The Strangers: Chapter 3 (dir. Renny Harlin)

by Jack Martin | Feb 8, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 91 mins

UK Distributor: Lionsgate

UK Release Date: 6 February 2026

WHO’S IN THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 3?

Madelaine Petsch, Gabriel Basso, Ema Hovarth, Richard Brake, Kyle Breitkopf, Nola Wallace, Jake Cogman, Finn Cofell, Rachel Shenton, George Young, Miles Yekinni

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Renny Harlin (director), Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland (writers), Alastair Burlingham, Mark Canton, Charlie Dombek, Christopher Mulburn, Gary Raskin and Courtney Solomon (producers), Justin Caine Burnett (composer), José David Montero (cinematographer), Michelle Harrison and Kate Hickey (editors)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Maya (Petsch) makes her final stand against her masked foes…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE STRANGERS: CHAPTER 3?

And so ends the most “this could have been an email” movie trilogy in recent memory.

It’s honestly amazing how all three chapters in director Renny Harlin’s trio of movies – based, at this point extremely loosely, on the 2008 home invasion thriller The Strangers – have failed to justify their existence with each passing movie. You have Chapter 1 which was nothing but a suspenseless rehash of the original film, then there was Chapter 2 which was an elongated chase sequence that went in no interesting directions, and now with Chapter 3, even in the closing stretch Harlin and screenwriters Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland somehow find new ways to say and do next to nothing for a 90-minute runtime. Individually they’re all atrocious bores, but as a thoroughly connected trilogy it’s one of the worst of its kind, since not a single entry has been anywhere close to good, or even necessary.

But there is something about The Strangers: Chapter 3, even more so than the previous abysmal chapters, that makes it feel like the biggest waste of time out of them all. It’s hard to say whether it’s truly the worst of the three, since they’re all equally as bad as one another, but if you’re hoping that this one will finally turn things around and make it all seem worth it, then you’ll come away as empty and disappointed as you did two times before.

Of course, Chapter 3 picks up right where we left off, with Maya (Madelaine Petsch) – the latest would-be victim of a masked trio of psychotic killers – still a few steps ahead of her enemies, having just offed one of them via an ambulance crash. But the hunt continues for the surviving two, and eventually they catch up to Maya and force her to participate in their sadistic game of torment with other unsuspecting out-of-towners (instead of, oh I don’t know, just killing her like they’ve been trying to do for two whole movies at this point).

There’s also much more of Richard Brake as the sheriff of this small and clearly complicit town, and it’s very easy to figure out his moral allegiance since, again, he’s played by Richard Brake, an actor whose very face should come with its own red flag. Also, to amp up the stakes ever so slightly, Maya’s sister Debbie (Rachel Shenton) has arrived to look for her, with her husband Howard (George Young) and their sacrificial Black horror movie character bodyguard Marcus (Miles Yekinni) both in tow, but there’s no prizes for guessing how that goes, not to mention which one of them ends up dying first.

Like most third parts of trilogies, it attempts to offer closure by providing answers to the more burning questions raised throughout the other two movies. But to call any of these answers satisfying in any way would be to insult the very definition of satisfaction, as some of the most significant reveals end up creating far larger holes in the overall narrative that the screenwriters are clearly too negligent to fill.

How, for instance, can an entire town seem to be fully aware of the ongoing murders surrounding them yet still act surprised when certain figures among them turn out to be wholly involved? Furthermore, Debbie’s presence indicates that there are family members of the killers’ victims who must surely be concerned for their well-being, so why does it seem like she’s the first to actually arrive in this shady town and investigate? And it bears repeating: why don’t these guys just kill Maya when they have more than a chance? She’s severely weakened at this stage so it’s not like she has the energy to overpower them, let alone run that much further, yet the script dictates that they don’t lay a finger on her, even when there’s nothing standing in their way, because then the movie would be over, like it should have been for a while now.

The script is already a dead zone for common sense and basic characterisation, with Maya in particular being such an empty protagonist that she doesn’t even have that much dialogue in this chapter, but Harlin’s lethargic and passionless direction pushes it into an all-new realm of pain. Even with the reported reshoots added in after initial feedback from Chapter 1 (not that it makes any difference whatsoever), the director appears to have absolutely no interest in exploring this world or its characters and, much like the audience, is keen to just wrap it all up and call it a day. As in the previous movies, there’s no suspense because many of the “shocking” moments are either heavily telegraphed or lack the required tension to maintain viewer interest, and with this being the final chapter there’s not even any sense of catharsis during the impossibly slow climax, once again ending things on a somewhat abrupt yet frustratingly ambiguous note.

Thankfully, there is no Chapter 4 lined up after this, but the fact remains that there never should have been three chapters to begin with. It’s impossibly easy to condense this entire trilogy into a single 90–120-minute movie and still more or less get the point across, but by dragging it all out so unnecessarily to where each entry is mind-numbingly boring and uneventful, with nothing to truly recommend about any of them, makes it feel like your time has been wasted three times over.

This genuinely might be one of the worst trilogies ever made, and this (mercifully) final chapter solidifies its awfulness with about as underwhelming a climax as you can imagine – enough to, hopefully, turn these movies, and maybe this entire franchise, into strangers we can blissfully ignore going forward.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Strangers: Chapter 3 closes out one of the worst trilogies ever conceived with yet another abysmally plotted and lethargically directed entry that provides few answers and raises many more questions, leaving viewers as unsatisfied and predominantly bored as they had been whilst enduring the past two equally bad chapters.