2024’s The Strangers: Chapter 1 confusingly applied all sorts of slasher sensibilities and cliches, mixing countless influences in one uneven final conglomerate that ultimately felt faceless, without identity, and, in the end, necessarily frivolous. With Chapter 2, director Renny Harlin does manage to work his own proclivities into a universe that desperately needed such a singular semblance, especially in the first 15 minutes. Yet even so, the end result, shot back-to-back with the first film and the expected third one, is an off-base experience in an entirely different way.
Where the first film was too attached to previous efforts from other storytellers, the second is somehow almost too disconnected from what makes a slasher horror work. Directly following up on the ending of its predecessor, Chapter 2 finds Maya (Madelaine Petsch) in a hospital recovering from her near-death encounter just hours prior. Of course, the trio of masked villains that define this franchise aren’t keen on unfinished business – thus, the plot moves.
And, oddly enough, that’s about as deep as this one goes. Maya runs, the strangers chase her, she gets away, and the cycle thus repeats. There is a feigned attempt at a bit of extra character work in flashback-fashion, without spoiling anything, but even those tries end up short-handed and almost completely without impact.
Middle-chapter syndrome is a common problem with second movies, and The Strangers: Chapter 2 fails to escape that all too common conundrum. While it surely connects to the movie that came before it, this sophomore follow-up appears all too concerned with trading the first film’s more traditional horror tone, which was the least of its problems, for something more in tune with survivalist thrillers like The Revenant.
This leads to a few mildly compelling camera movements and gritty outdoor duels with nature, in lieu of the strangers themselves, but this switch-up is still jarring regarding what the film is going for on a wider scale. This is a horror franchise movie meant to scare – unsettle, strike, subvert. Chapter 2 wants to have its cake and eat it too in this way, overtly concerned with maintaining the first film’s franchise-driven horror ideals whilst also running around in the forest, biting sticks and battling the elements.
An interesting idea? Sure, but in a 98-minute horror movie with lengthy sequences devoid of dialogue or context, you lose your way pretty quickly. In tandem with the film’s lack of a tangible calling card, it similarly lacks narrative and aesthetic direction. It’s difficult to say you’ve seen this all before – because that’s been said a million times about a million movies – but truly, you have. Anything The Strangers: Chapter 2 does well, it owes to much better, and more influential works that came before it in this storied genre.
Credit where credit is due, Harlin and his team do manage to squeeze some tension out of this film, especially in the woodsy setting, now and again. But a few neat displays of impassioned camera work do not make a movie, and what’s left beyond those flashes of light is a dim, damp, abandoned home that you’d rather avoid. Not because it’s scary; rather, it’s plain pointless to enter. Keep your shoes dry and trek on.
The Strangers: Chapter 2 is currently playing int theaters courtesy of Lionsgate.
It's difficult to say you've seen this all before - because that's been said a million times about a million movies - but truly, you have. Anything The Strangers: Chapter 2 does well, it owes to much better, and more influential works that came before it in this storied genre.
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GVN Rating
Movies, long drives, and mint chocolate chip ice cream.
