By: Michael Bennett, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Ridgetown Independent News
An up-and-coming star with ties to Ridgetown makes her major film debut with the premiere of The Stranger: Chapter 3 this Friday.
Finn Cofell, 14, plays the role of a young Shelly Barnes, also known as Pin-Up Girl, one of the lead characters in the conclusion of the Strangers’ thriller trilogy.
Ema Horvath has played the role of Shelly Barnes in all three of The Strangers series, as Cofell plays the character’s teenage years in flashback segments in the final instalment.
Strangers: Chapter 3, a Lionsgate feature film, opens this Friday at the Galaxy Theatres Chatham.
Finn will attend the premiere with family and friends at a theatre in Waterloo, near the family’s home in Ayr.
Finn is the daughter of Loes (nee DeWit) of Clachan and Mike Cofell, granddaughter of Jen and John Cofell, Attie deWit and Patrick Marcus, all of the Ridgetown area.
The teenager is an accomplished performer, having appeared in a number of musical theatre productions and vocal performances.
Her love of the stage and performing comes honestly, as her grandmother, Jen, is a co-founder of the Ridge Players, along with Liz Brown of Ridgetown, starting in 1969 with the play H.M.S. Pinafore.
Jen played lead and major roles for the first 30 years of the Ridge Players’ productions before stepping back to serve as the stage director, among many other duties, for the next 20 years.
Like her grandmother, Finn was bitten by the performance bug at a young age.
Finn is a long-time member of KW Glee and Pop Nation Canada, performing at the Mini, Junior, and Senior levels.
She won both Popular Voice and Musical Theatre categories at the K-W Kiwanis Music Festival in 2023 and 2024. She competed in the CNE Rising Star Competition in 2024 in the Youth Division.
Finn was a member of the children’s ensembles in Evita at the Hamilton Family Theatre and The Wizard of Oz: The Panto at the Huron County Playhouse.
Finn’s musical theatre experience includes lead roles as Young Cosette in Les Misérables with Singer’s Theatre and sharing the role of Samantha in the world premiere of Chris, Mrs., a holiday musical at the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto.
Finn was selected to join the Teen Musical Theatre Company at the Drayton Youth Academy for the 2025 winter term.
She has been performing the national anthem at local OHL and junior hockey games since her youth.
Finn is also part of the Toronto Blue Jays’ Junior Jays Program and has sung O Canada before several games at the Rogers Centre.
Her first film performance was in No Idea, an independent short musical produced by Malachi Ellis Productions.
The Strangers: Chapter 3 was filmed last year in Hamilton and the Toronto area.
After filming was complete, Finn appeared in the Drayton Entertainment stage production of Mean Girls in the fall and also appeared in a Bell 5G commercial.
Finn, a Grade 10 student at Monsignor Doyle Catholic Secondary School in Cambridge, is starring in the school’s production of ‘The Faketrix,’ a spoof of The Matrix, as they compete against other area schools in the National Theatre School Drama Festival (formerly the Sears Festival).
Finn is a member of DaCosta Talent Management, one of the top talent agencies in Canada.
With her role in The Strangers: Chapter 3, Finn has earned enough credits to become a member of ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists), a union that represents over 30,000 professional performers across the country.
Being an ACTRA member has led to more auditions in major productions, which in turn led to her Bell 5G commercial.
Finn has an older brother, Sullivan, who plays volleyball for the Humber Hawks men’s team and studies film and media production at the Toronto college.
She also has a younger brother, Elliot, who plays minor hockey in the Cambridge Hawks system.
For those of you not familiar with The Stranger films, Finn’s movie is the fifth in the series and third in The Chapter trilogy.
The Strangers: Chapter One was released in 2024 and Chapter Two in 2025.
Finn’s role gives a backstory to Shelly Barnes – aka Pin-Up Girl – on how the serial killers met.
In the finale, survivors who are desperate for healing from past horrors face a brutal return of the masked strangers.
As they fight for survival, they uncover unsettling secrets that challenge their existence and blur the line between life and death.
Show times for The Strangers: Chapter 3 at the Galaxy Cinemas Chatham was not finalized by press time. You can call 519-354-0282 or go online to www.canadamovies.ca/cinema/ontario/chatham
