And that plays into people’s fears.”Īlthough the two films share a similar approach to their central characters and both feature the strangers, where they diverge is in the setting and action. It’s just about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “The fear of having three people, who you don’t even know, doing something for no motive whatsoever, essentially committing a pointless horrific act is terrifying to people because it means no one is chosen for a reason. “I think what’s interesting about the strangers is that they are always trying to play with the protagonists,” says Harris. “When the characters come face-to-face with these terrifying assailants who just want to kill them, it invokes a horrific, inevitable and unreasoning psychological fear that makes the film scary.”Īnd the randomness by which these strangers choose their targets also increases the fear because no one is safe. “The audience sees the strangers before our characters do, and they’re just there,” continues Roberts. This is a movie about dread and atmosphere.” Jump scares can be cool and fun, but this isn’t that movie. “I didn’t want someone to come out of the dark when you least expect it and go ‘Boo’ and the audience jumps. “With this film, I didn’t want to rely upon jump scares to get the audience to react,” explains Roberts. In addition to creating characters with a compelling emotional journey to build the fear, having three disguised antagonists stalking and slaying unwitting victims at random is the crucial component that drives the terror. “With this film, we, again, wanted the audience to care about the characters upfront because if they are not invested in the characters, then they don’t care if these characters die, and that’s an important element to heightening the suspense and experiencing the fear.” “The original film, The Strangers, differentiated itself from the typical home invasion movie by building a relationship between the characters which made it more effective when the frightening intruders arrive to terrorize them,” says producer James Harris. Similar to the original film, the central characters in The Strangers: Prey at Night are more than a plot device for blood and gore. As they begin to settle in for the night, a menacing presence appears in the form of three masked strangers, who intend to hunt and lethally harm them one-by-one, and now the family must rely on each other to survive. On their journey, they stop-off at trailer park to stay overnight. It is a family struggling to connect and on the verge of falling apart. With this film, the movie centers on a family bringing their daughter to boarding school.
“I’m a huge fan of the first movie and what Bryan did as a director. “ The Strangers: Prey at Night is inspired by Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers, from ten years ago, with Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman,” explains director Johannes Roberts, who directed the film from a screenplay by Bryan Bertino and Ben Ketai. It invokes a horrific, inevitable and unreasoning psychological fear that makes the film scary.Īn ordinary, gripe-filled family excursion soon becomes their worst nightmare come to life when three eerily disguised assailants emerge from the darkness to indiscriminately terrorize unsuspecting, innocent individuals going about their business in T he Strangers: Prey at Night.