‘The Strangers: Chapter 2’ Star Madelaine Petsch Put in the Work for EP Title: “It Was Not a Vanity Credit”

We’ve all watched the credits to a movie and passed some degree of judgment when the star of the movie is also listed as a producer of some sort. We’ll sometimes jump to the conclusion that it must be a vanity credit, one that was offered as sweetener in order to close an actor’s deal. But in the case of Madelaine Petsch’s The Strangers trilogy, her executive producer title is well-merited.

Opening Sept. 26 in movie theaters, The Strangers: Chapters 2 once again chronicles Petsch’s Maya as she’s pursued across a small Oregon town by the titular serial killers. Petsch, along with director Renny Harlin and producer Courtney Solomon, managed to shoot an entire trilogy in just 52 days. That figure ultimately changed once they addressed fan criticism of Chapter 1, adding three-to-four weeks of additional filming on Chapter 2 and 3. But throughout each phase of photography, Petsch imposed…