‘The Strangers: Chapter 2’ Movie Review: Middle Chapter Plays Better As Lean Horror Ride
Photo from Lionsgate
From Jeremy Kibler
Sixteen months later, the wait is over for more from Lionsgate’s experimental reboot of Bryan Bertino’s 2008 modern horror classic The Strangers. Reimagined as a pre-planned trilogy shot back-to-back, director Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 1 was a dutiful but derivative start, putting an attractive yet dull couple through the paces of an Airbnb home invasion opposite three masked killers. While it may sound like faint praise, The Strangers: Chapter 2 is a clear improvement — less an inferior retread and more a thrilling, bare-bones horror ride on its own terms.
After Pin-Up, Dollface, and Scarecrow came knocking for a little terror play in a rental house, Maya (Madelaine Petsch) survived her fiancé Ryan (Froy Gutierrez). These three masked strangers won’t stop until Maya is dead, stalking her in and out of the hospital in the creepy small town of Venus, Oregon. Unfortunately, for her, the population is full of red herrings and the trio could be anyone. Could one of the killers be the sheriff (sinister character actor Richard Brake)? Or the friendly nurse (Brooke Johnson)? Maya’s suspicions may be right.
Viewed as a lean 98-minute chase, The Strangers: Chapter 2 is standard but tautly helmed just the same by returning filmmaker Renny Harlin, shifting from cat-and-mouse slasher to survival thriller. Genre tropes show face, but the jump scares are surprisingly effective, and even Maya’s brief pauses to breathe rarely flag the incident-filled pace. Taking a page out of 1981’s Halloween II, the film continues on the same night as its predecessor with our sole survivor in the hospital (one that is conveniently abandoned by its staff, save for one orderly, and makes sure every door and every exit is locked). From Venus County Hospital to a horse farm to the rain-soaked woods, Maya flees and hides from one atmospheric, moodily shot danger-filled situation to the next in relentless, frying-pan-into-fire fashion.
Madelaine Petsch acts her booty off once again, and even more so this time, as the rightfully paranoid and already-wounded Maya who’s running in pure fight-or-flight mode. Both physically demanding and emotionally heightened, this is a committed performance, especially when she has to re-stitch a stab wound and endure a harrowing animal attack in the woods.
It’s a razor-thin script by writers Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freeland, even when a mask gets lifted and reveals two of the strangers’ backstories. The randomness of the strangers’ murders isn’t really put into question, but have you ever wondered who Tamara was? Explaining away the strangers should in turn go against what makes them so scary—and it does—but maybe shading in some of the blanks will satisfy in Chapter 3. As of now, being angry at someone who both stomps on your schoolyard sandcastles and flirts with your childhood crush does not qualify as motivation we can buy; it’s disturbing, but also a little asinine with dime-store psychology.
Alternately, the film has the plus of getting out of the house (although we do go back to it at one point) and has the minus of being a middle chapter where finding temporary closure could potentially dissatisfy. In the grand scheme of things, the piecemeal approach to this trilogy lends itself to too much narrative stagnancy, but based on the end teaser for what’s to come in Chapter 3, interest is still piqued. The Strangers: Chapter 2 is going to find more naysayers than defenders, but between Petsch’s dedicated turn and Harlin’s sturdy direction, credit should be given where credit is due.
Rating: 2.5/5
The Strangers: Chapter 2 is currently in theaters.
