Burgundy crazy. So much that Veronica's meddling causes Ron to get demoted and ultimately lose his job with Channel 6. Now left with nothing, Ron must find a way to get back to the top - and that involves a story about a rare Chinese panda giving birth on US soil. Will Ron be the one to report the story on a national level? — halo1k
• Set in the 70s, Ron Burgundy is the top rated newsman of San Diego's male-dominated Channel 4. Veronica Corningstone, who joins this news channel, is more than just a sex object; she's determined to be a news anchor. And no, she's not kidding, unlike what Ron Burgundy thought as a "funny joke". As Ron becomes increasingly jealous of her popularity, the animosity between them gets bigger. — gamergcfan
• San Diego, 1970s. Ron Burgundy is an anchorman at a local TV news station. He is very popular and a local celebrity. His news segment is Number 1 across all demographics and things are going incredibly well. However, his news team is entirely male and resembles a boys club. In the interests of diversity the station brings in a female reporter, Veronica Corningstone. While the remainder of the team are appalled at the decision, Ron is torn between a similar misogynism and his attraction to her. Initially Ron and Veronica do well, and an intimate relationship forms. However, an event splits them apart, resulting in a bitter feud between the two. — grantss
• Ron Burgundy is the top-rated anchorman in San Diego in the '70s. When feminism marches into the newsroom in the form of ambitious newswoman Veronica Corningstone, Ron is willing to play along at first-as long as Veronica stays in her place, covering cat fashion shows, cooking, and other "female" interests. But when Veronica refuses to settle for being eye candy and steps behind the news desk, it's more than a battle between two perfectly coiffed anchor-persons... it's war. — [email protected]
• In the mid 1970's, Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is the famous and successful anchorman for San Diego's KVWN-TV Channel 4 Evening News. He works alongside his friends on the news team: fashion-oriented lead field reporter Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), sportscaster Champion "Champ" Kind (David Koechner), and a "legally retarded" chief meteorologist Brick Tamland (Steve Carell). The team is notified by their boss, Ed Harken (Fred Willard), that their station has maintained its long-held status as the highest-rated news program in San Diego, leading them to throw a wild party. Ron sees an attractive blond woman and immediately tries to hit on her. After an awkward, failed pick-up attempt, the woman leaves. The next day, Ed informs the team that he has been forced by the network to hire Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), a female news reporter from Asheville, North Carolina and the same woman Ron had tried to pick up the night before. The news team attempts to seduce Veronica using various inept, arrogant and sexist methods, all of which backfire. Ron ends up asking her out under the guise of helping out a new co-worker, which she accepts. During their date, Ron woos Veronica by playing jazz flute in his friend Tino's (Fred Armisen) club. Veronica goes against her policy of not dating co-workers and sleeps with Ron. The next day, despite agreeing with Veronica to keep the relationship discreet, Ron tells the entire news room that he and Veronica are in a sexual relationship (and later announces it on the air). The next day when Ron is on his way to the station, he throws a burrito out his car window, accidentally hitting a motorcyclist (Jack Black) in the head, causing him to crash. In a fit of rage, the biker retaliates by punting Ron's dog, Baxter, off a bridge. A distressed and incoherent Ron calls Brian from a pay phone and tells him what happened. Since Ron is now late, Brian frantically tells him to come to the station because Veronica is about to take his place. Despite Ron's efforts to arrive on time, Veronica goes on air. After Ron arrives, he has an argument with Veronica about the situation and they break up. The next day, Veronica is made co-anchor, much to the entire news team's disgust. The co-anchors soon become fierce rivals and argue with each other both on and off the air. One day while feeling down on themselves, the News team decides to buy new suits. However on the way to the suit shop Brick, who was leading the way, gets them lost ending up in a shady part of town. They are then confronted by Wes Mantooth (Vince Vaughn) and the evening news team. Tired of their rudeness and petty anger, Ron challenges them to a fight. All armed with crude weapons the two teams are about to fight when they are joined by Channel 2 news team with lead anchor Frank Vitchard (Luke Wilson), the public news team and their lead anchor (Tim Robbins), and the Spanish language news with lead anchor Arturo Mendez (Ben Stiller). A full on melee ensues between the five teams until they all flee when police sirens are heard. When they return to the studio, Ron gets in another heated argument with Veronica and they get in a physical fight after she insults his hair, increasing tensions even more. While in a restaurant celebrating Veronica's success, one of Veronica's co-workers tells her that Ron will read anything that is written on the teleprompter. Later, Veronica sneaks into the station and changes the words in Ron's teleprompter. The next day, instead of Ron saying his signature "You stay classy, San Diego!" closure, Ron ends the broadcast with, "Go f*** yourself, San Diego." Everyone in the studio, except Ron, is speechless. An angry mob gathers outside the studio and Ed is forced to fire Ron. Garth is especially hurt and sobs while labeling Ron "a poopmouth". Veronica sees that she has gone too far and attempts to apologize, but Ron angrily dismisses her while being led through the mob by security, yelling at her that she had "reduced him to rubble". Three months later, Ron is unemployed, friendless, hated by the city, and is a slovenly drunk. In this time, Veronica has become very famous, but is hated by her male coworkers for sabotaging Ron; Ed told Champ, Brick, and Brian not to talk to Ron or he will fire them if they do. When it is announced that Ling-Wong the panda is about to give birth, all San Diego news teams head to the zoo to cover the story. In an attempt to sabotage her, the public news anchor pushes Veronica into a Kodiak bear enclosure. When Ed cannot find Veronica, he calls the bar where Ron spends most of his time and reluctantly asks him to return. Ron then summons the rest of his team by blowing the "News Horn", despite the fact that they were all standing a foot away playing pool. Baxter, who has miraculously survived, hears this call and follows the voice to find Ron. Once at the zoo, Ron jumps into the bear pen to save Veronica, with everyone else at the zoo watching. The Channel 4 news team then jumps in to help Ron. Just as the leader of the bears is about to rip Ron and Veronica apart, Baxter shows up and convinces the bear to let them live by mentioning that he is a friend of the bear's cousin, Katow-jo, whom he met in the wild. After Ron and Veronica reconcile, it is shown that in years to come, Brian becomes the host of a Fox reality show named Intercourse Island, Brick is George W. Bush's top political adviser, Champ is a commentator for the NFL before he was fired for sexually harassing Terry Bradshaw, and Ron and Veronica are co-anchors for the CNN-esque World News Center, taking over after the narrator retires and it is shown to be some time later as Ron and Veronica are shown wearing 80's fashions.

