The Strangers: Chapter 2 Producer Admits Fan Reactions Transformed Movie Post-Reshoots

The Strangers: Chapter 2 is the fourth entry in the 17-year-old Strangers horror franchise, and the second in the franchise’s Renny-Harlin-directed reboot trilogy. The three films in the trilogy were shot in late 2022. They were shot back-to-back, in the noble tradition of such classic cinematic series as Back to the Future and The Lord of the Rings. But what happens when the first film in the trilogy receives quite the opposite of the rousing acclaim that greeted The Fellowship of the Ring? Harlin and his creative team have been working hard to surmount this very problem.

Brief Overview of the Strangers Franchise

The Strangers is a franchise that began humbly enough, with a standalone 2008 film starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman as a vacationing couple imperiled by masked invaders who have no apparent motivation other than the fact that their victims had the misfortune of being present. Despite very mixed reviews, the film became a surprise hit and a cult classic. A sequel, The Strangers: Prey at Night, followed a decade later to a similarly mixed reception.

In 2022, one of the original film’s producers, Roy Lee, announced plans for a standalone trilogy of films concerning the depredations of these nihilistic masked marauders. This trilogy would be helmed by director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Deep Blue Sea). Following the back-to-back shoot between September and November of 2022, the first film, The Strangers: Chapter 1, was released in May of 2024.

This introduction to the reboot trilogy was met with a predominantly negative reception, with many criticizing its story for being little more than a greatly inferior retelling of the 2008 original. Nonetheless, the show has gone on: The Strangers: Chapter 2 premiered at Fantastic Fest and will get its wide release on September 26.

“We Listened to the Audience.”

In an interview on September 23 with The Hollywood Reporter, Harlin explained that he and everyone else involved in the new Strangers films cared deeply about the fact that their trilogy was not off to a good start as far as much of the fanbase was concerned. He admitted that they found 52 days a slightly inadequate time frame for all the creative choices that they wanted to make: “‘There’d be one thing that was a little cheesy, but we just had to do it.’ So we were always hoping and praying that we could go back.”

Therefore, even though principal photography for all three films was completed nearly three years ago, Harlan decided to dedicate twenty-eight days to reshoots for the second and third films – “a little more than” one week for The Strangers: Chapter 2, and “a little more than” three for The Strangers: Chapter 3 – in the hope of delivering two sequels that would correct most of the first film’s highlighted issues.

Harlin started off by stipulating that the heavy criticism leveled at Chapter 1 was rather inevitable: “One reason is that you can’t remake a classic without people feeling like you’re doing it all wrong. However, we had to do the first one that way in order to set up the scenario for the continuation of the story. So we knew that it was going to be tough, but we listened and read the commentary.”

A Major Change: Backstory for the Strangers

When it came to The Strangers: Chapter 2 and its forthcoming follow-up, Harlin and his team decided that one of the best improvements they could make to satisfy frustrated fans was to provide more backstory and context for the titular Strangers, “while appreciating the fact that the killings are random.”

There’s a fine line to be trodden here: The arbitrary aspect of the murders is one of the franchise’s darkest and most unique selling points, typified by the original film’s iconic line “Because you were home,” delivered by one of the Strangers in response to one victim’s horrified query as to why the Strangers are inflicting such brutality upon them. Harlin clearly appreciates the importance of maintaining this nihilistic mystique, but he has also determined that what his audience really wants is “an exploration into what makes the Strangers tick.”

In the interest of such an exploration, Harlin has interspersed the present-day action of The Strangers: Chapter 2 – in which Maya (Madelaine Petsch), the surviving protagonist from the first film, desperately struggles to evade the Strangers – with flashbacks intended to flesh out the backstories of a few of her masked pursuers.

Additionally, he promised that the reshot version of The Strangers: Chapter 2 should either omit or substantially alter a previously planned subplot involving an Oregon State Police investigator (Joblin Sibtain) who attempts to uncover who the Strangers are. “In retrospect,” Harlin explained, “I think we mistakenly took a path of emphasizing the investigation into these killers. We realized that’s not at all what this series of movies should be about… Investigating clues and figuring it out like a kind of whodunnit was completely the wrong path.”

A Tantalizing Hint at the Concluding Chapter

Finally, Harlin was asked “What else can you say about the concluding chapter?” in light of a mid-credits scene that serves as a kind of trailer for The Strangers: Chapter 3. He replied that the final film would contain a twist in its character development that would be both grounded and shocking. He described it as “very rooted in reality. I believe in it wholeheartedly, but it’s really, really unexpected. It’ll take the audience by a huge surprise.”

An Inauspicious Beginning – But How Will It End?

Judging from the early signs, it doesn’t appear that The Strangers: Chapter 2 is being touted as the massive improvement that Harlin and co. clearly set out to give their audiences. The film currently holds a 19% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a slightly lower score than that of its predecessor. To be fair, though, the second film’s score is based on only sixteen reviews.

When The Strangers: Chapter 2 gets its wide release, will a larger pool of reviews prove more favorable to it? Will Chapter 3’s mysterious twist make it the best of the trilogy? Whatever the case, at least it can’t be said that the makers of this reboot series weren’t giving it their all.