There's a special kind of appeal that comes with watching a horror trilogy so nakedly built for maximum box-office return like we have here. Renny Harlin’s The Strangers: Chapter Two is not just a film, but a sloppy middle act that mistakes repetition for suspense and fills its runtime with filler to accompany some notable performances. The result is a film that doesn't go really anywhere.
While Madelaine Petsch gives an admirably committed performance all the way through, she is a lifeboat in a sea of polluted horror ocean. Harlin's direction is inert here, with the film feeling like a checklist of horror clichés glued together without any sense of flow or purpose. The film's final act, like its beginning, feels more like a contractual obligation than a meaningful cinematic event, ending abruptly with a trailer for Chapter Three that feels more like a threat rather than a promise.
Following last year's utterly redundant Chapter One, this installment manages to be a bit better in acting and overall production value, if still pointless.
The original 2008 film’s terror was rooted in its chilling motive-less cruelty, encapsulated in the infamous line, “Because you were home.” But this new trilogy, in its hubristic quest for lore, strips away everything that made the original terrifying. The decision to add a baffling and nonsensical backstory to the killers not only diminishes the menace, but also undermines the franchise's core ethos. The movie is a witless and cynical commentary on cruelty, but it never brings with it any sense of satisfaction because our mysterious antagonists don't act rationally.
The film picks up exactly where the last one ended, with our protagonist Maya (Madelaine Petsch) in a hospital. But what unfolds is a tiresome series of sequences where Maya is attacked, escapes, is attacked again, and so on. The 98-minute chase sequence is flat, with moments of such baffling incompetence that they stretch into crazy territory. The “suspense” is so reliant on cheap, predictable jump scares that any initial fear sours into deep and abiding tedium.
The film picks up exactly where the last one ended, with our protagonist Maya (Madelaine Petsch) in a hospital. But what unfolds is a tiresome series of sequences where Maya is attacked, escapes, is attacked again, and so on. The 98-minute chase sequence is flat, with moments of such baffling incompetence that they stretch into crazy territory. The “suspense” is so reliant on cheap, predictable jump scares that any initial fear sours into deep and abiding tedium.
The already thin story is made thinner by a perplexing series of subplots, including a parallel storyline with a police officer, a ridiculous CGI boar attack that feels ripped from a different movie, and bewildering choices on the part of many that make us question everything.
While Madelaine Petsch gives an admirably committed performance all the way through, she is a lifeboat in a sea of polluted horror ocean. Harlin's direction is inert here, with the film feeling like a checklist of horror clichés glued together without any sense of flow or purpose. The film's final act, like its beginning, feels more like a contractual obligation than a meaningful cinematic event, ending abruptly with a trailer for Chapter Three that feels more like a threat rather than a promise.
Comments
Post a Comment