The Strangers: Chapter 2 (2025)
Directed by: Renny Harlin
Premise: Picking up where Chapter 1 left off, Maya (Madelaine Petsch) has survived an attack by a group of masked killers. When they learn she is still alive, the killers return to finish the job.
What Works: The key problem of The Strangers: Chapter 1 was its redundancy. That film retold the story of 2008’s The Strangers but did it worse in every respect. Chapter 2 is its own story. Although it draws on slasher movie conventions and especially 1981’s Halloween II, the story of this installment is original to this franchise. There is one exceptional set pieces in Chapter 2 in which Maya is attacked by a boar. It’s a brutal sequence that is well executed. The filmmakers conceal the animal, using tight framing and subjective angles to suggest the beast, and it’s the one of the few parts of the movie that is genuinely tense.
What Doesn’t: The rest of The Strangers: Chapter 2 is uninspired. It is incumbent on middle chapters of trilogies to move the story forward, complicate the conflicts, and deepen the themes. None of that happens here. In fact, Chapter 2 accomplishes almost nothing. Maya wakes up in the hospital and goes on the run. She doesn’t learn anything about herself or reconcile with her grief over her murdered husband. For that matter, Maya remains a blank character. There is nothing interesting or distinct about her. Chapter 2 acknowledges the backstory of the murderers and hints at a larger conspiracy among the local townspeople. The flashbacks to the killers’ childhoods doesn’t tell us anything interesting or relevant. Chapter 2 is also frequently stupid. A lot of sequences don’t make sense. At one point, Maya leaps out of a moving car, somehow able to unlock the door and jump over the passenger next to her. The hospital is completely empty at night and none of the doors are locked. These incredulities might not matter if the film were involving or scary but it is rarely either of those things.
Bottom Line: The Strangers: Chapter 2 is an improvement over its processor, if only for some meager moments of originality, but it’s still not good. It mostly consists of slasher movie clichés that have been prolonged to justify a trilogy.
Episode: #1070 (October 26, 2025)