My quick rating - 4.6/10. Renny Harlin is really committing to this whole “middle chapter with no actual ending” thing. The Strangers: Chapter 2 picks up immediately after the events of the first film, which would be great, except the movie speedruns through its own continuity like it’s embarrassed to be a sequel. We start with Shelly/Pinup (played by Ema Horvath) luring yet another unlucky sucker from the diner, only to immediately smash-cut to Maya (Madelaine Petsch) in a hospital bed with little explanation of how she got there unless you studied Chapter 1 like it was homework. There’s a quick police interview and some flashbacks stitched in like narrative duct tape, but it’s hardly enough to count as proper storytelling.
From there, we dive into one of horror’s most beloved fantasy tropes: the completely abandoned small-town hospital. You’d think someone on staff would at least be mopping a hallway or refilling a vending machine, but no—Maya can sprint floor to floor without bumping into so much as a night nurse or grieving relative. Meanwhile, the film tries to plant seeds of suspicion about four random young adults (who apparently make up 80% of the town’s remaining population), but Harlin seems more interested in stringing the audience along than actually committing to a reveal.
Then comes the boar. Yes, you read that right. A full-on wild boar attack. One that not only mauls people, but has the intelligence to open the trunk of a car. You can practically hear the writers high-fiving across the room as they pitched it—“Nobody will see this coming, and it’ll show how tough Maya is!” Sure, why not? At least it gives us a wonderfully absurd flashback explaining that one of the killers grew up tormenting pigs, because character development equals livestock cruelty now.
The killers themselves seem to be powered by pure plot armor. One takes a pair of scissors to the temple and merely shrugs it off like a mild inconvenience. She also got pitchforked in the leg, only to be up and running minutes later, while Maya limps like she’s auditioning for The Walking Dead. Speaking of Maya, her default expression is permanently locked on “deer in headlights,” which makes her less of a protagonist and more of a terrified spectator in her own movie.
The film spends most of its runtime in a cat-and-mouse loop with tension that occasionally works but rarely pays off. The flashbacks are oddly charming in their wickedness, even if they feel spliced in from an entirely different movie. Just when it feels like we might finally get some narrative closure—BAM. Another abrupt “TO BE CONTINUED.” And just like Chapter 1, there’s a tease for Chapter 3 during the credits, like a horror franchise is now required to operate on Marvel logic.
Much like its predecessor, The Strangers: Chapter 2 is aggressively fine. Light on gore, high on repetition, and occasionally bonkers enough to be entertaining. If you enjoyed Chapter 1, this is more of the same. If you didn’t… well, buckle up, there’s still Chapter 3 on the way, whether you like it or not.
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