Renny Harlin just might have made horror history by rebooting a simple home invasion horror flick into an exhaustive trilogy. Whether that was anything other than a huge waste of everybody’s time is a question for the studio heads to ask at their next meeting, but for now let’s see if The Strangers: Chapter 3 answered any of its own questions.
By this point in The Strangers universe, much like Maya (Madeliane Petsch) viewers are stuck in Venus, Oregon, forced to listen to a dark pop cover – as if we were watching an episode of The Traitors – of ‘The Sound of Silence’ while drone footage reminds the audience that this is a town more populated by trees than people. For those in the cinema not on commission to see this thing through, I can only assume they have returned because The Strangers: Chapter 2 teased an origin story of the murderous trio, or in the hopes of seeing something as unexpected as the wild boar attack from the last movie. Either way all seated would be sorely disappointed.
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Maya has now successfully evaded the chop for what seems to be the longest night in existence. She has even managed to kill Shelly (Ema Horvath), one of the psychopathic townsfolk – a move which has excited the remaining killers more than angered them. Consequently the lead murderer, previously revealed as Gregory (Gabriel Basso), is now more interested in recruiting Maya, Patty Hearst style, than he is in finishing the job. While Harlin tries to force chemistry between the shell-shocked Maya and her dead-eyed captor, her sister Debbie (Rachel Shenton) comes to her attempted rescue with her husband (George Young) and a private detective (Miles Yenniki) in tow, while Sheriff Rotter (Richard Brake) does his part to abet the bloodlust. These three plotlines are interspersed with the flashbacks revealing the trio’s violent origins. All of this to say that a lot of parallel narratives are shoved into this 90-minute movie, and they fail to ever converge satisfactorily.
If there were at least some notable moments of gore, this empty third act might have felt a little worthwhile, but this is not the case. Harlin seems to have used his last shred of creative action in the film’s second chapter, leaving us with repetitive axe swings that cut away from the moment of impact and shots of bodies with no visible wounds which had me perpetually dumbfounded. Nor is the reason for the trio’s psychopathic activities ever really explained, except for a measly “born this way” shrug, leaving the question “Why are you doing this to us?” asked by all their victims ultimately unanswered. The reshoots that stalled this final entry’s release are also painfully obvious, with many of the cuts making for a bumpier ride that Maya has had for all three movies. Ultimately The Strangers: Chapter 3 offers no redeemable qualities and is so vacuously unremarkable that it is already in the process of being forgotten.