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Solidly scary 'The Strangers: Chapter 1' makes perfect use of the horror movie devices

Masked creeps from 2008 film torment young couple in a stylish, satisfying thrill ride..

Menacing attackers in masks turn up at a couple’s isolated Airbnb in “The Strangers: Chapter 1.”

Perhaps no other cinema genre is filled with as many tropes as the horror movie, to the point where the “Scream” franchise is one extended meta tribute to the “rules” of slasher films and the “Scary Movie[s]” take it even further by lampooning the satire. I’m surprised we haven’t had a “Super Scream-y Scary Movie” that takes the Easter Egging to the next level.

Now comes Renny Harlin’s “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” which has a bit of a funhouse mirror element of its own, as it bears similarities to the nasty little horror gem (and sleeper hit) “The Strangers” (2008), though the filmmakers are billing this new movie as the first of a three-part standalone trilogy and not a reboot or remake. (Judging by the smart phones used by the main characters and a scene involving FaceTime, it would appear to be a sequel, existing in the same “Strangers” universe, rather than a prequel.)

With a “Story by” credit for Bryan Bertino, who was writer-director of the original “Strangers,” and a screenplay by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, shooting on all three of the new films took place at the same time in Slovakia in the fall of 2022 — so we’re essentially getting one big slasher movie chopped (sorry) into three parts.

As for those tropes: With a nod to Jeff Foxworthy’s old “You might be a redneck …” routines, for Madelaine Petsch’s Maya and Froy Gutierrez’s Ryan, the young couple in this story, “You might be in a horror film” if …

• You roll into a spooky town in the middle of nowhere in your shiny BMW and walk into a diner where everyone in the place, including the shady-looking lawmen, look at you as if you’re from outer space, what with your clean clothes and your brushed teeth and your questions about whether the menu has any vegetarian options.

• On the wall in that diner: a flyer offering a reward for finding some rich city-slicker type who passed through town a while back and POOF! Disappeared just like that.
• After your car mysteriously breaks down (ahem) and the creepy local garage owner (ahem) says you’ll have to wait until tomorrow before he can get a replacement part (ahem), you check into a remote Airbnb house in the middle of the woods (ahem).

This is just the tip of the ax, so to speak. (The trailer gives away more plot developments than you’ll glean from my little tidbits.) Filmed with great style by the veteran director Harlin (“Die Hard 2,” “The Long Kiss Goodnight”) and featuring strong and empathic work by Petsch (“Riverdale”) as a classic Final Girl who is very smart and resilient but makes some truly terrible decisions in the clutch, “The Strangers: Chapter 1” is a well-paced, 91-minute thrill ride that provides a steady helping of jump scares while ending on a note that has us eagerly anticipating the next chapters in the saga.

Maya (Madelaine Petsch) doesn’t feel safe in her overnight lodging in “The Strangers: Chapter 1.”

Even though we’re deeply familiar with nearly every beat, that very familiarity is what makes it so fun. (I mean, come on Maya, you’re going to take a long shower after it’s been clearly established there’s danger lurking just outside or maybe even inside the cabin? Come ON, girl!)

