Ten years is a lifetime in the film industry.
To put that into perspective, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was viewed as little more than wishful thinking back in 2007, when Jon Favreau and the Powers That Be quietly began plotting an Iron Man post-credits scene involving a certain Nick Fury. Twelve months later, Favreau’s standalone pic launched Robert Downey Jr.’s career into the stratosphere and the rest is history. But 2008 also witnessed the release of a lesser-known horror pic. Its name? The Strangers.
Headed up by Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, the home invasion thriller became something of a cult hit nine years ago and now, after enduring a prolonged spell in pre-production, The Strangers 2 is officially on the cards. It’s found its leading trio, too, now that former Mad Men star Christina Hendricks, Bailee Madison, and Lewis Pullman have all climbed aboard to anchor the horror sequel.
Johannes Roberts of 47 Meters Down fame is at the helm, directing a script penned by Strangers scribes Bryan Bertino and Ben Ketai. The elevator pitch? Hendricks, Madison, and Pullman will form a dysfunctional family unit “whose road trip takes a turn when they arrive at a secluded mobile home park and the power goes out. As they hunker down for the night in a borrowed trailer, three familiar masked psychopaths pay them a visit to test their every limit.”
Sounds like a solid premise for the film, and while promoting his new effort, the aforementioned 47 Meters Down, Roberts spoke about some of the influences on the sequel, explaining how he grew up on John Carpenter.
“I’m in week two of filming. It looks absolutely incredible,” the director told Dread Central. “I love Bertino’s film, I think it’s an amazing movie and tonally this movie is going to fit very well into that universe. It has a real strong emotional heart, which the first one did, and it has a very cool retro feel to it, a lot of sort of references to…
I mean, I always bring a lot of John Carpenter with me because that’s what I grew up on, but also maybe going back a bit earlier to the seventies movies, from Don’t Look Now to Duel, the Spielberg movie, even Christine a bit, the John Carpenter movie. All of these influences are finding their way into the movie, but I think it’s going to be a real fantastic movie. I’m super excited about it.”
Though this isn’t terribly surprising to hear because, after all, which horror filmmaker hasn’t been influenced by the legendary Carpenter to some degree, it’s still exciting to learn that The Strangers 2 will take cues from a true icon of the genre.
As big fans of the first film, it’s great to see the sequel finally coming together after so long in development hell and with a capable director at the helm, one who’s clearly looking in the right places for influence, we’re fairly optimistic that Roberts will be able to deliver an outing that’s just as unsettling and full of dread as its predecessor.
