2025 The Strangers Chapter 2

• Director: Renny Harlin
• Writers: Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland (Based on characters by Bryan Bertino)
• Stars: Madelaine Petsch, Gabriel Basso, Froy Gutierrez, Ema Horvath, Ella Bruccoleri
• Runtime: 98 minutes
• YouTube Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB0D__vjNmI
  

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

Immediately after Chapter 1, survivor Maya wakes up in the hospital and has a peaceful recovery. Okay, not really, the Strangers are still after her. There’s lots of chasing and incidental body count. The Strangers are persistent, and we get hints about their origin. And then it stops and says, “To be continued.” Yep, that happened.

Spoilery Synopsis

As credits roll, we get flashbacks to the three “Strangers” killing a man in the woods. We cut to Maya, from the previous film, who wakes up in the hospital. She describes them and tells the story to Sheriff Rotter, who is still creepy. She wonders who “Tamara” is that they kept asking about. The people in the local diner speculate about the killers, and they’re all suspicious-looking themselves. We cut to an angry little girl who has a doll that looks like Dollface.

That night, at the hospital, the place is nearly empty. Maya gets a phone call, “Is Tamara here?” Then there’s screaming out in the hallway. Suddenly, the lights go out, and her cell phone stops getting reception. Soon, she sees Scarecrow wandering around with his axe. Fortunately, it appears that Maya is the only patient in the huge hospital. Soon, they’re all playing hide-and-seek in the hospital’s basement workings.

She hides in the morgue, in the same drawer as her dead fiancé, Ryan. This works pretty well, so she gets away from the hospital and runs outside into the rain. She runs into a woman who tells her that the sheriff isn’t going to help her “Because he’s–” and then she dies. Maya runs into a horse farm or stable to hide.

Running back outside, she’s picked up by two women whom Maya obviously doesn’t trust, but at least they have a car. They pick up two guys on the road, and she finds it all very suspicious. It’s all very tense. She panics and jumps out of the moving car and back to the woods.

As the sun comes up, Maya uses a stolen first aid kit to sew up the wound in her side, screaming all the while. Somehow, the three baddies have tracked her to this location as well, even though there are miles of forest between where Maya jumped out of the car and where the bad guys were left behind. Instead, Maya gets attacked by a wild boar, which is pretty random.

She’s having a really bad day. But not as bad as the pig.

Pinup comes across the scene and has a flashback about playing with baby pigs herself.

Maya makes her way back to the murder cabin from the previous film and grabs a knife, some clothes, and food. She meets a man who says he’s with the State Police, and they get into his car. He doesn’t last long before the masked women kill him.

She hurries to another house, with a strange man inside, and passes out. When she wakes up, Turns out this is the house of the two men from the car she was in earlier. Gregory is creepy, but the women say it’s fine to ignore him.

Family has sent an EMT to pick up Maya at the house, but he stops at a gas station and maybe tells the wrong person where he’s going.

Back at the house, Gregory explains that this stuff has been going on for years, and she’s the only one who has survived. After a few minutes, Pinup arrives and tries to break in. Dollface, however, is already in her bedroom somehow. She makes it outside to find the EMT’s ambulance and his dead body outside.

Pinup is waiting inside the ambulance, and they have a quick fight. She dies. Later, Scarecrow takes off her mask, and we see a face inside; it’s– I have no idea who that is. We get another flashback to the creepy, animal-killing little girl. The little girl kills Tamara, another girl whom she was jealous of. The little boy sees what she’s done and smiles.

To be continued.

Brian’s Commentary

Takes place immediately after the first film in the reboot series. Ever notice how deserted hospitals in horror movies get at night? It’s like doctors, nurses, and patients all go home at closing time.

The film is mostly just Maya running from one bad situation to another, with The Strangers ahead of her at every turn. There’s lots of suspense and tension, but not really much in the way of a plot, except for watching bad things happen to Maya.

You know how in many horror movies, there’s a part in the middle where everything just drags a little bit before the exciting finale? This whole movie is that draggy middle part.

A waste of time.

Kevin’s Commentary

The hospital made for a good cat and mouse setting for Maya vs the killers, but it was absurdly empty of people other than them and a very few folks at the wrong place and time.

It’s quite remarkable, to the point of silly, how the Strangers are able to travel from place to place wherever Maya flees.

Brian summed it up perfectly referring to this as the draggy middle part of a mediocre movie. A looooong three-movie movie.

I was not impressed.