Maya and Ryan are celebrating their fifth anniversary as a couple and are on the third day of a road trip (Maya hopes to clinch a high-paying, big-city job) when they take a detour to the small town of Venus, Oregon, stop at that diner and wind up spending the night at that Airbnb — a hunter’s home deep in the woods with a coop of clucking chickens, an ominous-looking shed out back and an interior design in the main house that practically screams, “Slasher Movie Digest.”

• ‘Abigail': When the victims aren’t exploding, the vampire story is meandering

They’re just settling in when there’s a loud pounding on the door, and there’s a girl standing in the dark on the porch and asking, “Is Tamara here?” She’ll return, more than once, before the night is over. After the second knock at the cabin, Maya and Ryan should have considered taking their chances in the woods.

It’s not long before the methodically menacing and mostly silent trio of Man in the Mask, Dollface and Pin-Up Girl we met in the first “Strangers” film are tormenting this innocent couple for seemingly no reason. In a pair of elegantly chilling sequences (the editing in this film is superb), Maya and Ryan fight for their lives against the needle-drop background of first “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues and later “The Best of Times” by Styx. You’ll never think of those classic rock tunes in the same way again.

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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 Strangers: Chapter 1’ Is a Whole New Level of Brainless Horror Movie

New remake “The Strangers: Chapter 1” does a huge disservice to its fantastic predecessor, offering up a masterclass of preposterousness and inanity instead.

Nick Schager

Entertainment Critic

John Armour / Lionsgate

Bryan Bertino’s 2008 The Strangers is one of the millennium’s finest horror films, and a large part of its success stems from the fact that it doesn’t cheat by making its main characters morons. Faced with a home-intrusion nightmare carried out by three silent fiends, two wearing old-timey masks and the other boasting a burlap bag over his head, its protagonists (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman ) routinely assess their situation logically and react accordingly, thereby eliciting urgent, nail-biting engagement with their plight. It’s a small-scale masterclass in orchestrating suspense through diligent plotting and staging, not to mention memorable imagery, highlighted by the repeated sight of its villains materializing in the background, their motionless muteness casting them as inexplicable and unnerving harbingers of doom.

The same, alas, cannot be said about the sequel to Bertino’s gem, 2018’s clumsier The Strangers: Prey at Night , and that goes, double, triple, quadruple for The Strangers: Chapter 1 , which hits theaters May 17. The first entry in a planned trilogy whose subsequent installments will be released in the coming year, Renny Harlin’s thriller is a de facto remix of the franchise’s first outing, the primary difference being that whereas Bertino’s original was sleek, sinister, and deft, this do-over is noisy, dull, and dumb as a bag of rocks. Managing to do a disservice to virtually every plot element that it borrows, it’s proof positive that horror-cinema components are far less important than the artists tasked with piecing them together.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 wastes no time establishing its reliance on inanity to conjure up scares. In a forest, a businessman flees unknown assailants, and despite having an enormous head start on his pursuers (after all, they’re nowhere in sight), he carelessly trips, falls and calamitously injures himself. Another male character will later exhibit similar clichéd inelegance and suffer an ankle injury that hinders his ability to fight back—one of many examples of Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland’s screenplay taking the easy way out to make its characters vulnerable.

As quickly becomes clear, this prologue is not just unimaginative but completely pointless, as the film shifts its attention to Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez), a young couple in love who are celebrating their five-year dating anniversary and are on the third day of a road trip to Portland where Maya is trying to get an architecture-related job.

This is flimsy pretext for why the duo are traveling through the middle of Oregon nowhere, and yet it’s more contextual detail than is provided about Ryan, a guy without any apparent profession, family, friends or defining character traits aside from his failure to pop the question to Maya—which, it’s later revealed, is simply the result of cutesy miscommunication. Maya and Ryan’s shallowness, however, pales in comparison to their stupidity. While cruising down the highway, Maya announces that she’s hungry, and Ryan pulls off the road at her urging to drive for miles (?) down a forested road that’s so remote they lose cell service (?!) and, upon finally locating the tiny town of Vernon, cheerily opt to eat at the creepy ’50s-era diner (?!?). There, they preposterously announce to all the grungy rural patrons that Maya is a vegetarian and that they’re not married, making themselves the center of attention in a place where they obviously don’t fit in and are unwelcome.

