The Strangers: Chapter 2 - Is It Over Yet?

Strangers Poster

So, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this movie series. I didn't overly love the first chapter. A lot of it boils down to the protagonist, Maya. She's as smart as she is dumb.

There are multiple times where she did something smart to survive, then did something stupid. If you stab someone trying to kill you with a pitchfork and walk away without stabbing again in their face, definitely ending them...you know nothing of survival.

The movie itself continues from where the last one left off. Maya waking up from nearly being killed the night before. Sheriff and deputy brush it off because they've been covering up the deaths for years. Can't have state and federal agents out there stopping a group of sociopathic murderers.

Maya begins the fight of her life again, trying to escape from The Strangers. First at the hospital, then through town. Like so many movies like this, as she comes across people who are willing to help her...they die. Horribly. Bloody. It's a horror movie! They can't get away cleanly. That won't do at all.

There are a lot of tense moments. She gets some help, but starts to question if they're really helping her or The Strangers without their masks. She has to dodge an attack from a killer boar.

We also get a backstory from the group of Strangers, revealing the identity of Pin-Up Girl. She had a crush on Scarecrow and another girl in school was working her preteen whiles on him. So, she killed this girl out of jealousy...as kids tend to do. But Scarecrow didn't run in fear, oh no. He was into it. Origins of the two Strangers in place.

I go back and forth on if this was a good idea. While it certainly helped to round out the runtime, was it really needed? While I always want to know the why and psychopathy of killers in movies like this, what worked in original movie (Liv Tyler one from 2008), was that you never knew why they did it or why they were evil. They just were. They were home, so the Strangers killed them. Why they kill remains the same, but finding out who they are and where they started does add a small layer of sympathy. And I don't want sympathy for these people. They're vicious killers.

I didn't need to know, Michael Myers was bullied and abused and neglected before the night he grabbed a knife and killed his family.

The origin story helps understand them, but doesn't negate that these are inherently evil people. That kill just because, no rhyme or reason. You're there...you get to die.

The movie is just setting up the final chapter (I hope) of the series. Though, this never needed to be a trilogy. Or a series. A one and done would have been fine, Maya lives after her long night and the Strangers live to kill another day...or they die in the end. Stretching this story out into three movies makes as much sense as when they did it with The Hobbit...could have been done in one movie.

This will not be on my Halloween playlist. I'm probably not even going to really think about it again until I see the next one (I'm already in and I'm nothing if not a completionist) and can remove all of them from my memory.

No need to rush out and see this one. I'd barely give it a glance once it hits streaming. Franchise needs to end...quickly.

2/4