Occasionally, a critic encounters an assignment so grueling that early retirement seems appealing. For me at Inverse, that assignment was Lionsgate’s revamped The Strangers trilogy. While the series began poorly, I hoped the final installment couldn’t possibly be worse. Writers Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland had already mutilated Bryan Bertino’s brilliant, vitriol-soaked horror masterpiece beyond repair. The standards were rock bottom; surely they could only improve, right?
Well! If there’s any silver lining to The Strangers – Chapter 3, it’s that Renny Harlin’s atrocious trilogy has concluded and can no longer torment audiences.
Madelaine Petsch completes her contractual obligation as Maya, who following Chapter 2‘s events, must evade homicidal Venus residents sporting smiley face tattoos. The movie reveals that all of Venus’s missing persons cases center on Sheriff Rotter (Richard Brake), who intervenes with Maya. Additionally, there’s the dubious drunkard George (Gabriel Basso), one of the tattooed criminals, prowling about. Maya’s sister is en route, so she simply needs to survive until help arrives—a plan that goes maddeningly, idiotically awry.
While the previous entry tarnished the original’s legacy, Chapter 3 is an unbearable disgrace that might terminate careers. It’s so atrocious that Bertino should have grounds to sue for reputational damage to The Strangers. The sole remarkable feature of Chapter 3 is its spectacular incompetence in every on-screen element. For 90 agonizing minutes, nothing functions. Viewers are trapped by a flavorless, tension-free, damp squib of a conclusion with less momentum than a paddleboat missing its pedals.
The failure begins with Cohen and Freedland’s script. Writing a disappointing remake is one matter; claiming you’ve solved someone else’s perfect concept is another. Their narrative speaks only in stifling clichés and aimless, half-baked notions. You know that famous Trey Parker and Matt Stone principle where story arcs need “but” and “therefore”? Cohen and Freedland choose “because” or “and then,” yet can’t even resolve their own flawed structure.
Harlin has delighted viewers with magnificent trash like Deep Blue Sea and Cliffhanger, yet fails to generate a shred of suspense or tension in Chapter 3. A pervasive fatigue neuters any mood shifts. All three films shot back-to-back, and by Chapter 3, it seems the cast and crew were merely anticipating their flight home from Bratislava. Nothing on screen displays any grandeur; Harlin populates his empty canvas with crude drawings and flat hues.
Everyone delivers the absolute minimum, from script to set design to acting. This is unfortunate, as Petsch was the sole redeeming aspect of the awful trilogy’s first two parts. In this installment, she appears to be battling sedative-induced grogginess, as lifeless as a roadside attraction’s wax dummy. Basso is even worse, delivering lines that had my theater roaring with unintentional laughter, his wild-eyed expressions resembling an amateurish orgasm face. The cat-and-mouse thrill has vanished, and you can spot this apathetic agony in the actors’ eyes as scenes drag on. Perhaps that’s because Cohen and Freedland craft their characters as the most boring, unmotivated, disposable NPCs horror has ever witnessed, which must be unrewarding for actors.
Does Chapter 3 attempt anything narratively wild? Yes, but—as I’ve noted in previous reviews—Cohen and Freedland so idiotically misinterpret what makes Bertino’s The Strangers devastate viewers. Chapter 3 crams pointless origin stories down our throats, stripping all mystery from Venus’s masked killers in favor of clichéd villain arcs that make “generic” seem innovative. Harlin botches new character debuts, climactic reveals, and gory kills with uniformly flat disillusionment. I’ve witnessed Uwe Boll productions with more grace and engagement; Chapter 3 might as well include official sleeping bags.
If a more broken film than The Strangers – Chapter 3 exists this year, Hollywood has reached a new nadir. It’s more superficial than a koi pond, more idiotic than masonry, and cements Harlin’s endeavor as one of cinema’s worst horror franchises. I can’t fathom that Lionsgate briefly believed they could Fear Street-ify these movies and generate buzz. No amount of money could compel me to watch the combined cut that merges all chapters into one continuous film. Awful remains awful, regardless of format. Why subject yourself to four and a half hours when a brisk 90 minutes already shatters your belief in cinema?