Renny Harlin’s three-movie remake of 2008’s The Strangers is coming to a close, with The Strangers: Chapter 3 hitting the 2026 movie calendar on February 6. The finale picks up where Chapter 2 left off, with Maya celebrating the death of one of her masked assailants as she continues her attempts to survive. Critics panned the first chapter for writing lousy protagonists, while they called the follow-up “a complete betrayal of the franchise.” Will the trilogy find its footing in its closing chapter?
That answer would be no, if you ask the critics, who aren’t hiding their relief that no more visits to Venus, Oregon, will be required of them. In The Strangers: Chapter 3 Madelaine Petsch’s Maya is joined by her sister Debbie (Rachel Shenton), but according to Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting, this ends up being just another underbaked idea. The critic gives the movie 1.5 out of 5 skulls, writing:
The action and attempts to close the loop on demystifying serial killers’ seemingly random acts of violence do make for a less tedious entry than Chapter 2, but this trilogy has consistently been afraid to actively engage with any questions or ideas beyond Chapter 1’s recreation of Bryan Bertino’s 2008 home invasion hit. It’s been trapped in place since, occasionally tossing out a few wild sequences or ideas that are never fully realized.
Gregory Nussen of ScreenRant rates the upcoming horror movie a brutal 1 out of 10, saying it’s “almost impressive just how fundamentally wrong” this trilogy was about why the 2008 movie was so frightening. Thus, Chapter 3 is devoid of tension and energy, so much so, Nussen says, that it seems like the entire cast has overdosed on sleeping pills. More from his review:
The Strangers - Chapter 3 mercifully brings Harlin’s trilogy to a whimpering end. One of the most boring studio horrors of recent memory, its brisk 90 minutes somehow feel interminable. Between all the dead air and the slew of unnecessary flashbacks — none of which that give even a sliver of new information — there’s barely a film here at all. The entire thing is held together by the flimsiness of a plastic mask’s elastic band.
Alistair Ryder of Looper gives it 4 out of 10, saying the screenwriters “spectacularly fail to stick the landing” with a final offering that is “so slow-burning it becomes dull.” Ryder continues:
Is The Strangers: Chapter 3 the weakest of the entire reboot trilogy? Well, it's nowhere near as formulaic as the first, an ill-conceived revival so uninspired it forced the creative team back to the drawing board. Instead, it's a more perplexing failure, one where the newfound ambition of the stripped-down sequel has been shrugged off, with nobody quite sure how to satisfactorily close character arcs or explore the surrounding darkness of the world they've created.
To answer the above critic’s question about whether Chapter 3 is the worst of the three, William Bibbiani of The Wrap actually thinks it might be the best. However, that’s not the compliment you'd think it is, as he says it’s still not good and is, in fact, “torture, in all the wrong ways.” Bibbiani continues:
Madelaine Petsch barely had a character to play in the first place, and three films later there’s still very little evidence that she’s playing a real human being. Heck, it was hard to believe she was even scared until the second film. It doesn’t help that everyone else in the cast plays arch, unconvincing archetypes, and it really doesn’t help that the villains’ backstories are perfunctory and shallow.
Erik Piepenburg of The New York Times seems offended on behalf of the original movie, as Renny Harlin extinguishes everything that made it scary, but at least this “masked nonsense” is over now. The critic writes:
As in his other Strangers films, Harlin leans heavily into loud jump scares and other obvious slasher stuff, choices that might thrill Strangers stans but will numb anyone who wants horror to offer solicitude and fresh ideas. … Now that the third and mercifully final film has flumped into theaters, this empty trilogy offers few worthwhile returns other than well-duh horror lessons that should (but won’t) sink in: Leave good horror alone, and relentless cat-and-mouse games do not a movie make.
Well, this is kind of rough news for anyone hoping that the story might find its footing in its final chapter. However, if you're a fan of the first two movies or just want to see the trilogy through, don't let these critics stop you! You can draw your own conclusions about The Strangers: Chapter 3 when it hits theaters on Friday, February 6.
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