The Strangers: Chapter 2 review
The new Strangers trilogy finally heads into uncharted territory.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
The Strangers: Chapter 2
Directed by Renny Harlin
Written by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland
Starring Madelaine Petsch
The Strangers: Chapter 2 Review
The second film of a trilogy has occasionally been the best installment of the series. The Empire Strikes Back and The Dark Knight being the obvious examples. Some self-professed cinephiles will tell you that The Godfather Part II deserves the same distinction. Those people are wrong and often difficult to deal with…but we aren’t here to talk about why The Godfather Part II (and III) are narratively redundant to the superior and complete original film. The Godfather Part II is still a great movie. We’re here to talk about the second chapter of Renny Harlin’s baffling new trilogy for The Strangers.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is one of the most unnecessary films ever made. While it changes some of the weird character dynamics of the original film into something a bit more straightforward…it’s basically just the exact same movie. That story never got a direct sequel featuring its surviving victim…which is where the new series comes in. After blatantly repeating the original film in Chapter 1…we finally get the direct sequel the world was maybe mildly annoyed that a didn’t get for a few minutes seventeen years ago. I guess.
Maya (Madaleine Petsch) wakes up in the hospital following the events of Chapter 1. Her fiancé is dead, and the masked gang of strangers isn’t done with her yet. That is the entire plot of The Strangers: Chapter 2. Few movies have ever strived to be less than this sequel does. In a weird way…it kind of works for the series. The whole movie is just an hour and a half cat and mouse game. Or, I suppose, cats and mouse.
The Strangers: Chapter 2 goes full slasher movie…sending Maya on a never-ending quest to escape her attackers. There’s no beginning to the story…because that was Chapter 1. There’s no ending to the story…because that will be the Chapter 3 that this movie threatens us with at the end by plastering a “To Be Continued” on screen to just…end itself. It’s an almost completely unnecessary middle section to a trilogy. It’s also probably going to be the best movie in it.
I want to stress that “best” in this case in no way means “good”. The Strangers: Chapter 2 isn’t a good movie. But it is better than Chapter 1 because it, at the very least, isn’t a remake of a movie we’ve already watched. It isn’t really anything…but that still beats being a remake. The first act of the film is very reminiscent of Halloween II. Not the Rob Zombie movie…the direct sequel to John Carpenter’s Halloween. Maya limps around an abandoned hospital with more locked doors than an early 00s video game. There’s even a brief bit of the chase from Friday the 13th Part II when she finally escapes the building. None of these are original ideas, obviously, but they are the best part of the movie.
Things start to really fall apart when Maya is attacked by a wild boar in the woods. Yeah. That happens. I don’t know why it happens. It’s too comical to be effective…but it happens. Ok…part of that’s a lie. I do know why it happens. It’s the first time Maya defends herself from an attacker and finds the strength to overcome it and, importantly, put it down. Thematically it makes sense. In practice…why is she fighting a wild boar in a movie about surviving a pack of masked killers? It’s just one of the many baffling things about this series.
The nugget of a good idea contained within The Strangers: Chapter 2 feels woefully undercooked. Maya is the outsider in this odd town full of creepy, untrustworthy folk. She doesn’t know who her masked tormenters are. They could be anyone…and, trust me, the movie makes sure that nearly every single person to appear on screen goes out of their way to look and act like a serial killer. The scenes where Maya feels trapped by people without masks on point to a suspenseful story that preys on her PTSD. And, to its credit, The Strangers: Chapter 2 uses it from time to time. But it spends more time as a straightforward slasher movie without any new ideas whatsoever. Except, that is, its oddly timed flashbacks.
For reasons known only to the creative team behind these new Strangers films…Chapter 2 occasionally shows us a flashback to the childhood of one of its masked killers. The only thing that has ever truly worked in Strangers movies is that we don’t know anything about these people. They have no motivation…and attacks are random. Well…this sequel finally answers the question of who Tamara is and why people are asking about her. It’s an incredibly shallow storyline whose entire purpose seems to be letting us know that the person behind one of the masks is crazy and evil. Yes…the masked people who have been randomly killing visitors for years. Go figure. That’s about as deep as The Strangers: Chapter 2 ever gets.
And yet…it’s still better than Chapter 1. Early reviews have it pacing behind the first installment…but that’s to be expected. Chapter 2 is a full-on slasher movie…you’re always going to take a hit with that. People hoping to see the series grow into something new will be disappointed in this movie. It doesn’t even try. What it does do, however, is provide a basic throwback slasher climax stretched out over a feature length film. Then it stops before providing an ending. If that sounds bad…it pretty much is. But it’s still better than remaking The Strangers again. Besides, the ending will come in Chapter 3. How many trilogies end on a high note? On second thought…don’t answer that.
Scare Value
The Strangers: Chapter 2 is a step up from the remake that was Chapter 1. That doesn’t mean it’s good. It isn’t. The final chapter is unlikely to be either. Perhaps there will be a fan-cut of the trilogy one day that pulls one decent film out of the drags that are the individual movies. I doubt anyone will bother to remember the series long enough for that to happen, however. If this is the best the trilogy has to offer…we’re left with the same question we had after Chapter 1. Why are they making these?
2/5
The Strangers: Chapter 2 Link
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