We can’t be an alternate ending kind of channel and not discuss the Strangers Trilogy. We’ve got to talk about how they teased one of the darkest horror endings, only to chicken out of committing!
They could’ve told an incredibly dark and compelling story, but instead they chose to play it safe and make Maya another generic final girl. So today, we’ll connect the dots ourselves and rewrite the entire trilogy, giving the characters and the villains enough depth to actually make this remake worthy of existence.
First and foremost, I have to make it clear that this is not a recap. I’m assuming that if you’re here, you’ve either seen the movies or you don’t mind spoilers. Either way, spoilers are ahead, and I will be referring to those events as the canon timeline. Anything in the alternate ending would be referred to as the rayewritten timeline.
The concept of the Strangers movies has always been relatively simple. There’s a couple or a family in a house, cabin, or trailer, and some strangers come knocking at the door. They’re always looking for someone named Tamara, which is really just their ruse for stalking the place out so they can determine how easy it would be to kill everyone inside.
Once they’ve staked the place out and come up with a plan, the three masked figures known as Scarecrow, Pinup Girl, and Dollface each torment the protagonists, in this case, Maya and her man, Ryan, before ultimately killing everyone in their path.
The Strangers Part 1 establishes the premise: three strangers stalk and harass Maya and Ryan outside a cabin where they’ve been forced to stay while their car is being repaired. They eventually kill Ryan, but Maya manages to escape with her life.
Part 2 is a hysterically long chase scene where Maya faces the unmasked killers, so we, as the audience, are just as paranoid and conflicted as Maya. We’re asking ourselves: are these just randomly awkward townsfolk, or are they the strangers who have been tormenting her all along?
In part 3, we do get confirmation that, yes, Scarecrow was, in fact, the weirdo being weird, but something else happens here, too. Scarcrow, who has lost his girl in this whole debacle, has decided that Maya will replace the pinup girl and join the strangers. He forces her to wear the mask and participate in a recreation of the gang’s first team-up.
Maya ultimately escapes the masked man, only to return to his lair armed up and take everyone out Erin Harson style. But what if she hadn’t? What if the movie actually committed to the controversial setup they laid the groundwork for? What if Maya became a stranger?
The Maya Problem
There are plenty of problems with these movies, but my biggest one is that Maya Lucas, the protagonist of this trilogy, is boring. We know nothing about her other than that she is a vegetarian. We don’t know what her relationships with anyone outside of her boyfriend Ryan are like; we don’t know about her hobbies, hopes, or ambitions. We have no understanding of what motivates her as a person or what makes her distinct from any other horror-movie canon-fodder caricature, yet we’re expected to follow her on her run for her life for three hours and care the whole way through.
Well, she’s boring, and I don’t care. And I care even less when we watch the light go out in her eyes after witnessing her sister’s murder. In canon, we know nothing of the relationship between these sisters, which is insane, considering how much screen time is wasted with these drawn-out, claustrophobic set-pieces that go on for way too long.
I get it, Maya is paranoid and feels like she’s being drawn to madness. I like the way the movie uses its cinematography to convey this, but I hate that it feels like it’s at the expense of actually telling a full-fledged story, especially given the overall runtime.
The Strangers: Chapter 1 Rayewritten
Fixing Maya’s character could’ve been done easily with a little more character development, and full commitment to doing something unique with her as a final girl.
I’d definitely give more time to the backstory between Maya and her sister. I think it would’ve been interesting to explore some kind of codependent relationship the girls had from childhood.
This could’ve been shared organically with the audience at the diner while Maya and Ryan discussed their road trip plans. Ryan could’ve made a comment about their codependency being unhealthy, and she’d retort that he got her away long enough to steal her heart. This would be to plant the seed that Maya essentially traded one anxious attachment for another.
Her sister would come up again whenever Ryan left Maya alone at the house, and Maya decided to call and check in. There could’ve been a long one-take of Maya walking through the place, absentmindedly yapping with her sister and smoking her spliff, with Scarecrow lurking in the background. I like this better than his sitting in the chair directly behind her, while she played the piano and didn’t feel his presence at all.
