The Strangers – Chapter 3 Overview: Lifeless, Boring and Totally Uninteresting Trilogy Involves a Boring, Whimpering Finish

Right here’s the factor: in case you’re going to spend time explaining who the titular strangers are, they not change into strangers, and now they’re a hell of rather a lot much less scary. It’s nearly spectacular simply how essentially fallacious Renny Harlin’s trilogy has understood the attraction of the characters initially created by Bryan Bertino. In fact individuals left the unique movie questioning who these sadistic serial killers are and why they do what they do, however that does not imply you spend 4 and half hours over three movies dispelling your complete thriller. The entire level of Bertino’s authentic was to prey upon the unseen and the unexplained. Right here is the American suburban nightmare: You get attacked for no purpose. Nowhere is secure to cover from the whims of the sociopathic. I can’t consider something much less fascinating than understanding Scarecrow’s childhood.

The Strangers – Chapter 3 mercifully brings Harlin’s trilogy to a whimpering finish. One of the boring studio horrors of current reminiscence, its brisk 90 minutes someway really feel interminable. Between all of the lifeless air and the slew of pointless flashbacks — none of which that give even a sliver of recent data — there’s barely a movie right here in any respect. The whole factor is held collectively by the flimsiness of a plastic masks’s elastic band.

The Strangers – Chapter 3 is the Last Nail within the Coffin of a Wasted Trilogy

After a requisite flashback opening kill scene, Alan Freedland and Alan R. Cohen’s lifeless script hilariously provides us a title display with the dictionary definition of a serial killer. Okay, thanks, I did not notice anybody was unclear. Then, it scoots ahead to seconds after the occasions of Chapter 2. Maya (Madelaine Petsch) hovers behind a tree, make-up someway good, blood splatter tastefully curated on her face, watching as Scarecrow and Dollface hack down their lifeless pal, Pin-Up Woman. Speak about beating a lifeless horse.

Bloodied and broken-bodied, Maya hobbles her approach by way of the Oregonian forest till she stumbles throughout a tiny, outdated church with (for some purpose) a metric ton of pre-lit candles. Nearly as quickly as she arrives, the mysterious Gregory arrives (Gabriel Basso). The 2 have a sleepy dialog over an apparent product placement for Bulleit Rye (one thing about how they’re each grieving companions, however who cares). Maya will get spooked, and bolts away.

Quickly she’s nose to nose with Sheriff Rotter (Richard Brake) who remains to be determined to maintain Maya from ruining the city’s fastidiously stored secrets and techniques, however not determined sufficient to eliminate her. Maya makes an attempt to steal his police automobile, however is shortly rammed off the street by the surviving Strangers, after which dragged to their deserted noticed mill residence.

The remainder of the movie is a reasonably normal stalk-and-slash with the added wrinkle that Scarecrow is attempting to power Maya into taking the place of the third Stranger. It’s reasonably fascinating to see how this deeply traumatized lady will get seduced by bloodshed, however it’s such a passing fancy that one wonders if the writers even meant to go there, so shortly do they dispel this notion.

Renny Harlin was a really reliable schlock director, and his competence with motion formalism shouldn’t be fully misplaced right here, however the man who directed flicks like Die Onerous 2, Cliffhanger and Deep Blue Sea appears to be misplaced. Chapter 3 is so devoid of stress and primary vitality that it looks as if your complete solid has overdosed on sleeping tablets.

It actually doesn’t assist that the A-plot is supplemented by a cliched backstory. The finale of this drained franchise solely finds a second of intrigue within the dying gasp of its last seconds, if solely as a result of Harlin’s selections are so bonkers it’ll make you momentarily get up to snigger incredulously.

Maybe it’s the affect of the MCU on studio franchises all over the place, however of all movies to over-explain character background, The Strangers have to be the silliest of all. The one factor Harlin has finished right here is to take away the aspect of shock. With out that, the movie is nothing, nothing in any respect.

The Strangers: Chapter 3 opens in theaters on February 6, 2026.