The following is an excerpt from SCREAMING AND CONJURING, the new book from 1984 Publishing, written by author Clark Collis (YOU’VE GOT RED ON YOU). Subtitled THE RESURRECTION AND UNSTOPPABLE RISE OF THE MODERN HORROR MOVIE, it surveys the renaissance in genre cinema between 1996 and 2013, beginning with Wes Craven’s sleeper hit SCREAM and ending with James Wan’s smash-hit supernatural chiller THE CONJURING. Collis goes in-depth into this period’s string of successful and influential films, and includes interviews with fright luminaries including Sam Raimi, Jamie Lee Curtis, Greg Nicotero, Eli Roth, Neve Campbell and many more. The book is available at the 1984 link above and at Amazon.com.
In the summer of 2008, Stephen King gave his assessment of director M. Night Shyamalan’s recently-released and critically-derided film THE HAPPENING in a column for Entertainment Weekly titled “Why Hollywood can’t do horror.” In the article, the author argued that large budgets were unnecessary to generate scares on the big screen and might actually be counter-productive in the creation of cinematic scares.
King still recommended THE HAPPENING, despite the film’s hefty budget. But he also urged readers to check out another recent release, called THE STRANGERS, as an example of a film that did not rely on expensive production values to create moments of true terror. “Horror is the scene in THE STRANGERS where Liv Tyler tries to hide beneath the bed…and discovers she can’t fit there,” he wrote.
King was so enamored with THE STRANGERS that he ended his column with another shout-out to the film, which he compared favorably to the upcoming, and much more expensive, THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE. “I can’t imagine that anything in X-FILES will match Liv Tyler’s exchange with one of the masked home invaders in one particularly terrifying scene of THE STRANGERS,” King wrote. “‘Why are you doing this to us?’ she whispers. To which the woman in the doll-face mask responds, in a dead and affectless voice: ‘Because you were home.’ In the end, that’s all the explanation a good horror film needs.”
The movie that had so chilled King’s spine was written and–against all the odds–directed by Bryan Bertino. Bertino studied cinematography at the University of Texas film school in Austin and then moved to Los Angeles, where he started working as a gaffer (the film industry’s term for an electrician) on low-budget movies and commercials. He also began writing scripts, including the screenplay for THE STRANGERS. His story was about a couple, Kristen and James, who stay at the house of James’ father after attending a wedding. In the course of the night, the home is invaded by three mask-wearing strangers–identified as Pin-Up Girl, Dollface, and Man in Mask by the finished film’s credits–who torment and attempt to kill the pair. The screenplay was notable for the care Bertino took developing the relationship between his two lead characters and the motiveless nature of their assailants’ attack.
In 2004, Bertino submitted his script for a Nicholls Fellowship grant, which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards to unproduced writers. After reaching the quarterfinals, the script was read by a talent manager, who signed Bertino and set him up with a meeting at Roy Lee’s Vertigo Entertainment. “I thought it was amazing,” says Lee. “It was a scary-on-the-page script. We were able to get multiple studios wanting to make it.”
In November 2004, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Universal had bought the script. THE STRANGERS screenplay was developed by filmmaker Mark Romanek, who had directed 2002’s Robin Williams thriller ONE HOUR PHOTO. “There were several directors attached,” explains Lee. “It was Justin Lin and then, after he dropped off, it was Mark Romanek. He wanted a much higher budget than the studio was willing to [give him].” Bertino, meanwhile, went to work as a writer for producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
THE STRANGERS eventually came under the umbrella of the Universal subsidiary Rogue, whose co-president Andrew Rona requested a meeting with Bertino. Once the sit-down was over, Rona called Bertino’s agents to ask if he would be interested in directing THE STRANGERS himself. “When he first wrote the script, I don’t think he intended on directing it,” says Lee. “The studio executive enjoyed meeting Bryan and just suggested him directing the movie. I remember it was a big shock to him. I know he went and got all these books on how to direct movies.”
Bertino cast Liv Tyler and UNDERWORLD star Scott Speedman as Kristen and James. To play the titular killers, he chose Laura Margolis as Pin-Up Girl, Kip Weeks as Man in Mask, and Australian model Gemma Ward as Dollface. Bertino shot the film in South Carolina for a budget of around $9 million. Rogue released THE STRANGERS on May 30, 2008, counter-programming the director’s debut against the first SEX AND THE CITY movie. Bertino’s film exceeded industry expectations, earning almost $21 million in the US over its initial weekend and winding up with a domestic total of $52 million.
A year after the commercial disappointments of GRINDHOUSE and HOSTEL: PART II had prompted hand-wringing about the health of horror, the genre was now being hailed as a box office savior. At the end of June, Variety writer Pamela McClintock noted that THE STRANGERS and THE HAPPENING were “helping to fuel a surge at the 2008 domestic box office that virtually no one expected.”
© 2025 by Clark Collis. Courtesy of 1984 Publishing.
