By Dan Skip Allen 

“The Strangers Chapter 3 is the end of Renny Harlan’s trilogy of horror films rebooting The Strangers. Lionsgate gave him carte blanche to do his own story based on the original films, and he did an okay job with this franchise. I wasn’t a fan of the first film, but I liked where the second movie started and left off. This third film in Harlin’s trilogy isn’t great, but it goes in some fascinating directions. Fans of the franchise will see it one way, but I happen to see it another way regarding what the story as a whole is trying to say. I’m curious what the legacy of this trilogy will be in the eyes of most horror purists and film aficionados. 

This third film picks up where the last one left off. With the main character, Maya (Madeline Petsch), hiding from the Sheriff who is in on the killing in the small town of Venus, Oregon. She is literally fighting for her survival against two of the three masked killers as the adult female has perished by her own hand. Using nighttime as a way to hide and keep the audience at arms length, Harlin throws in a few curve balls to keep this third chapter fresh and interesting. Unmasking one of the killers, Gregory (Gabriel Basso, The Night Agent), is a trick I was not surprised by. Showing his cards was not on my bingo card. At least not until the end of the movie. I was pleased by how he played the character, though. 

This time around, there are a lot of kills, and Harlin and company ramps up the blood and gore level. Basso’s character uses his signature axe to chop a lot of people up, but it’s the sound of the kills. The sound design makes these kills even more impactful. Also, a few people get shot, and the sound design there is impressive as well. To top it off, a saw mill is used as a backdrop, and that was pretty creepy, to say the least. It’s a prerequisite that creepy locations are used by the killers in horror movies as their layer or base of operations, but this lumber mill takes the cake. You’ll never catch me going in one of these in my lifetime ever again. That’s a promise. 

This movie used one film technique that helped flesh out the story more and give a backstory to the killers and so forth. That is flashbacks. The flashbacks show the reason and mindset behind the killers and how they get away with these grizzly murders over and over again. They have a helper in the form of a person who covers them up. They’re only supposed to kill outsiders, not town folk. That works out well for them until the Petsch character comes back to town. The whole town is on the killing spree. It’s crazy that they all can allow these people to kill innocent people at will, and nobody does anything about it. Giving these characters and films a backstory was a good way to flesh out the killers and show their primary motivations, but it doesn’t justify what they are doing at all.

Some people may not like these movies because they objectify mindless killing and blood and gore for no reason. Others look at these films as a way to escape the real world and enjoy a good old-fashioned slasher. I, on the other hand, feel there is a reason Harlin decided to reboot this franchise the way he did. He is using it as a metaphor for society. This innocent girl comes to this small indescript little town and gets drawn into this life or death game of survival but ends up becoming the person she least wants to be. All the craziness and killing have changed her into one of them. That’s a story of life. Where workers, government employees, or big business people start out with some kind of altruistic plan of being against the man but end up becoming the man because they don’t want to fight against the system anymore. That’s what I garnered from this rebooted three part story.  

The acting in these films isn’t something you can write home to your friends and family and say wow this is great, but Petsch, Basso and Richard Brake as the sheriff of the small town are doing decent acting work here. In a lot of horror films, the performances of the actors are laughable but not this reboot of The Strangers franchise.  You can tell Harlin is getting the best performances out of the actors he can get. These good performances go a long way in showing this is a realistic story. One not to take lightly. Whether you agree with the concept of the movies or not, you have to agree that the acting is pretty good.

The idea of The Strangers is explored in this third film in the franchise, but without spoiling the movie, I can’t say what that is at this time. All I can say is see the film and its two predecessors, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It is part of the high concept that I’m mentioning with this franchise. It’s not just mindless entertainment for the masses. It a well thought out story.

“The Strangers Chapter 3” is the best of the three movies in this rebooted franchise. This trilogy is saying more and doing more with a simple concept than most of the other horror franchises in recent memory. With high concept horror becoming a new thing, Zach Cregger’s films, Barbarian and Weapons, for example. Harlin is trying to give audiences more to think about than mindless blood and gore. He infuses an entire mantra of the way people become who we fear the most, which is deep for a horror movie. The nighttime cinematography is very good. The sound design is excellent. I got chills at some of the loud kills. The acting was a step up for this franchise, and as a whole, I don’t think this was a bad movie. Bringing everything home in the end gave me a sense of completion. I don’t know if others feel this way, but those are my feelings.

3 stars