The Strangers: Chapter 2 director Renny Harlin calls the film “a town invasion” story
Director Renny Harlin shot an entire trilogy of Strangers movies at the same time, and while there was a point when it looked like Lionsgate might be releasing all three of the movies within 2024, that idea was clearly pushed aside. The Strangers: Chapter 1 (read our review HERE) reached theatres back in May of 2024, and The Strangers: Chapter 2 won’t be reaching theatres until September 26, 2025. A teaser trailer for Chapter 2 dropped online eight months ago, with the full trailer (embedded above) following a couple of weeks ago. This film was promoted with a panel at the San Diego Comic-Con this Thursday – and details from that panel, which included the screening of multiple clips, have now made their way online, thanks to Deadline. One cool quote: Harlin said that while the first movie was a “home invasion” story, this one is “a town invasion” story.
Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale) has the lead role in this trilogy and is joined in the cast of the films by Froy Gutierrez (Cruel Summer), Rachel Shenton (All Creatures Great and Small), Gabriel Basso (Hillbilly Elegy), and Ema Horvath (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power). The Strangers: Chapter 1 centers on Petsch’s character as she drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Gutierrez) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest. When their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers. Lionsgate plans from there to expanding the story in new and unexpected ways with its sequels. Now, we’re on to the next chapter.
The new Strangers trilogy was filmed in Slovakia. Courtney Solomon produced them with Mark Canton, Christopher Milburn, Gary Raskin, Charlie Dombeck, and Alastair Birlingham. Andrei Boncea, Dorothy Canton, and Roy Lee serve as executive producers. Rafaella Biscayn, Frame Film SK, Johanna Harlin, Juan Garcia Peredo, and Alberto Burgueno are co-producing. The first film earned an R rating for “horror violence, language and brief drug use.”
Harlin has said The Strangers: Chapter 1 “is close to the original movie in its set-up of a young couple in an isolated environment in a house and a home invasion happening for random reasons.” Then Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 “explore what happens to the victims of this kind of violence and who the perpetrators are of this kind of violence. Where are they coming from and why?“
During the Comic-Con panel, Harlin said that making this trilogy, “for me as a director, was just an incredible chance to take a movie that starts in a kind of claustrophobic, small setting to a totally different level, take it to an epic storytelling level without sacrificing those quality characters that we established.” The filmmakers were also trying to build Petsch’s character Maya into “the ultimate final girl” by following her through this trilogy, which takes place over the course of several nightmarish days.
Here are Deadline’s clip descriptions: The first clip features Petsch as Maya, running through the woods in the pouring rain when she stumbles upon a road. Clad in only a hospital gown and with a massive cut on her forehead, Maya jumps in front of a car seeking help, but when she gets in the car, she immediately begins to question the motives of the women who have picked her up. When they lock the doors, Maya loses it, before eventually agreeing to be taken to their home. A second scene, which unfolds in one single shot, gave a bit more context for how Maya got into that predicament in the first place. It begins with Maya trying to escape an eerily empty hospital, but all the doors are locked. At first, the cause of her panic is unclear, but soon a masked man with an axe appears in the background, and all confusion is gone. Maya tries to divert his attention so she can escape, but he’s quickly on her tail again as she takes off down a hallway and the scene fades to black. One last piece of footage shared in the room makes it clear that this will not be the last Maya sees of that man from the hospital, either. The short clip features Maya locking herself in the bathroom of an unfamiliar home when all of a sudden an axe comes flying through the closed door. Once he’s made a big enough hole, the stranger grabs Maya by the head and slams her against the door multiple times before ripping out a chunk of her hair. But by the time he makes it into the room himself, Maya has escaped out the window and is on the run again. Petsch confirmed that she lost some of her own hair while filming that third scene. That clip has been released online and can be seen at the bottom of this article.
Harlin had this to say about the hospital scenes: “I think hospitals are scary to begin with. My dad was a doctor, and I spent most time in hospitals when I was little, and I’m still traumatized by it.” He aimed to “make Maya very vulnerable in this environment that is supposed to be safe.“
Are you looking forward to The Strangers: Chapter 2? What do you think of it being a town invasion story? Let us know by leaving a comment below. Producer Courtney Solomon couldn’t say how long the wait between the second and third chapters will be, only that it “shouldn’t be too long.”
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