This review contains spoilers for the ‘The Strangers’ film series.
The nightmare is over. Not just the horrifying turmoil in which masked serial killers torment Maya (Madelaine Petsch). No, the nightmare of this elongated, unnecessary, unscary, forced horror trilogy has come to a close, barring any heinous act of more films at the behest of Lionsgate. The Strangers: Chapter 3 (2026) is the final nail in the coffin, stripping away the eerie mystique of Bryan Bertino’s cult-classic The Strangers (2008) or the 80s-stylized slasher thriller of The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018).
The intention to reboot this series has led to a confusing understanding of what made the earlier films potent. The foundations of this trilogy in finding out why the Strangers kill have always been a creatively bankrupt ploy to over-extend three films, disregarding why the horror hinged on the ambivalent apathy these killers showed to their victims and destroying the allure of the unknown. This new Strangers trilogy has insisted on itself as not only pivoting the lore, but also exercising the worst tropes modern horror films revel in to an annoying degree.
Renny Harlin, the directing steward of this garbage barge, is no Bryan Bertino. Heck, he’s not even Renny Harlin of the 90s, director of classics like Cliffhanger (1993) and the second-best shark movie after 1975’s Jaws, Deep Blue Sea (1999). Much like this franchise, this is a hollowed-out Renny Harlin, devoid of any zest or flair for tension, and robotically directing the motions of a lifeless series of films. We get the surprise jump scares accompanied by loud bursts of music cues when a character turns around, we get characters making dumb decisions (such as not looking at the road when driving away from imminent danger), or the laziness of a prolonged scene of weak suspense that culminates in being nothing.
Perhaps it’s the nadir bar of expectations the prior films have set; maybe it’s the lowest, rock-bottom dread coming into the theater, the feeling one has when they prepare to rip off a band-aid that’s been on longer than it should. Whatever loathsome anger lingering from the last two entries has now been replaced with numbness. Was it some of the semi-interesting directions Chapter Three takes? Is it the fact that it stops becoming a regurgitation of The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024), or ditches the interminable, redundant cat-and-mouse chase of The Strangers: Chapter 2 (2025), or relief that this series was over? Maybe it’s all three. This Chapter is marginally the best of these films, simply by virtue of avoiding what the prior films offer. That doesn’t make this remotely good—not even close — but it makes the experience more tolerable. Put that on the poster.
Chapter 3 picks back up with Maya escaping the crashed ambulance, which killed Pin-Up Girl at the end of Chapter 2. She escapes into the woods, injured and avoiding capture by Scarecrow and Dollface. Meanwhile, the unscrupulous Sheriff Rotter (Richard Brake) seems less interested in investigating the killings of the last two films and more in preventing outsiders, such as Maya’s sister, Debbie (Rachel Shenton), and her husband, Howard (George Young), from uncovering the insidious nature of Venus’ complicity with the masked killers, as she is in search of Maya. Maya finds herself in the midst of the Strangers’ inner circle, and she learns what her role entails as the remaining killers decide how to use her in their twisted game.
The film intercuts flashbacks to Scarecrow and Dollface as young children, growing up with a gleeful taste for killing, as their behavior becomes normalized by the town of Venus. This storyline chronicles their tactics in how they toy with their prey, the origins of the infamous knocking on the door, asking if Tamara is home, and how their bloodlust for murder came to fruition. Nothing undercuts the creepy aura of these killers more than seeing them as unassuming teens looking creepy, widening their eyes with emotionless expressions to indicate they’re soulless.
It’s a great lesson screenwriters Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland impart on how to neuter the horror of their horror film. Yet, these scenes seem more hastily slapped on than an in-depth attempt to understand the psychology of killers. The film opens with text defining a serial killer — how poignant. And when the film isn’t stuffed with strained flashbacks, it skims the surface of some interesting ideas, namely playing out the kill scenarios from their perspectives, placing the viewer in an uncomfortably voyeuristic perspective of the Strangers.
It’s one of the rare moments in the film where these ideas are put into practice. For a trilogy that’s barren of dynamism, this small kernel of an idea at least stands out for being different and engaging. It’s not substantial, as the film relegates the third act to a horrendous reckoning between Maya and Scarecrow that comes off as more strained than organic, culminating in a thud of a climax.
It’s hard to overstate how much Petsch’s performance carries this trilogy. It’s rather unfair for an actress whose talent supersedes the shoddily written material to be saddled with carrying a bloated franchise on their back, yet Petsch comes out relatively unscathed. There’s not much wiggle-room when it comes to the direction the screenplay has for Maya, as she feels reduced to a passenger in her own trilogy.
A good chunk of the narrative nullifies her as a final girl, only to have the last ten minutes force some contrived arc of her taking revenge against the killers. Yet, her screen presence stretches the malleability of the thin script, and one would hope she finds herself a better horror heroine to embody, which utilizes her intensity and willingness to get messy and frantic.
The only other noteworthy performance is Gabriel Basso’s Gregory, a leftover from Chapter 2, who goofily becomes more integral to the narrative, in contrast to Maya’s journey as a killer. It’s hamfisted and builds to a pathetically limp climax that doesn’t resolve or infuse any new material.
Compared to the previous Chapters, it’s hard to despise Chapter 3, even as it doubles down on recycled horror conventions and the pointless backstories and lore drop. Perhaps it’s the attribute of enduring two entries that has slowly whittled down all anger or hope for this last entry to be an improvement. The short section of Maya, sidelined to examine the parallel roles of being a participating killer, offers some respite for a franchise that’s not only spun its wheels but rendered them non-drivable. Yet, it’s too late in this series and feels tacked on.
The Strangers franchise began with minimalist creativity and a knack for sustaining tension and unnerving imagery. The long shot of Liv Tyler standing in her kitchen — as Scarecrow stared at her from behind — from the first Strangers, remains genuinely disturbing. The zeal of the Strangers was the randomness of violence, and the unlucky nature of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The lack of answers punctuated the horror. Prey at Night was a great stylistic departure, retaining the barebones barbarism while enhancing the look and feel to be more of an ’80s pop-sensorial experience.
This trilogy will disappear in obscurity, yet the iconic images of our masked killers will be readily available for another studio to remake as a new jumpstart for a future franchise. Hopefully, it’ll be after my time, because I can’t withstand another one of these films.
Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai
Feature Image Credit to Lionsgate/Jordy Clarke via IndieWire