Maya’s vacation of terror continues, chased by the Strangers, in Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter 2, somehow worse than the last one.
Last year’s The Strangers: Chapter 1 hovered around the bottom of my film rankings. Essentially a remake of the first film (though per director Renny Harlin the first two films exist in this universe. That doesn’t make sense, but little does across the current pair) but dumber in every conceivable way, it was an atrocious slice of frustrating filmmaking. I hated it. But I subjected myself to sitting down to Chapter 2 with the hope for a better film. I come into everything hoping for good, no matter what’s around it. Trust me, I did not enter (and never do) with claws out, ready to hate. But…. I hated this. The Strangers: Chapter 2 is far worse of a movie.
The first entry at least felt like a film. It had a plot and structure: two out-of-towners (so THEY are the strangers?) break down in a small town in Oregon and spend the night at an Airbnb recommended ot them. Three masked people attack them. It had characters. They were idiotic, even for horror characters, but they were characters. What happened, no matter how much scoffing I did, had a drive and ebb and flow. At least, I laughed heartily at just how dumb it all was. The Strangers: Chapter 2 is worse because it’s frustrating and boring.
The Strangers: Chapter 2, still written by Alan R. Cohen & Alan Freedland, is a hodgepodge of repetitive chase/hide/violence sequences. It’s an empty film, devoid of character and plot. Weird that it’s empty, as it’s a remix of other, better films. The opening salvo is a rip of 1981’s Halloween II as Mara, a confused-looking Madelaine Petsch, is stalked through a Horror Hospital (read: strangely empty), followed by any wood stalk and slash, even becoming Evil Dead for a moment, and, in a specifically head-scratching aspect, an animal attack film. Add a few strange flashbacks (often silly, especially how the Wayne’s World style “to the past” cuts occur), and it’s an Omen/Evil Kid flick (down to stereotypical music cues).
Yes, slashers tend to be empty. And, yes, I love them. I’ve admitted I’ll give them heavy leeway. But you tend to have a central group to follow, meet, and hopefully like in some way. Just one person running through the woods, chased by a silent trio, stretches the concept until it’s just a dull slog of watching Myra run, meet someone who is soon dispatched, hide for a minute, and hit the road again. And even the emptiest of slashers have interesting deaths, and the tensions to go with it. Nothing doing here. It’s tensionless and moves through molasses. A single stalk can work, like say Mute Witness or Hush, but those have quiet intensity in the filmmaking. Renny Harlin is best big, brash pictures such as the highly entertaining Nightmare on Elm Street 4, Deep Blue Sea, or Cliffhanger. When having to dig into minutia, which is everything since Deep Blue Sea, he gets lost. Driven, Exorcist: The Beginning, and others fall on their faces.
The Strangers: Chapters 1 through 3 were written and filmed as a trilogy. Thus, the second entry should build up its world and arc to create a complete trilogy. It doesn’t, mostly. The flashback gives a useless backstory to two of the killers. A few people mention the lack of investigation into the murders. But in no way does it really move forward, whatever is going on. Even more creepy “is this person a killer?” shots at the diner. My bet: a cultish sort of thing led by Richard Brake. Why else use him for just a quick few scenes across the two films, including a very out-of-place cutaway here? But that’s conjecture. Based upon the first two movies, whatever it is, it’ll be dumber than I expect.
And I expect plenty of eye rolls. Nothing across the first two films of further details of world building, adds up: how big is this area, why are Portland and Eugene treated like they are interchangeable and around the corner from this place when each of these is several hours away? Why is a hospital massacre treated like it didn’t happen to those who aren’t involved with the murders? Why are people not involved acting so strangely outside of being obvious red herrings for Mara and the audience? And why are all of them utter morons?
I feel like a moron for my willingness to try Strangers: Chapter 2 after Chapter 1. But this moron will still be watching Chapter 3 whenever it’s out. That’s being a horror fan sometimes, we’ll watch anything with the genre tag. At least I will. If you’re more discerning than I, skip this series. The Strangers: Chapter 2 is insulting to its audience. Dull, boring, and awkward, it doesn’t work.