‘Strangers’ sequel hopes for a hit

inspired by the Manson Family, ran amok in Bryan Bertino’s cult horror classic The Strangers, a shocking, claustrophobic home invasion hit.

Prey at Night gives the enigmatic Dollface, Man in trip, an ordinary family excursion becomes their worst nightmare.

Upon arrival at the secluded park, a knock on their trailer door leads to a seemingly inescapable night of terror as the | Director way to make a movie,” he said.

The look is retro, influenced by the John Carpenter movies of the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as classics such as Don’t Look Now and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

“I grew up on Tolkien stuff, like Lord of the Rings, which is basically horror — they’re firing severed heads over battlements,” Roberts recalls.

“And then, at about 13, 14, I discovered Stephen King and I was just, like, ‘OK, this is me — I’m done.’ And then I discovered all the movies that they made out of King books and I was just hooked.”

Surprisingly, Roberts says he’s not a huge fan of the home invasion genre, although Prey at Night is arguably more in keeping tonally with “vacation horror” movies like Deliverance (1972), The Hills Have Eyes (1977) and Wolf Creek (2005).

Although he enjoys a gratuitous splash of gore as much as the next horror geek, Roberts says he prefers ghost stories and a tense atmosphere to the torture of movies like Saw (2004) and its innumerable sequels.

The relatively new father hesitates over whether having his own son has changed his view on presenting violence against children in his movies.

“It’s funny, I did a movie prior to this called The Other Side of the Door where the little boy dies at the beginning,” he says.

“I wouldn’t have written that now. I watched that the other day, that sequence, and I was, like, ‘Holy [expletive]!’ He dies drowning in a car. And I couldn’t do that now.

“I think what is genuinely scary... is emotionlessness, expressionlessness.”