The Strangers: Chapter 2 hopes to leave audiences even more frightened than they were upon seeing its predecessor.
Director Renny Harlin, star Madelaine Petsch and producer Courtney Solomon brought the scares to San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday while discussing the second installment in this revival of The Strangers movie franchise, which kicked off in 2008.
While the first outing in the trilogy was a home invasion movie, Harlin describes Chapter 2 as “a town invasion” with a much bigger scale.
“So, for me as a director, it was just an incredible chance to take a movie that starts in a kind of claustrophobic, small setting to a totally different level, take it to an epic storytelling level without sacrificing those quality characters that we established,” Harlin continued.
The audience in Ballroom 20 was treated to plenty of footage from The Strangers: Chapter 2 to keep them satiated until the film hits theaters in the fall.
The first clip features Petsch as Maya, running through the woods in the pouring rain when she stumbles upon a road. Clad in only a hospital gown and with a massive cut on her forehead, Maya jumps in front of a car seeking help, but when she gets in the car, she immediately begins to question the motives of the women who have picked her up. When they lock the doors, Maya loses it, before eventually agreeing to be taken to their home.
A second scene, which unfolds in one single shot, gave a bit more context for how Maya got into that predicament in the first place. It begins with Maya trying to escape an eerily empty hospital, but all the doors are locked. At first, the cause of her panic is unclear, but soon a masked man with an axe appears in the background, and all confusion is gone. Maya tries to divert his attention so she can escape, but he’s quickly on her tail again as she takes off down a hallway and the scene fades to black.
According to Solomon, that’s “just the tip of the iceberg” in terms of what unfolds in that eery scene.
“I think hospitals are scary to begin with. My dad was a doctor, and I spent most time in hospitals when I was little, and I’m still traumatized by it,” Harlin said, adding that having a stranger stalk Maya through the halls of a hospital is “kind of a natural way to make Maya very vulnerable in this environment that is supposed to be safe.”
One last piece of footage shared in the room makes it clear that this will not be the last Maya sees of that man from the hospital, either. The short clip features Maya locking herself in the bathroom of an unfamiliar home when all of a sudden an axe comes flying through the closed door. Once he’s made a big enough hole, the stranger grabs Maya by the head and slams her against the door multiple times before ripping out a chunk of her hair. But by the time he makes it into the room himself, Maya has escaped out the window and is on the run again.
The team went more in depth on the decision to shoot all three films at the same time, with Petsch revealing that she would often film scenes from across the trilogy on the same day — which came with pros and cons, of course.
But, it was all in pursuit of crafting “the ultimate final girl” by drilling into Maya’s psyche over the course of several days as she’s pushed past her breaking point.
Naturally, this raises questions about the arrival of Chapter 3. Solomon says that the wait shouldn’t be too long, as they are set to lock the film by the time that the second film arrives in theaters.
Lionsgate’s The Strangers: Chapter 2 will open in theaters on Sept. 26, 2025.