‘The Strangers’ Star Madelaine Petsch Has Seen Every Horror Movie

Madelaine Petsch, star and producer of The Strangers: Chapter 1, is serious about horror.

“I had a Blockbuster close to my parents’ house when I was a kid,” the Riverdale alum told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed during a recent interview. At around the age of 11 or 12, she recalled, she made it her mission to watch every horror film in said Blockbuster by the time she enrolled in high school. Through sheer determination, she succeeded.

“I spent every weekend with my best friend watching probably, like, five movies a day for like three or four years,” Petsch said. “When I set a goal, I accomplish it at all costs.”

In The Strangers—a remake of the 2008 hit starring Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, and a trio of murderers hidden behind creepy masks—Petsch plays an equally perseverant character named Maya, who finds herself stranded in a tiny Oregonian hamlet along with her boyfriend, Ryan (Froy Gutierrez). The two are on their way to Portland, where Maya has a job interview with a major architectural firm, but their car suddenly stops working after a pit stop at an unnervingly unfriendly diner. By the time the lovebirds of five years shack up in a remote Airbnb, their fates already feel sealed.

Much like its late aughts predecessor, The Strangers is tailor made to torture its audience along with its protagonists. Throughout the film, you might find yourself yelling at people to just look behind them, or to run back and grab the weapon they just forgot in haste. From the retro music to the “cabin in the woods” atmosphere, this movie cultivates a chilling, late-night slumber party-friendly mood. Alongside those eternally freaky masks (which, yes, are the same as those used in the original) the secret weapon in this chilling tale is its central couple, whose uncommonly good chemistry actually makes you want to root for them.

It’s not often that I actually care about what happens to a horror movie couple. More often than not, the dynamics are intentionally toxic, which makes it easier to enjoy their deaths. The Strangers: Chapter 1 takes the opposite approach, presenting us with a healthy, humanly imperfect couple—one you might actually want to meet in real life.

“I think for both of us, it was so important that they felt real—that they felt like people that we know,” Gutierrez told Obsessed. “We wanted them to feel like a team, and we wanted them to feel like they covered each other's bases in a lot of ways. They're five years into a relationship, so they know each other really, really well, and they kind of have their own language. They can tease each other and make fun of each other.”

Petsch added: “The only way that we felt like we could do that is by showing a healthy and loving relationship that has its flaws like any normal relationship would, but making it feel grounded and authentic and loving.”

You know that a couple is rock-solid when they’re getting chased by ax murderers and still comforting one another by insisting, “It’s not your fault.”

That said, Petsch humorously admitted, “It kind of is Maya’s fault.”

Gutierrez didn’t miss a beat: “We both did it.”

“See?!” Petsch joked. “He’s still doing it!”

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On Riverdale, Petsch broke out as the sassy, self-centered heiress Cheryl Blossom, who received some of the strangest story lines (relatively speaking) throughout the series. She filmed the entire Strangers trilogy in 52 days, in between the CW show’s sixth and seventh seasons. As one might imagine, that was a very different experience from her TV run.

“I really had the ability to sink my teeth into this full character journey—beginning, middle, and end—in one go,” Petsch said. “And that, as an actor, is intimidating and challenging, but really exciting and exhilarating.”

Stepping up to the producer plate also allowed Petsch more control over her character and story arc than usual—a benefit she did not take for granted.

Becoming a producer “gives you more autonomy in your craft, and it gives you more ability to take charge of your own career,” Petsch said. “There will always be moments where people don’t see me as the character that I want to be, and this allows me to tell that story the way that I would like to, and to play a character that maybe feels like a big departure.”

It didn’t hurt that The Strangers is also Petsch’s favorite horror movie. “I think people sometimes think that that’s not real,” she said, “But it genuinely is something I love so deeply.” In making this retelling, she added, the goal was to pay respect to the original story while also making some calculated departures.

Gutierrez, meanwhile, had not seen the original Strangers before coming aboard the new one. He had, however, seen the 2018 sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night thanks to his friend, Bailee Madison, who starred in it. After booking the role, however, he did watch the 2008 masterpiece and “instantly knew I was such a classic.”

One might expect that a practical shoot featuring a slew of gory stunts would be a challenge, but for Gutierrez, at least, the stunts turned out to be the easy part.

“I made a point going into this, because it was so physical, I was like, ‘I’m gonna make a point to be really, really safe, do everything the right way, not injure myself, and not hold up production in any way,” Gutierrez said. “And I never did with the stunts. However, when I would go to close a door, I would cut my hand open or something. I had a lot of moments of hurting myself doing normal human things. But the stunts, I was OK with.”

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Petsch laughed at the memory. “In the middle of the night, we were trying to get a medic to come and get your hand back together.”

“All I did was close the door,” Gutierrez replied. “She was actually dealing with an ax, and I was like, ‘Don’t worry!’ And then I just cut my hand right open.”

Clearly, filming a horror movie is not for the faint of heart. But what will the next two films in this trilogy bring? Petsch told us to expect the unexpected.

“The next two movies are so much about this character study of Maya, and once she’s pushed so far beyond her breaking point, who does that leave her with?” Petsch said. “It’s a very interesting mental deterioration that she's dealing with, and it’s an absolute fucking wild ride.”

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