‘The Strangers’ Trilogy Cut Out Two New Masked Murderers, Might Be Included in Supercut

When Lionsgate announced that it would be reviving The Strangers but putting a spin on the concept by delivering not one, but three films chronicling the terror caused by masked murderers, fans were curious about the endeavor. Now that The Strangers — Chapter 3 is about to land in theaters, the ambitious experiment is coming to an end. Fans have witnessed that this trilogy has remained relatively faithful to 2008’s The Strangers, but now producer Courtney Solomon has confirmed that some major deviations from the original were filmed and ultimately cut.

Speaking with Dread Central, Solomon confirmed that the trilogy nearly included two additional masked killers, despite both The Strangers and The Strangers: Prey at Night only featuring a trio. The filmmaker noted:

“There were actually in the original version, two new Strangers that were actually shot and fully in the movies … One was called Ghost Skull. The other one was Witch Face. We filmed them. They’re going to be included in the extras.”

Fans Might Really Get a 4.5-Hour ‘The Strangers’ Supercut

This reboot trilogy, directed by Renny Harlin, was developed at a much different time in the entertainment industry, even if it was just a few years ago. Coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, movie debuts had altered drastically, with some of the most highly anticipated titles skipping theatrical releases and going straight to streaming. In 2021, fans got the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix, and while those films featured some exciting names, they were exclusive to the platform and were unveiled over three consecutive weeks.

This Strangers trilogy, in fact, was originally developed with a streaming debut in mind, only for Lionsgate to bump it up to a theatrical release based on promising returns from reopened movie theaters. Given that all three movies are a continuous narrative that unfold back to back to back, Harlin and Solomon conceived of the project as one extended story as opposed to three separate outings.

Solomon confirmed that fans might be able to see the films assembled into an extended supercut that would include those excised killers:

“In redoing and working on these movies, the reshoots, the original stuff, whatever, we have so much deleted material on these movies. It’s like an orgy of deleted material. What I’ve pitched is we’d like to do a theatrical for those fans that want to enjoy it theatrically, do that for a week or two.”

The likelihood of the supercut earning an official rollout will likely depend on how well Chapter 3 performs at the box office.

Has ‘The Strangers’ Reboot Experiment Paid Off?

Horror fans can be an opinionated bunch, and anything they don’t like is something they will vocally trash, and anything they do like is something they passionately champion. 2024’s The Strangers: Chapter 1 took in $47.8 million worldwide, and 2025’s The Strangers – Chapter 2 took in $21.8 million. If fans are voting with their dollar, then it seems like interest in the concept waned significantly after the first movie.

As far as critical responses go, Chapter 1 has 21% positive reviews on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes while Chapter 2 scored 15%. Horror in general, however, doesn’t always connect with critics the same way it connects with fans, with the original Strangers only earning 50% positive reviews and Prey at Night sitting at 40% positive. At this rate, it doesn’t seem like reviving the concept with this approach has won over many fans, though it’s entirely possible that opinions could change if a supercut is ever released.

The Strangers – Chapter 3

Release Date

February 6, 2026

Runtime

91 Minutes

Director

Renny Harlin

Writers

Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland

Producers

Courtney Solomon, Alastair Burlingham, Mark Canton, Charlie Dombek, Christopher Milburn, Gary Raskin

Franchise(s)

The Strangers