Lionsgate is planning a May 17th theatrical release for the horror film The Strangers: Chapter 1, and they’re taking a viral marketing approach to this one. When the South by Southwest festivals were held in Austin, Texas last month, the Strangers were spotted around the city. The music and arts festival Coachella is going on Indio, California right now, and Lionsgate sent the Strangers out to crash this festival as well. A video of the Strangers at Coachella can be seen in the embed above, and images of their time at the festival can be seen at the bottom of this article.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 was directed by Renny Harlin, who shot an entire trilogy of Strangers movies at the same time. We’ve heard that Lionsgate will also be releasing The Strangers: Chapter 2 and The Strangers: Chapter 3 by the end of the year.

Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale)  has the lead role in Chapter 1 and is joined in the cast of these films by Froy Gutierrez (Cruel Summer), Rachel Shenton (All Creatures Great and Small), Gabriel Basso (Hillbilly Elegy), and Ema Horvath (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power). The Strangers: Chapter 1 centers on Petsch’s character as she drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Gutierrez) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers. Lionsgate plans from there to expanding the story in new and unexpected ways with its sequels.

The new Strangers trilogy was filmed in Slovakia. Courtney Solomon produced them with Mark Canton, Christopher Milburn, Gary Raskin, Charlie Dombeck, and Alastair Birlingham. Andrei Boncea, Dorothy Canton, and Roy Lee serve as executive producers. Rafaella Biscayn, Frame Film SK, Johanna Harlin, Juan Garcia Peredo, and Alberto Burgueno are co-producing. 

Harlin has said The Strangers: Chapter 1 “is close to the original movie in its set-up of a young couple in an isolated environment in a house and a home invasion happening for random reasons.” Then Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 “explore what happens to the victims of this kind of violence and who the perpetrators are of this kind of violence. Where are they coming from and why?“

Are you looking forward to The Strangers: Chapter 1 and its sequels? Let us know by leaving a comment below – but first, take a look at these images of the Strangers at Coachella:

The post The Strangers crashed Coachella to promote the release of Chapter 1 appeared first on JoBlo.