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The hot new trend in horror movie promotion? It’s possible that it’s the local website. Just a couple of weeks after Warner Bros. unveiled a fake website for the upcoming movie Weapons, Lionsgate has done the same for The Strangers - Chapter 2 — and it’s full of foreboding teases about what’s to come in the horror sequel.

VisitVenusOregon.com invites visitors to “a hidden gem in the heart of the Pacific Northwest” that’s “a quiet, welcoming town where time moves a little slower, and that’s just the way we like it.” If this sounds familiar, it probably means that you saw 2024’s The Strangers - Chapter 1, which was set in the small town. (It’s not a real place, although there is a Mount Venus in the state.)

The Visit Venus website offers such helpful tips as the ‘5 Hidden Gems in Venus’ — with the fantastic opening line, “Every small town has its secrets, and Venus is no exception.” I see you, marketing copywriter having fun — and a guide to some of the guest cabins in town, which certainly aren’t going to be locations in the next movie or anything like that, I’m sure.

Of more interest, however, are pages about strange figures spotted in town, and the Public Safety Advisory asking residents to stay in their homes evening and early morning, which suggests that any “unusual wildlife behavior or sightings” should be reported immediately. Maybe that’s got something to do with the report about a local couple being killed in a “tragic animal incident”… (If you want to read that report, you need to sign up for a mailing list, which is how the WB marketing department — I mean, 'Venus, Oregon' — gets you in its clutches.)

This kind of info dump via found media has been a thing since at least the promotion for The Blair Witch Project back in 1999 — although you could arguably trace it back to Orson Welles’ fake news broadcast for 1938’s War of the Worlds on the CBS Radio Network — and it’s always fun to see it make a comeback. Between Weapons and this, we’re just waiting for a third horror movie to jump in on the action and make it an official trend.

The Strangers - Chapter 2 will be released September 26. Based on this website launch, don’t be surprised if there’s a trailer dropping sometime soon.

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