Even pointless things have to come to an end…

With The Strangers: Chapter 3 we get what is basically the equivalent of a wet fart in church as the most pointless cinematic trilogy of the 21^st century comes to a close as it tries to leave us with hope that it could have ‘maybe’ been something entertaining but instead makes you as an audience member to want to clock the speed at which grass itself grows.

In the final film of The Strangers trilogy, Maya (Madelaine Petsch) faces the masked killers one last time in a brutal, full-circle reckoning of survival and revenge.

This is really one of those things that in “concept” had the potential to be interesting, but when you take the approximate 4 hrs and 45 min of total run time between these three movies, and think that ‘maybe’ you could have squeezed out a passable 85 minutes…that’s probably not a good sign.

Director Renny Harlin certainly makes it all look good, but these scripts that think they are manufacturing a slow burn simmering tension throughout are actually just SLOW.  To call the pacing languid would be kind because the revels are so slow and when you combine that with basic acting, underwhelming action (for a horror movie, none of these films have been all that horrific) and nothing to really get invested in, these films (this last one in particular) just kind of ‘happen’.

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie insist it’s pointlessness on me this much…EVER.  It’s like it’s going through the motions as a formerly bankable film director puts the own nails into the coffin that is his career.

It’s unfortunate because Madelaine Petsch as our “final girl” isn’t without potential here, but rather than making us actually care about her, she’s used as a place holder as we see the fairly uninteresting back story of ‘The Strangers’ unfold in this non-descript creepy middle American town.  Gabriel Basso barely emotes as our lead ‘Stranger’ and none of the actors really get a chance to make a mark so that we can care one way or another about them.

Sadly; The Strangers: Chapter 3 is just a lifeless cinematic experience; all three of these movies actually commit a worse offense then being poorly made.  They are just painfully dull, as a critic I can work with a ‘bad’ movie when it at least feels like people are trying, but ‘The Strangers: Chapter 3’ needs to go back to the drawing board, because no one actually cares about it, especially the people that made all three of these snooze fests.