There’s no way to sugarcoat it: 2024’s The Strangers: Chapter 1 was a debacle. Despite its impressive $48.2 million box office return on an $8.5 million budget, the first installment in a reboot trilogy of 2007’s The Strangers was torn apart by critics and fans alike. The Strangers – Chapter 2 (2025) aims to correct the complaints that the first film was nothing more than a dull retread of the original. Unfortunately, this sequel is only a slight improvement, incrementally moving the story forward and suggesting interesting ideas for where this trilogy can go without elaborating in any particularly exciting way.
The sequel picks up right where The Strangers: Chapter 1 left off, with protagonist Maya Lucas (Madelaine Petsch) waking up in the hospital after her encounter with the titular slashers in the small town of Venus, Oregon. Before she can make sense of her situation, The Strangers reappear. From there, director Renny Harlin constructs an elongated chase that fills out much of the 98-minute runtime. That may sound like simplifying it, but seriously, the vast majority of The Strangers – Chapter 2 is Maya being chased across Venus by the titular villains.
A More Ambitious Look
Making an entire movie out of what would typically be the second act of a slasher isn’t a bad idea. Really, it’s almost an ingenious one… and there are times when it actually works. Renny Harlin is a prolific journeyman filmmaker whose credits reach all the way back to the likes of Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988), Cliffhanger (1993), and Die Hard 2 (1990). All of this is to say that he knows how to make a functional horror movie. If anything, The Strangers – Chapter 2 is quite functional. It keeps things moving at all times, and the opening hospital sequence, which takes up about half the runtime, can be intermittently exciting.
Much of that excitement comes from cinematographer José David Montero (Afterburn, Apollo 18). Montero is allowed to untether his camera from the first movie’s eyes-glazed-over static shots and follow Maya through the hospital in a wild manner that, at the very least, is kind of cool to look at for a second. The problem is that there’s no feeling behind this formal gimmick. It’s a trick, a placebo to convince viewers that they’re getting excited. Once the narrative moves beyond the hospital, the chase continues to yield diminishing returns. Not even a bizarre subplot (of sorts) where Maya comes face-to-face with a wild boar can liven up the proceedings.
The Strangers are Non-Descript in The Wrong Way
Part of the blame goes to the portrayal of The Strangers themselves. A trio known by their masks as The Scarecrow, Dollface, and Pin-Up, in the original film, The Strangers are a haunting cipher whose violent actions feel random by design. They could appear anywhere, their masks obscuring any emotion and their motives chillingly unexplained. The highly underrated The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018) added a unique twist, where the killers seemed to be more deliberate and even gleeful in their crimes. Here, they are generic slashers, moving like every other typical horror villain you have seen. No personality, no distinct movement, and nothing to fear.
One of the biggest missteps of The Strangers – Chapter 2 is the decision by Renny Harlin and screenwriters Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland to add an origin to The Strangers. That’s not the worst idea in the world, despite the random nature of The Strangers being part of the initial canon — who can forget the line, “because you were home”? In this sequel, we don’t find out “why?” The Strangers behave the way they do. Rather, we get a kernel of “how” they got started, and not only is it flat as all hell, it’s straight up baffling.
The Problems All Stem From the Script
Baffling is also the best way to describe the screenplay at hand, which moves Maya from set piece to set piece with no sense of direction. The Strangers: Chapter 2 forgets that it’s supposed to be the second installment in a trilogy and not the middle piece of a longer movie. Sometimes, this approach can be effective, as seen in Dune (2021), which essentially serves as an extended prologue to the events of its second part. However, Cohen and Freedland are completely unable to find anything novel for Maya to tackle. One genuine low point sees Maya being picked by a group of townies, featuring actors Gabriel Basso and Ema Horvath.
Fan-favorite character actor Richard Brake appears for all but a couple of minutes, and he’s completely wasted. All the praise goes to Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale), who clearly cares about this project. While Maya is given little to no characterization, Petsch plays the role as if this is her last chance ever to act in a horror film, communicating a guttural fear with an ability to fight back that you can assume was nowhere to be found in the thin script. It’s hard to describe just how well she acquits herself, other than saying she’s desperately trying to make this sequel work. Somebody please give Ms. Petsch a better horror sandbox to play in; she certainly deserves it.
The Strangers – Chapter 2 is a Deeply Unambitious Experience
As harsh as this review sounds, The Strangers – Chapter 2 doesn’t qualify as unwatchable. Renny Harlin’s film is tolerable for the duration of its runtime, offering audiences (very) passive entertainment that presents familiar tropes in a slightly cozy manner, sparking some interest in a potential third movie. Are those our standards, though? Should horror fans, specifically, be okay with settling for less? The Strangers – Chapter 2 is the second act of a “trilogy” that could be charitably described as a basic slasher saga stretched out for the sake of profit. When the sum of the parts is already less than the whole, maybe it’s time to throw in the towel.
The Strangers – Chapter 2 premiered at Fantastic Fest 2025 and hits theaters on September 26!
Release Date: September 26, 2025.
Directed by Renny Harlin.
Written by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland.
Based on characters created by Bryan Bertino.
Produced by Courtney Solomon, Mark Canton, Alastair Burlingham, Charlie Dombek, Christopher Milburn, & Gary Raskin.
Executive Producers: Roy Lee, Norman Merry, Simon Baxter, Andrei Boncea, Dorothy Canton, Anders Erdén, Ken Halsband, Peter Hampden, Kia Jam, Evangelo Kioussis, Dennis L. Pelino, Blair Ward, & Paul Weinberg.
Main Cast: Madelaine Petsch, Gabriel Basso, & Ema Horvath.
Cinematographer: José David Montero.
Composers: Justin Burnett & Òscar Senén.
Production Companies: Lionsgate Films & Fifth Element Productions.
Distributor: Lionsgate Films.
Runtime: 98 minutes.
Rated R.
