When The Strangers came out in 2008, it had mixed reviews, which didn’t matter. It became a cult film. It has characters that have such a good look to them and the end of the film, where Dollface explains it all by telling the couple that they were attacked “Because you were home,” which was enough in the quality starved mid 2000s. The sequel, The Strangers: Prey at Night, changes influences from the 1970s to the 1980s. While it also has its audience, it’s really twenty good minutes looking for a movie to be part of.

Imagine how surprised I was when Lionsgate announced that director Renny Harlin and writers Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland would be making three new films in this series, all in a row, all shot in Slovakia. Is this the 2000s all over again?

Intellectual property is insidious. Sure, we love seeing sequels of the films that we love. But when an IP is a success, we can be sure that we’ll see numerous remakes and reimaginings of every horror property there is — except for Friday the 13th, right? — again and again.

Where this movie changes the game — slightly, ever so slightly — is by having its leads Maya (Madelaine Petsch) and Ryan (Froy Gutierrez) traveling across the country and being forced to stay overnight in Venus, Oregon, as opposed to visiting their summer home in the midst of a relationship crisis.

Harlin has stated that this trilogy was intended to be neither a remake nor reboot. He was also aiming to get the tone close to the first movie, despite plans to explore who the killers are and where they come from. This suggests to me that what made the original so great — there’s no motivation for the killers other than they need something to do — is similar to why Halloween remains the best film in that series. It’s all about keeping things simple as well as scary.

Producer Mark Canton also says that these three movies are all about introuducing audiences to the world of The Strangers and that they want to expand that world Also, these movies take place in the same universe as the original two films. Harlin also told ComicBook.com, “We, of course, shot them on top of each other and mixed up, like movies are always made. But we had to keep in mind that this is one story arc. It is one 4.5 hour movie, and the first movie is a first act. It sets up the characters and the terror and the Killers and our main character, who will survive the first movie, but then go on a journey for the next two.” The thought is that these movies will show four days in the life of Maya.

The problem with shooting three movies at the same time is that the first movie better knock you out. And this, well…remember when Gus Van Zant remade Psycho and people wondered why it was shot for shot? At least that was a classic film that had several decades in between. This just feels like watching a fan film of the original. Sure, it looks great, but it’s missing the menace that the first take had, the moments of looking out into nothingness, wondering what is out there waiting. That’s one of the most terrifying things in real life and The Strangers captured it flawlessly.

None of the masked characters are actors from the other films. The Man In the Mask is now called Scarecrow and he’s played by Matúš Lajčák while Dollface is Olivia Kreutzova and Pin-Up Girl is Letizia Fabbri.

It took Michael Myers six movies to find the Thorn Cult and Jason ten movies to go to space. Who knows where these films are going to go? Will we see other people make their own karaoke versions of mid-level slashers? Will I be enraged when Zack Snyder remakes The Prowler and Michael Bay shows us his vision of The Being? But we all lived through the Platinum Dunes era, when the films we once loved were strip mined and made into barely recognizable films with pretty kids getting killed by CGI versions of the murderers we once cheered for.

I am reminded that Harlin also made A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and Exorcist: The Beginning. Then again, he did make Deep Blue Sea, the movie that taught me that LL Cool J’s head is like a shark fin. Maybe I should be patient and see where he goes with this. But man, how many chances has this guy got? For every The Long Kiss Goodnight there’s Cutthroat Island, but then again, he also made Prison, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and Die Hard 2. I feel too old and too limited in the time that I watch movies — yes, I know, I watch like four a day — to sit through three of these movies only to say, “Eh.” Maybe I want too much, you know?

At least the Spirit Store will have official masks for all the Hot Topic kids to wear this Halloween.

Eh, that feels like I’m being a gatekeeper. Perhaps this will lead people to discovering better movies.

Now I’m being too much of an optimist.