Spoiler Alert / Mature Content: This review may include plot details and adult themes. Reader discretion is advised. This site discusses horror films, which may not be suitable for all ages.

The original The Strangers came out in 2008, and when I heard they were making an entire trilogy based on that first film (the first of which would basically be a remake), I had some thoughts. One of the thoughts was, of course, why? The original film, starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman and directed by Bryan Bertino, was pretty incredible. Then I had another thought… if they were fast-tracking a new trilogy so quickly, then it was clear that they must have had an idea that would rival the 2008 film. An idea so good, it couldn’t wait. Well, as we all know by this point, they did not.

When The Strangers: Chapter 1 came out last year (2024), I sat down to watch it full of hope and a dash of reserve. I would keep my judgmental mouth shut until the credits rolled; I would let the film breathe and become whatever it was going to become. This time starring Madeline Petsch (as Maya) and Froy Gutierrez (as Ryan), the film, directed by Renny Harlin (Deep Blue Sea) from a script by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, was basically a beat-for-beat retelling of the 2008 film that added very little to the story and took away so much. The biggest change was the ending, letting Maya survive to continue her journey in Chapter 2. Well, at this point, I have now watched Chapter 2 and you may be asking “Did they pull it off?”

Anyways, I’m laughing so hard, I forget the question.

The film begins exactly where we left off in Chapter 1. Maya (Madeline Petsch) is in the hospital following the events of the first movie, recovering and scared. The Sheriff (the always-great Richard Brake) is asking her questions about the night and giving off all the “I know more than I’m letting on” vibes. He was only on screen for a short time, but as always, he was fantastic.

Petsch was also very good in her role. Maya doesn’t seem like a very easy character to pull off (they are trying so hard to give her layers), but what the filmmakers decided to do, in my opinion, made it difficult for anyone to really stand out or seem competent. Petsch honestly does her best with the screenplay she was handed, and for that, I do have to tip my cap. Maybe the biggest horrors of all were the films she made along the way? This trilogy, specifically.

Don’t get me wrong, I was rooting for this to be good. I had washed my hands of the first and deemed it a necessary evil to get to this point, where the story could start to feel fresh and different. Ultimately, the creators accomplished that. It did feel fresh and different but not in a good way. The first fourteen minutes of the movie, for example, were pretty great, and I was settling in for what I thought was going to be a good time. Then my wife asked “Where are all of the people in that hospital?” at about the fifteen-minute mark. That was all it took for the cracks to open up enough for me to see through. The film became something else entirely at that point.

I’ve talked a lot in the past about how a movie can be so bad that it magically becomes good again. So awful that the melodrama and over-the-top silliness actually circle the dial back around to greatness. When I say that The Strangers: Chapter 2 is great, I do not mean the Oscar-contender kind of great. I mean that other type. A film so bad that it’s incredible. One that has to be seen at least once by anyone who loves cinema. It was really that quick of a turn. At minute fourteen I was ready for the film to be good in the traditional sense, and by minute sixteen it had shown its true colors. It was incredible to witness in real time.

Not everything in this movie is bad. I don’t want that to be your biggest takeaway from this review. There was plenty here that was actually quite good. The performances were pretty fantastic, Petsch in particular really held it together. The direction was also decently great; from the color palette to the shot choices, Harlin told a compelling visual story. Honestly, everything wrong here can be traced directly back to the writing. I haven’t read the script myself obviously, and maybe on the page, everything was tight and perfect, but from the outside looking in… that was the issue. Things just didn’t make sense so often that it became laugh-out-loud funny, and not on purpose.

I would also like to highlight the music choices and score. Justin Burnett and Òscar Senén did a great job keeping me engaged through the ears. I’m a musician as well as a writer, so anytime I hear compelling music coupled with strong visuals I get excited. The music in this film never took me out of the moment (mostly it was the moments that took me out of the moments), and to me that is the sign of a good score: to complement, not overpower. They did that in spades.

Having sat through two of these movies at this point, I can honestly say that knowing another is coming is neither comforting nor exciting. I guess the only prize in that statement is that it’s the last one or at least it is supposed to be the last one. It better be the last one; I don’t know how much more my body can take. Chapter 3 has so many strange dangling threads that it needs to address, like the brother and sister and what else went on at that group home, to how he became so good at training boars. Why did he even start training boars if not for that one specific scene in this film? It’s a weird notion.

I will say that this movie is worth at least one viewing, especially if you watched the first. There’s no reason to not bite your lip and stick it out. You started on this journey; you may as well finish it. Maybe that’s just me talking to myself, trying to get hyped for the final installment. The film is far from perfect, but there was enough there that I did enjoy my time spent with it. Again, movies that are so bad that they become good again is a hard circle to complete. So many films cross the line into bad and never make it back. They stay bad. At least The Strangers: Chapter 2 was entertaining—not despite its flaws, but because of them.