Those hoping for a satisfying conclusion to Renny Harlin’s “Strangers” trilogy may find themselves humming The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” after experiencing “The Strangers: Chapter 3.” However, it’s the melancholic strains of The Moody Blues’ “nights in White Satin” that unexpectedly provide the film’s most memorable moment-a brief, unintentional burst of humor.
Pin-Up are revealed to have been troubled children, even homicidal ones, and the town allowed their behavior as long as it was directed at visitors. That’s the extent of the “mystery,” as one character dismissively shrugs, stating it’s simply what happens in a “fucked-up small town.” Another flashback details how they recruited a third accomplice.
Suggesting psychological depth requires actual psychological insight and well-developed characters. Here, the killers are merely blank slates: smirking figures wielding knives and axes. The screenplay,by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland, offers no real motivation beyond the simple fact that killers kill. After all, this is a horror movie.
However, no one seems genuinely invested in crafting a compelling horror experience. Harlin delivers a passable prologue-another flashback-containing one effective jump scare. But for the remaining 75 minutes (excluding nearly ten minutes of end credits), “Chapter 3” displays little interest in its own predictable mayhem. New characters (played by Rachel Shenton, George Young, and Miles Yekinni) are introduced and dispatched with equal indifference.
The director managed some decent set pieces in the previous film. Here, he appears to have conceded defeat. The actors do their best with the material, but operate in a vacuum where the filmmakers seem too disengaged to build suspense or maintain credibility. The film lacks conviction and any sense of fun. The masks, creepily old-fashioned, remain unsettling, as they were 18 years ago, but even that effect eventually fades.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Jose David Montero’s cinematography, the atmospheric locations (like its predecessors, “3” was primarily shot in Slovakia), or Justin Burnett and Oscar Senen’s original score. These elements could have enhanced a horror film that demonstrated some effort. Ultimately, the entire trilogy lacks a compelling reason to exist beyond commercial considerations-a goal it may have failed to achieve, as this reviewer was the sole attendee at the opening-day screening. It stretches a story that wouldn’t fill 90 minutes to 4.5 hours, reaching no worthwhile destination and generating little excitement along the way. It aims low…and still misses.
Otherwise, this installment feels remarkably uninspired, a film that prompts disbelief at the months of effort poured into a script seemingly dashed off in a few hours. While the previous two films felt somewhat underdeveloped, there was a lingering hope that the story was building toward something. “Chapter 3,” however, confirms that the premise lacked the depth to sustain more than a single, moderately successful episode. Bryan Bertino’s unsettling 2008 original and Johannes roberts’ more conventional but effective 2018 “The Strangers: Prey at Night” now appear genuinely masterful in comparison to these recent additions, sharing little beyond the presence of three masked killers.