Maya’s sister will express concern for her, wondering if she was looking into trying out any new hobbies or things to keep herself busy. Maya would laugh it off, saying she’s busy enough with Ryan. She’ll talk about how alive he makes her feel and how their relationship is way better than the one their parents shared. This will sour the mood and the audience won’t yet understand why. Just as her sister is attempting to change the subject and liven the mood, Maya’s phone will lose service.
I’d leave the rest of chapter 1 alone for the most part, as this should’ve been the lowest point in the trilogy. I actually like the symmetry of leaving this ending eerily close to that of the original, especially in hindsight where we’d be able to see how much differently things could’ve gone. So we’d keep the strangers lined up in front of a taped up Ryan and Maya, the slaughter of Ryan, and Maya surviving long enough to reach the hospital.
Before we dive into the changes I’d make for Chapter 2 though, let’s talk about the other characters and how half-baked their backstories are.
Half-Baked Character Arcs & Backstories
Maya wasn’t the only boring and uninspired character with a half-developed arc. That describes each of the strangers, too! So let’s dive into those and how I would’ve adjusted the story to make it more compelling.
The backstory we get for Tamara and the Strangers is pretty boring to me, too. It turns out that a young Scarecrow used to play a game with some of the other kids where someone would hide in a little toy house. Another kid would knock on the door and ask if Tamara was home, and the child inside would open the door and kiss whoever knocked. Pin-up girl got jealous and offed the little girl who was kissing Scarecrow.
As the sheriff’s child, Scarecrow took the blame, and he and the pin-up girl have been together ever since. As teenagers, they hooked up with Dollface, who the couple discovered had murdered her boyfriend in a jealous rage. From there, the trio would get together whenever they wanted and kill anyone driving through town under the protection of Scarecrow’s daddy.
In actuality, this backstory is fine. It’s boring, and I don’t care, but it fits within the realm of the story and says something about how people in positions of power can abuse their authority to cover up injustice when it feels beneficial to them.
The sheriff could’ve been a really compelling character who was torn between wanting to protect his town and his only child, hence the agreement where Scarecrow promised that he and the girls would only kill outsiders, or “strangers,” if you will. This reshapes the narrative, acknowledging the victims now as the strangers, rather than it being the creepy masked people who show up at people’s doors to slaughter them. Instead of adding any ambiguity, they just make the sheriff evil. That’s it. He’s an evil sheriff with no moral compass, other than don’t kill my townsfolk, making my job harder, and he has an evil son with an evil girlfriend. They made an evil friend, and they do evil shit to any “strangers” they find.
Again, it’s exhaustingly boring, but it’s fine.
I’m not sure what the movie is even trying to sell with that one, but let’s discuss the second chapter I’d have written.
The Strangers: Chapter 2 Rayewritten
The second movie opens up with the backstory on how pinup girl and Scarecrow met Dollface, and I have to admit I kind of like this. I like the concept of the couple wanting to take out Dollface and her boyfriend, but then recruiting her after discovering she’s like them.
I wish we had gotten some more of the dynamic between the individual strangers, though. In canon, they gave us enough for a surface-level understanding of their backstory, but not enough for me to care or for it to be consequential in any way. If we’re going to deem their backstories important enough to include, let’s actually flesh it out.
In the second movie, when Maya is in the house with the unmasked Scarecrow, I’d have him ask questions that stem from this phone conversation with her sister. He’d ask about her family and it would be revealed that her parents died when she was young. Her big sister practically raised her after that, and they were inseperable for years.
On one end it will seem like he’s just a concerned stranger, as his demeanor would be much less creepy in my version of things. On the other end though, while he does present himself as less intimidating, his line of questioning will still be enough to make Maya suspicious and run away.
Ultimately Scarecrow uses the information he learns from Maya between the phone call and later conversation to trap and kill the sister. Maya will blame herself and this will mark a catalystic change for the character.
A Twist with Too Much Adacity
