The Strangers: Chapter 2 (FANTASTIC) Continues The Slasher Trilogy’s Nosedive
Title: The Strangers: Chapter 2
First Non-Festival Release: September 25, 2025 (Theatrical Release)
Director: Renny Harlin
Writer: Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, Bryan Bertino
Runtime: 98 Minutes
Starring: Madelaine Petsch, Ema Horvath, Richard Brake
Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here
This film’s review was written after its screening at the Fantastic Film Festival in 2025.
Maya (Madelaine Petsch) wakes up in the hospital after barely surviving an encounter with the serial killers that took her boyfriend’s (Froy Gutierrez) life. Not long after, she finds herself pursued by the masked invaders once again. Desperate to escape, she steals away into the night, unsure of who to trust or how far the killers are on her trail.
Clunky and oddly anticlimactic, The Strangers: Chapter Two struggles with deepening the lore behind its titular characters and crafting an interesting story to support it.
An initially atypical approach to a slasher continuation, The Strangers: Chapter Two manages to literally get lost in the forest of its own invention without making much progress on its story. The decision to begin Chapter Two immediately after the events of the previous film harkens back to the slasher golden age. Unfortunately, the departure doesn’t last. Once Maya escapes the hospital and steals into the night, the film loses its footing. Her inability to tell who could be one of her masked pursuers heightens the stakes while simultaneously making every interaction Maya has with another human being insufferably predictable. Maya’s separation into forest becomes an excuse to switch back and forth between her perspective and those of the town while peppering in unnecessary flashbacks.
Maya remains underbaked as a character throughout this, as her survival instincts have already proven she is a fighter. The problem is she gets stuck in this purgatory of a sequel that lacks proper story progression. Her understandable paranoia and inability to catch a break drive the narrative more than her actions. It’s a frustrating but expected issue of not knowing how to fill in the gaps between the first and third chapters.
Madelaine Petsch gives it her all but it isn’t enough to save the film from itself. A Herculean task, given how often she is alone onscreen, Petsch is up for the challenge, unafraid to rough herself up a bit in the process. Petsch has plenty of screen presence and is up for the physically demanding job of making the torturous journey look real. Her vulnerability and strength shows that even if Maya is more of a static character, Petsch can still deliver.
The most irritating element of this sequel, however, is its insistence on explaining the mythology behind its central tormentors. Part of the appeal of the original The Strangers film is the lack of explanation. Be it their identities, the logistics, or their backstories, no explanation can be scarier than the one already provided by the series: there is none. Ignoring this, The Strangers trilogy opts for a more traditional, and thus, more generic approach.
Regardless of its story’s flaws, The Strangers: Chapter Two does manage to eke out a few good scares in its rather limp attempts at continuing the franchise. Director Renny Harlin understands spectacle. And while The Strangers: Chapter Two certainly lacks compared to his previous efforts, there’s still the same penchant for grandiosity that beefs up some of the less inspired sequences. Some may balk at the ridiculousness of the set pieces – the abandoned car setup is likely going to be the biggest offender – but a few still work well enough.
It isn’t quite the departure one would expect from a free-reign trilogy inspired by the classic 2008 film, but The Strangers: Chapter Two is decently made all the same. A hopelessly mediocre attempt at elongating the structure of a slasher, this experiment proves that sometimes the formula exists for a reason. Petsch’s screen presence and the few good scares lobbed up can only do so much to stop the bleeding. Its meandering plot and over-explained lore drag the slasher down into the muck. With two duds locked in it’s hard to feel excited about the closing chapter. Hopefully The Strangers: Chapter Three can change course. Either way, it’s likely that this final iteration will be the last time we enter those deadly Oregon forests for a while.
Overall Score? 5/10