Madelaine Petsch

Such brainlessness continues apace once they discover that their car no longer works and, despite Ryan accurately deducing that it’s due to sabotage by the hayseed mechanic, agree to stay at some oh-so-convenient hunting cabin that’s rented out as an Airbnb (!!!). This locale resembles the setting of Bertino’s The Strangers , minus the eeriness, given that Harlin’s quick cutting and look-at-me POV pans sabotage any sense of mounting dread. Once ensconced in this abode, Maya and Ryan discover that the refrigerator doesn’t work and, even though they’re only staying until morning, call for repairs in the dead of night. They’re then visited by a faceless girl who bangs at the door and asks for a non-existent person. In response, they proceed to do one head-smackingly baffling thing after another, from ignoring the threat and splitting up, to smoking weed and taking showers without any additional thought to the real and unsettling threat on their literal doorstep.

The Strangers: Chapter 1

The Strangers: Chapter 1 mimics the majority of its ancestor’s visual and narrative moves (including its incessant record-player tunes), albeit with a gracelessness that underlines how severely Harlin has fallen since his last watchable endeavor, 1999’s Deep Blue Sea . Maya and Ryan may have an inexplicable visitor milling around their woodlands cabin but they’re perfectly content to light lots of candles to have sex, to leave each other alone for long stretches for laughably contrived reasons, and—once they’re beset by faux-Scarecrow and his Betty Boop-ish female murderesses—to consistently make the wrong decisions in every single perilous situation in which they find themselves. Whereas Tyler and Speedman’s original victims had a head on their shoulders (and wanted to keep it that way), these young lovers are obsessed with emerging from safe spaces so they can become easier prey. They’re also fond of foolishly not looking where they’re going, making noises at inopportune moments, and waiting too long to take the decisive action that would save their hides.

Froylan Gutierrez and Madelaine Petsch

In its embrace of idiocy as a means of devising wannabe-nerve-wracking scenarios, The Strangers: Chapter 1 is actually a child of 1980s slasher films that cared less about rationality than about generic screams, chases, escape attempts, and ultra-violence. Even when it comes to its striking-looking baddies, Harlin lingers on them so long—as they silently appear and disappear, slowly walk about while singing “Rock-a-bye Baby,” or stand and stare at their targets—that they come across not as ghostly apparitions so much as pretentious cosplayers unduly taken with their own uncanniness. Harlin is as well, and he strikes the wrong balance between showing and suggesting, further undercutting the material’s terror.

At outset, title cards state that 1.4 million violent crimes occur each year, which translates to one every 26.3 seconds—meaning that seven have already occurred since the film began. The Strangers: Chapter 1 ’s most extreme offense, though, is what Harlin and company do to Bertino’s modern classic, right up to a coda that sets the scene for what will likely be more second-rate pulp.

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Jeff daniels feared ‘dumb & dumber’ toilet scene would “end” his career, ‘the strangers: chapter 1’ review: horror tropes gone wrong in renny harlin’s latest.

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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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Will ferrell to star in netflix ‘golf’ comedy.

The streamer has picked up 10 episodes of the scripted series created by Ferrell, Ramy Youssef and Josh Rabinowitz, with Rian Johnson also set to exec produce.

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Netflix is ready to tee off with Will Ferrell .

In his first scripted TV comedy series, Ferrell will star in a scripted comedy series titled GOLF . The streamer has picked up 10 episodes of the series, which is co-created by Ferrell, Ramy Youssef — who will also have an onscreen role — and Josh Rabinowitz ( Babes, Ramy, The Carmichael Show ).

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Youssef and Rabinowitz, who previously teamed for Hulu’s critically praised comedy Ramy , will serve as showrunners and exec produce GOLF alongside Ferrell, Jessica Elbaum and Alix Taylor for Gloria Sanchez Productions. Rian Johnson (Peacock’s Poker Face ), Ram Bergman and Nena Rodrigue will exec produce for T-Street, while Andy Campagna will exec produce for Cairo Cowboy.

For Ferrell, GOLF marks his biggest scripted acting role to date. After breaking out on NBC’s Saturday Night Live , he guest starred in Grace Under Fire and Living Single before starring opposite Paul Rudd in the Apple limited series The Shrink Next Door, and exec producing Netflix’s Dead to Me and HBO’s Succession. In features, the comedy legend counts Elf, Anchorman, Step Brothers, Old School, Wedding Crashers, Zoolander, Talladega Nights and Daddy’s Home . He next reprises his voice role in Despicable Me 4 and the Netflix documentary Will & Harper alongside his friend, Harper Steele. He’s repped by UTA, Mosaic and Jackoway Austen.

Youssef, for his part, exec produces the Netflix comedy Mo and has the Amazon animated series #1 Happy Family USA . He recently debuted his second comedy special, More Feelings , for HBO and A24. Youssef recently helmed an episode of FX’s The Bear and made his feature debut in Poor Things. He’s repped by WME, Entertainment 360 and Yorn Levine.

Rabinowitz penned the Pamela Adlon-directed feature Babes with his Broad City cohort Ilana Glazer and also counts Rel among his credits. He’s repped by UTA, Entertainment 360 and Yorn Levine.

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