Fantastic Fest 2025 Review: THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 2 Has An Identity Crisis

Making a good adaptation is hard. Making a good adaptation when you clearly wanted a completely different story from what the original film intended is damn near impossible. That, unfortunately, leaves us with Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 2. 

When introducing the film at Fantastic Fest, star Madelaine Petsch noted that Chapter 2 is when the story they wanted to tell truly begins. As damning of an indictment that is on the poorly received The Strangers: Chapter 1, it also successfully set the stage for the disappointing Chapter 2 outing which, as alluded, has very little interest in playing with the concepts of the film it’s rebooting. The allure of The Strangers (2008) isn’t the stabby goodness, it’s about the unknown and harrowing atmosphere. The randomness of it all. No one was targeted; they were simply available. We learn nothing about the killers; their function is to be an anonymous passing ship — one with the full intention of sinking the other.

Meanwhile, The Strangers: Chapter 2 wonders: what if we kept the name but got rid of everything that makes the original remarkable? The second outing of the filmed-all-at-once trilogy doesn’t just divert from the randomness of it all, with the Strangers now hellbent on taking down Petsch’s character, Maya; it also thinks it’s very important that we know the Strangers’ backstory. 

The condemnations against Chapter 1 were in response to it being too close to the original. The function of a good adaptation is to take the source and evolve it while remaining true to the material at the core of the story, so a 1:1 remake always runs the risk of failing to interest the viewer. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, The Strangers: Chapter 2 doesn’t seem interested in that evolution so much as it wanted to tell an original home invasion story but needed to package it with a franchise reboot in order to be made. If that reads cruel or seems like it’s making too many assumptions about intent, it’s important that you know that not only does Chapter 2 ignore or outright go against everything that makes the 2008 special, it also has a mid-film interlude that features a wild boar that is so out of place that all I could write in my notes was “wtf?” on repeat. Why is there a boar? Why is Maya successfully getting up after it steps on her with its hard hooves backed by its 300-pound weight? 

With that, it feels important to note that The Strangers: Chapter 2’s issues are not just story-based. Let’s, for argument’s sake, pretend we give the boar a pass and say that it not crushing every one of Maya’s bones that it steps on falls under horror survivor rules. Suspension of disbelief goes a long way when it comes to the enjoyment of any film. What it cannot solve, though, are straight up continuity errors. Several moments in Chapter 2 simply make no logistical sense, with the most egregious being when Maya leaps out of a moving car while being squished between two larger men without displacing either of them upon her leap and making a successful escape after gunning it in an ambulance despite the establishing shot clearly showing the tire pushed directly against the curb rather than along the road.  

The film’s singular saving grace is Petsch’s performance, which is so solid that it gives you a reason to care just a little bit in spite of the film that it’s packaged in. The direction they’re headed in Chapter 3 is about as transparent as cellophane, but after we see Maya reclaim some of her power in the third act of Chapter 2, you do start to wonder what her response to it all will look like. 

Beyond that, The Strangers: Chapter 2 (and, by nature, the upcoming Chapter 3) suffers from the fatal mistake of setting the expectation for one thing and delivering something completely different. If you tell me I’m getting a beautiful steak and instead hand me a piece of beef jerky, said piece of beef jerky could be the best ever made, and it would still be a disappointment. Chapter 2 might not be close to the best version of a home invasion/slasher it could be, but it’d certainly be less frustrating if it didn’t come in The Strangers packaging. 

Movie Score: 2/5