The Strangers: Chapter 2, 2025.
Directed by Renny Harlin.
Starring Madelaine Petsch, Richard Brake, Rachel Shenton, Brooke Lena Johnson, Froy Gutierrez, Florian Clare, Janis Ahern, Pablo Sandstrom, JR Esposito, Sara Freedland, Pedro Leandro, Jamie Taylor Ballesta, Ema Horvath, and Gabriel Basso.
SYNOPSIS:
After learning that one of their victims, Maya, is still alive, the three masked maniacs return to finish the job. With nowhere to run and no one to trust, Maya soon finds herself in a brutal fight for survival against psychopaths who are more than willing to kill anyone who stands in their way.
The Strangers: Chapter 2 opens with a statistic breaking down how often home invasion murderers occur and how those motives are usually completely random. That was also the entire basis behind Bryan Bertino’s terrifying, disturbingly grounded-in-reality original. With that said, it’s baffling that both chapters of director Renny Harlin’s (written by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, although to be honest the film is so empty and devoid of anything resembling characterization that it often feels as if it went into production without a script) unnecessary remake make a point of that statistic, only to be committed to failing at telling a narrative giving reason to these killings, this bizarre small town, and now, embarrassing backstories to the masked killers.
It’s practically a film criticism cliché to assert that a filmmaker doesn’t understand the material. Here, not only is that statement more relevant than ever, but it should be underlined, highlighted, and written in all-caps. Seriously, what in the hell is the point in remaking a beloved horror film (bastardizing it into three chapters in the process) where the petrifying fear comes from the lack of a motive, only to stretch that out into a narrative all about eerie small-town mysteries and demented motives?
Perhaps this would be forgivable if The Strangers: Chapter 2 made good on the cat-and-mouse thriller aspect. Well, the first chapter fell flat on its face, so there’s no reason for anyone to be expecting that in the first place, but there’s nothing wrong with hypotheticals. Even then, this movie is stunning in its uninvolved lack of suspense and airlessness. Nearly every chase sequence oddly feels like watching someone play a survival horror game or one of those Telltale choose-your-own-adventure-style games.
Madelaine Petsch’s surviving Maya (yes, because even the bleak ending was altered for this go-around) is often seen walking around empty buildings for minutes at a time with practically nothing happening, as if one should have a controller and be looking for an escape, or choosing the right survival weapon and who to attack at the right time when conflict eventually comes. That might sound interesting on paper, so the most important tidbit here is that it’s akin to watching someone play a supremely boring horror game.
That’s already bad in itself, but the film, struggling to be a complete film, stretches itself out by repeating similar sequences; Maya must get into a car two or three times or be rescued two or three times by supporting characters, only for the same result to happen, placing her back at square one, trying to survive. If she so much as enters the car in Chapter 3, I might have to leave the theater. It’s one thing to be dull; it’s another thing entirely to be boring and consistently repeat oneself. There is one moment where the film attempts to break this pattern and do something different, only for it to come off as utterly ridiculous and make one beg for the stale familiarity to return.
With Maya running all around town after escaping the hospital (the masked killers break in trying to get her), this also means that there is slightly more time to have her run into and interact with other residents including a shady sheriff played by Richard Brake, a strange group of women assuring her she will be safe in their apartment (despite allowing their male roommates to enter the car, each of them sitting beside her in the backseat, apparently oblivious to how uncomfortable this would make any woman let alone one being hunted down by masked serial killers), and yes, flashbacks to the childhoods of the killers themselves. Admittedly, there is some mild intrigue here, until one remembers that it’s once again going against the entire premise of this trilogy.
The ending to The Strangers: Chapter 2 and the juxtaposition it makes is downright laughably pathetic. The whole endeavor is pathetic, with the only minor saving grace being that Renny Harlin remains a competent filmmaker, technically telling a coherent story, even if, despite having actors in roles, there is not a single actual character here (Madelaine Petsch somehow, miraculously, turns what little she is given to work with into a decent performance). That’s how low the bar is now. Chapter 3, which is threatened in the ending credits as allegedly coming soon, might still not clear it.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
