Madelaine Petsch Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [This story contains major spoilers for The Strangers: Chapter 3.] Madelaine Petsch, the star and executive producer of The Strangers: Chapter 3, has much to say about her trilogy's surprisingly intimate final showdown. For nearly four years, Petsch has carried the Strangers reboot trilogy on her back both on and off screen. When she, as Maya Lucas, wasn't running for her life from the masked serial killers known as the Strangers, she and producer Courtney Solomon would punch up the combined 278-page script during the 52-day block-shoot of all three chapters in late 2022. When The Strangers: Chapter 1 eventually hit theaters in May 2024 and made five times its $8.5 million budget, Petsch, Solomon and director Renny Harlin listened to audience criticism and added a month of additional photography at the top of 2025 to improve Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. The latter installment received the most attention, maintaining only 20 percent of its original photography. Related Stories Movies Madelaine Petsch Makes Last Stand Against Masked Killers in 'The Strangers: Chapter 3' Trailer Movies Madelaine Petsch, Gavin Casalegno to Star in YA Romance 'Chasing Red' As a result of this creative revamp, Chapter 2's release date shifted from the fall of 2024 to September of 2025. But in an era of increasingly short attention spans, Petsch lobbied Lionsgate executives to put out Chapter 3 as soon as possible. "I'll be honest, I did go into Lionsgate and spend about three hours there. I was like, 'Let me tell you why [we shouldn't wait a year].' And they were all on board," Petsch tells The Hollywood Reporter. "It's such a jigsaw puzzle of what comes out when, theatrically. So we just got really lucky that Feb. 6 was open and available." In Chapter 1, the Strangers - who are regarded as Scarecrow, Pinup Girl and Dollface per their mask designs - killed Maya's fiancé, Ryan (Froy Gutierrez), amidst their involuntary stay in the small town of Venus, Oregon. Maya, having narrowly survived her own stabbing, struck back in Chapter 2 by killing Pinup Girl (Ema Horvath's Shelly), the apple of Scarecrow's eye since childhood. (Spoilers for Chapter 3 start now ...) Chapter 3 begins with Maya and Gregory (Gabriel Basso) confronting each other in a church. The scene explicitly confirms the open secret that Gregory is Scarecrow and that they've both taken their respective loved ones from one another. Maya is then given a head start on their climactic cat-and-mouse game, but she quickly ends up in Scarecrow and Dollface's clutches. Instead of killing her, Scarecrow has Maya stand-in for Pinup Girl during a random kill as a form of indoctrination. However, Maya turns the tables and alternatively kills Dollface. Their tug of war continued as Scarecrow proceeded to go for the jugular by killing Maya's sister and brother-in-law after they arrived in town to rescue her. Scarecrow then gives Maya the opportunity to flee town, but she opts to head for his underground hideout where she killed his father and accomplice, Sheriff Rotter (Richard Brake). The stage is subsequently set for the trilogy's last duel between Maya and Gregory, and before one of them can administer the death blow, they warmly embrace, leaving the viewer to wonder if a twisted romance is hard-launching. Maya decides otherwise, and Gregory, in his waning moments, smiles because he believes he's successfully passed the torch to her. The trilogy then concludes with Maya walking off into the unknown with the Scarecrow mask in hand. Petsch admits the ending is meant to be open to interpretation, but she leans toward the idea that Maya has in fact transformed from the final girl into the serial killer. "That [final shot] was improvisation on my part. I said, 'Can we do one where I'm holding the mask?' And then we ended up using that in the final edit," Petsch shares. "To me, as the artist, it feels so much more aligned with where she's at and her new lack of humanity that she would go in that direction." Below, during a spoiler conversation with THR, Petsch also discusses the other major changes made in the overhaul of Chapter 3, as well as how Scarecrow's identity was originally supposed to be revealed. *** Madelaine Petsch as Maya in The Strangers - Chapter 3. Jordy Clarke/Lionsgate When we last spoke in September 2025, you were hopeful that The Strangers: Chapter 3 would get a much earlier release than the previous chapter. (Chapter 2 released 16 months after Chapter 1.) Yeah, we were just here talking about Chapter 2 not too long ago. And you did end up getting the earlier release date you wanted. Did you have to do much arm-twisting? I'll be honest, I did go into Lionsgate and spend about three hours ther