This post contains spoilers!

I’ll preface by saying I only watched this movie for Richard Brake. Thankfully, his character, Sheriff Rotter, actually has more than five seconds of screentime in this sequel. 

The story picks up immediately where The Strangers – Chapter I left off, with the protagonist, Maya, in the hospital following her attack. She is, of course, traumatized from her boyfriend’s murder. She sees the masked killers everywhere; everyone is suspicious and no one is forthcoming. 

Right from the start, Maya is fighting for her life again. The killers find her at the hospital (likely because the deputy idiotically announced she hadn’t died in the town’s diner). The fight transitions over to the forest, which has very, very aggressive warthogs. She manages to find her way back to the home where everything started and again, she must flee from the killers.  

She still isn’t safe when she’s aided by a group of townspeople, one of whom is a nurse at the hospital. The killers show up randomly at the group’s home and it’s more running and fighting from there until the end of the film, which leaves off with a cliffhanger. 

The pacing of this film was rough. From start to finish, Maya does nothing but run away from the killers, get hurt, scream, and cry. They throw in a lot of other characters between Maya’s scenes to sort of build suspense or showcase another kill. There is so little character development, no depth really at all, and it results in a pretty boring watch.

The film does try to build lore behind the killers. The diner waitress, Shelley, is revealed to be one of them. There are flashbacks to her childhood where she’s bullied and demonstrates psychopathic tendencies. Young Shelley also kills a classmate, Tamara, providing some explanation for why the killers refer to that name. 

It’s not explicitly revealed who the two other killers are, but from little clues,the male one is likely Gregory, an aggressive native of Venus. I am guessing that the third killer is a young lady, shown briefly speaking to the Sherrif and his deputy at the diner. She’s played by Ella Bruccoleri (LOVED her as Sister Frances in Call the Midwife).

Giving the killers identities takes away from the horror, in my opinion. One of the scariest aspects of the original 2008 film is that we know nothing about the killers, and that lack of identity provides no motive.

I’m not too hopeful for The Strangers – Chapter 3, but I may watch it anyway. For Richard Brake.