The Strangers trilogy will solve one of the movie’s biggest mysteries

With The Strangers: Chapter 1 out now, director Renny Harlin and lead star Madelaine Petsch confirmed the remaining trilogy will solve one of the franchise’s biggest mysteries. 

The Strangers franchise started with Bryan Bertino’s 2008 original, which remains one of the best horror movies ever made thanks to its simplicity and terrifying realism. 

Ten years later, the sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night arrived, and now Harlin is taking over the series with a trio of movies that will reimagine the original. 

One thing these movies all have in common is that before the masked killers – Dollface, Pin-Up Girl, and the Man in the Mask – show up, the victims receive a knock at the door from someone asking, “Is Tamara home?”

Though there have been numerous fan theories about the identity of Tamara over the years, Harlin and Petsch, who plays Maya in the new trilogy, have confirmed that this will be revealed in the following two chapters. 

Speaking to Dexerto ahead of the release of The Strangers: Chapter 1, Petsch explained, “You do find out who Tamara is, which I think is really fun.”

Adding to this, Harlin said that his Strangers movies will “answer some of the questions” that were left by the 2008 original. 

“I can tell you that we answer the question: who is Tamara? Because in the first movie and in the original movie those strangers keep showing up and asking, ‘Is Tamara home?’ And we never find out who the heck is Tamara,” he explained. 

Prior to this, the filmmaker said, “I think I share a certain curiosity or even frustration from the first movie. In a way, the magic of it was that nothing was explained, and in a way, it made you really want to know more. 

“Our goal has been to really satisfy the fans and then hopefully satisfy the new fans by telling more about the background of the strangers in the second and third movies.”

Alongside finding out more about the strangers, Petsch told us that the intention of the story is to reimagine The Strangers but explore what happens after Liv Tyler’s Kristen wakes up. 

“The intent behind the story we’re telling is when Liv Tyler’s character opens her eyes at the end of the original film, what happens next in our universe?” she said. 

“It’s definitely more of a character study on Maya, and you get really cool moments and exploration of the history of the strangers.”

The trilogy also serves the purpose of studying the real-life issue of violence. “It’s kind of a study on violence,” added Harlin. 

“We explore the perpetrators of violence and what makes them tick. And we explore what happens to the victims of this kind of violence, mentally and physically, and how a person can change in the course of something like this.”

The Strangers: Chapter 1 is in cinemas now. For more horror, be sure to check out all of the horror movies to get excited about in 2024. You can also discover everything we know about Terrifier 3, Longlegs, and how to watch In a Violent Nature. Or, why now take a look at all the new movies heading to streaming this month.