In some ways, it could be argued that horror is the most versatile film genre. Horror is routinely combined with comedy, sci-fi, action, drama, and even romantic sensibilities, with all of those mixtures leading to at least a few great films. Horror also has a veritable mountain of sub-genres, including such common fright fare as demonic possession, evil clowns, zombies, vampires, and slasher flicks. One horror sub-genre that has always been pretty prolific is the home invasion thriller, perhaps best personified by movies like Michael Haneke's Funny Games and Mike Flanagan's more recent Hush.
Not only are home invasion movies a pretty easy sell to audiences - after all, who hasn't imagined how terrifying such a scenario would be in real life - they are also generally cheap to make, due to featuring a small number of characters being terrorized within a single location. One of the biggest hits to come out of the world of home invasion horror is 2008's The Strangers. Written and directed by Bryan Bertino, The Strangers starred Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman as a married couple whose secluded house is besieged by a trio of masked assailants.
While critical reviews were mixed, the modestly budgeted Strangers proved to be a huge success with audiences, earning $82 million worldwide on a budget of only $9 million. With that kind of profit margin, one might assume that The Strangers would be a lock to get a sequel, and in fact, The Strangers 2 was quickly announced as being in development. Unfortunately, things never ended up coming together, until now that is. According to THR, The Strangers 2 is finally moving forward, with indie up-and-comer Johannes Roberts set to direct, and filming scheduled to begin this summer.
While the British-born Roberts has been making films since the early 2000s, his profile in Hollywood has shot upward recently, beginning with last year's supernatural horror effort The Other Side of the Door, starring Walking Dead veteran Sarah Wayne Callies. His next project, a shark attack thriller entitled 47 Meters Down, is also garnering some positive buzz. That film stars former pop star Mandy Moore and The Originals' Claire Holt as a pair of vacationing sisters who become trapped at the bottom of the ocean with a diminishing oxygen supply and hungry sharks waiting above.
Plot wise, The Strangers 2 centers on a traveling family who become trapped inside a borrowed trailer within a remote mobile home park after a trio of masked psychos attacks. One assumes these are the same trio of assailants from the original film, but the reported plot summary doesn't explicitly confirm that fact. Ben Ketai (The Forest) is writing the script. The sequel now heads to the upcoming European Film Market in Berlin.
We will let you know when The Strangers 2 gets an official release date.
Source: THR