After nearly a decade-long wait, and Relativity Media’s well-documented financial woes last year almost killing the project for good, we heard earlier this year that the long-promised sequel to Bryan Bertino’s 2008 home invasion flick The Strangers was finally getting moving. Director Johannes Roberts – whose shark tale 47 Meters Down hits screens this weekend – is currently filming the belated follow-up, and this week talked about the influence he is taking from a certain John Carpenter.
“I’m in week two of filming. It looks absolutely incredible,” Roberts says. “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,” the director continued, “but I think it’s going to be a real fantastic movie. I’m super excited about it.”
Bertino scripted the new film – which stars Martin Henderson, Christina Hendricks, Bailee Madison and Lewis Pullman – together with Ben Ketai (The Forest).
The film follows a family whose road trip takes a turn when they arrive at a secluded mobile home park and after the power goes out they decide to hunker down for the night in a borrowed trailer. Under the cover of darkness, three familiar masked psychopaths pay them a visit to test their every limit.
Will the killers’ job be “easier next time,” as was promised at the end of The Strangers? Time will tell, but I’m guessing no.
Words: Kevan Farrow (@KevanX)
