Bailee Madison’s Show With 95% On RT Is A Reminder To Watch This Underrated Horror Movie From 2018

Summary Bailee Madison's final girl role in Pretty Little Liars is a reminder to revisit The Strangers: Prey at Night.

The 2018 horror sequel provided her with her first opportunity to play a final girl.

The underrated horror sequel combines slasher thrills and 1980s atmosphere.

Bailee Madison's recent television success is a powerful reminder to revisit her early horror movie The Strangers: Prey at Night. Now 24 years old, the former child actor is known for a variety of onscreen roles beginning with a supporting part in the 2007 children's book adaptation Bridge to Terabithia. Some of her most notable titles include the comedy movies Just Go with It and Parental Guidance, the Christian summer camp musical A Week Away, and the television shows Wizards of Waverly Place (in which she played a gender-swapped version of major character Max Russo), The Fosters, and Good Witch.

However, quite a few Bailee Madison movies and television shows have taken a darker turn. In fact, this has been the case from her very first leading role, which was playing the monster-besieged Sally Hurst in the 2010 remake of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, which premiered when she was just eleven years old. She followed that with other horror or horror-adjacent roles in projects including the TV movie The Night Before Halloween, the sitcom Holliston, and the cat-and-mouse thriller Play Dead.

Related Every Strangers: Prey At Night Alternate Ending The Strangers: Prey At Night ends on an ambiguous note, but several alternate endings were filmed that showed the title killers surviving.

Max's Pretty Little Liars Spinoff Is A Reminder To Watch Bailee Madison In The Strangers: Prey At Night

Madison's Original Final Girl Role Happened Six Years Ago

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Madison's performance in Max's Pretty Little Liars provides a reason to catch up with the Strangers: Prey at Night streaming release, which recently expanded to Max to make for the perfect follow-up. Madison played Imogen in Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, a slasher movie-inspired spinoff to the original seven-season Freeform drama. Over the course of the season, she emerged as a fitting final girl, eventually reprising her role in the new season, Summer School, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score at the time of writing that combines with Original Sin's 90% to earn a powerfully Fresh 95% average overall.

2018's The Strangers: Prey at Night is a sequel to the 2008 home invasion horror movie The Strangers, which starred Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman.

However, Madison already proved her final girl credentials in 2018's The Strangers: Prey at Night, in which she co-starred with future Top Gun: Maverick actor Lewis Pullman. The sequel applied a 1980s slasher atmosphere to the original horror movie's home invasion hook, much in the same way that Original Sin added a new postmodern slasher layer to the premise of the original Pretty Little Liars. Watching the 2018 movie could also provide a solid foundation before the premiere of the upcoming The Strangers: Chapter 1, a Madelaine Petsch-led prequel that is kicking off a new trilogy in the franchise.

Why The Strangers: Prey At Night Is So Underrated

The Strangers: Prey At Night Has 40% On Rotten Tomatoes

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Despite getting 40% from critics and 35% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, The Strangers: Prey at Night is an underrated title worth a second look. The movie's atmosphere is drenched in 1980s throwbacks, from the synth score to the unforgettable neon-lit swimming pool scene, which is one of several intense and terrifying moments scattered throughout the movie. While it shouldn't be approached as a pure follow-up to the raw and downright brutal original movie, as a popcorn horror-thriller with slightly more crowd-pleasing intentions and a more expansive trailer park setting, the sequel has ample thrills and chills to offer.