By the time The Strangers: Chapter 3 gets underway, it becomes clear that this trilogy’s real antagonist isn’t masked strangers or small-town rot, but sheer creative exhaustion.
The film picks up right where the second part ended, with Maya (Madelaine Petsch) killing Pin-Up Girl. Despite the build up, the inevitable confrontation between Maya and Scarecrow (Gabriel Basso) is a major let down. Their encounter unfolds inside a chapel, where an unmasked Scarecrow bears his heart open to Maya about the mutual losses they have suffered, and any remaining sense of threat evaporates.
The first part worked because the masked strangers had no names, no faces, and no explanations. The third part, in contrast, can`t stop explaining itself, yet the explanations itself are paper thin. Flashbacks of Scarecrow and Pin-Up Girl as teenagers show they simply are born innately cruel; there is no attempt to provide any psychological depth to their actions. Another flashback shows Doll Face joined the murderous duo but adds no impact to the plot.
New characters, like Maya`s sister (Rachel Shenton) who arrives to Venus in search for her, are introduced, only to be disposed of even before their presence registers. New revelations don`t land as a surprise – Sheriff Rotter (Richard Brake) is revealed to be exactly as evil as suspected. Maya remains the designated Final Girl, still surviving only due to plot armour.
The film piles up several questions that provides no resolutions to. Why does Scarecrow repeatedly spare Maya? Why does he unbind her and arm her arm her with a rifle? Why does Maya have no dialogue except the opening and concluding scenes? Why are the towns people or at least the police not concerned by the growing number of missing people? And why did this story need to be stretched to a trilogy at all?
Scarecrow then tries to convert Maya into the next serial killer by giving her Pin-Up Girl`s mask, – a plot device that might have seemed symbolic on paper but is rather hollow. The film could have interrogated the idea of violence begetting more violence, but merely gestures at it before moving on. Madelaine Petsch is given little to work with beyond physical endurance, with zero interiority, no dialogues and a fixed, vacant stare.
For a horror movie, this film doesn`t seem to want to frighten you, as scenes stretch endlessly and tension never arrives. Scenes of violence also don’t lean into excess gore, the, staging lacks intensity, having no impact on the audience.
Shot in Slovakia, the cinematography is atmospheric, the score evokes dread, the performances are effective and the masks are initially unsettling. However, the trilogy stretches a concept that barely sustains a single film into three films’ worth of material, leading to an ending that feels less like closure than weariness.
