The Strangers was released back in 2008 and was followed by The Strangers: Prey at Night in 2018, and now the horror franchise is back with an all-new trilogy directed by Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Die Hard 2, The Exorcist: The Beginning). The trilogy stars Riverdale alum Madelaine Petsch, and all three installments are expected to be released in 2024. In Chapter 1, Petsch plays a woman who stops at a remote vacation rental in the woods with her fianc?, but things turn deadly when a gang of masked strangers attack them. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Harlin, and the director teased there are more stories to tell after the trilogy.
“Thanks for asking that question because I definitely see more movies and it’s almost like – that’s why I don’t even call it a trilogy – I call it the first three movies of the Strangers Universe,” Harlin explained. “And the way the third movie ends, if people thought that the original movie ended in a titillating way because Liv Tyler sort of gasps in the end of that. And you question, like, ‘Did she live, what happened?’ If you thought that was thought-provoking, I think that when the third movie ends, you are like, ‘Oh my God, what’s, what’s gonna happen now?'”
Harlin continued, “Because this is really an exploration of a young woman who’s been the victim of incredible violence and an exploration of what happens to a person mentally and physically. How do you survive it? Where do you go? And in the end of the third movie, you have more questions than answers and I definitely see a bunch of new movies coming after that, and just continuing her story. So instead of going the route of the original film and the sequel of it, the sequel was about the strangers attacking some other random people. Our focus is our central character and her journey and where she’s gonna go.”
No official release date for The Strangers: Chapter 1 has been confirmed, but the movie and its two sequels will be released in 2024. Stay tuned fore more updates about The Strangers trilogy.