The Strangers: Chapter 3

Directed by Renny Harlin, The Strangers: Chapter 3 details the final battle between Madelaine Petsch’s Maya and the surviving title figures. Filmmaker Harlin, armed with Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, delivers a predictably lackluster endeavor that does, at the very least, mark a slight improvement over the terminally tiresome previous installment, 2025’s The Strangers: Chapter 3, although it’s equally clear that the picture, which runs 91 minutes but feels much longer, remains hopelessly unable to wholeheartedly capture the viewer’s interest and attention throughout – with the arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by a spare narrative that’s padded out to an almost absurd degree. And while the inclusion of actual bits of exposition are obviously welcome (eg it’s finally clear why everyone in town is so weird and creepy), The Strangers: Chapter 3‘s inability to transform Petsch’s bland figure into a wholeheartedly sympathetic protagonist make it exceedingly difficult to work up the slightest bit of interest in her exploits – which ensures that the happenings within the film’s final third are hardly as thrilling or cathartic as Harlin has obviously intended. The end result is a weak capper to an exceptionally underwhelming trilogy, and it does seem clear, in the final analysis, that all three of these movies could (and should) have been condensed into one potentially above-average thriller.

*1/2 out of ****