The Strangers are back on our screens this week in an ambitious new trilogy led by Riverdale star Madelaine Petsch.
Directed by Renny Harlin, The Strangers: Chapter 1 is no ordinary horror reboot as it's the start of a trilogy. This isn't a hypothetical trilogy either as all three movies filmed back-to-back, with Harlin directing all three movies.
Petsch – who also served as an executive producer on the trilogy – plays Maya who is forced to spend a night in a remote cabin with her partner Ryan (Froy Gutierrez). Before long, they're terrorised by three masked strangers.
Talking to Digital Spy, Petsch revealed that all three movies take place over the course of five days. It meant she looked at it "like one long film" to help her with the filming schedule which saw her film different scenes from each movie on the same day.
"It was very tricky. I'm a big, big, big note taker, so I had this giant bible of my character for every scene, kind of like a walk-through like, 'This is what just happened' that I wrote a week before we started shooting," she recalled.
"I also was really immersed in the script. I helped them write the script, so I feel like that really helped me really know where I'm at."
We're still waiting to find out when to expect The Strangers: Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, but it's expected that all three movies will be released in the space of a year.
For now, Petsch teased what to expect from the follow-up movies.
"I like to look at these three bodies of work as, especially as I play this character, really a character study on if you push a person past their breaking point, who are they left with at the end of the day," she explained.
"That's the journey of Maya through the three films. The Strangers continue to absolutely ruin this girl's life."
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is released in cinemas on May 17.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
