Lionsgate has produced an entire trilogy of new films for The Strangers franchise with The Strangers Trilogy, and they’ve released a few first look photos featuring the return of the sinister masked killers along with some of the other characters in the story. These photos are from the first chapter of the trilogy.
Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Deep Blue Sea, Die Hard 2, The Long Kiss Goodnight) is directing the movie from a script written by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland (The Freak Brothers, Due Date).
Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale, Jane) stars in the film, and she “drives cross-country with her longtime boyfriend (Froy Gutierrez, Cruel Summer, Hocus Pocus 2, Teen Wolf) to begin a new life in the Pacific Northwest.”
In the movie, “their car breaks down in Venus, Oregon, they’re forced to spend the night in a secluded Airbnb, where they are terrorized from dusk till dawn by three masked strangers.” Rachel Shenton takes on the role of Debbie, the sister to Petsch’s character. The movie also stars Ema Horvath (Rings of Power) and Gabe Basso (Hillbilly Elegy).
Harlin tells Entertainment Weekly: “When this opportunity came to me, the idea of not doing a remake or a reboot but doing a trilogy based on the original film, I thought it was an incredible opportunity.” In regards to the full story of the trilogy, he says it will “explore what happens to the victims of this kind of violence and who the perpetrators are of this kind of violence. Where are they coming from and why?”
I liked the original film that was released in 2008, and the sequel was decent as well. When talking about casting Petsch in the lead role, the director said: “Obviously Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman did a fantastic job in the original film and those were some big shoes to fill. We looked long and hard for our scream queen. When I spoke with Madelaine I just knew that she was an exceptional person, exceptional actor, and that’s what it took to play this part. In the same way, after looking long and hard, we found Froy Gutierrez, who is another wonderful young actor. We wanted a couple who feel natural and relaxed together. Their relationship, maybe it’s not identical to the relationship in the original film, but it’s something that feels very natural and very real, and that to me was the key to this movie and this trilogy. It’s the realism.”
The director shot all three films simultaneously last year in Slovakia. It’s going to be interesting to see how this trilogy turns out. I’m actually kind of looking forward to it.
