Director says The Strangers 2 is inspired by John Carpenter

June 14th 2017, 4:35pm

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

One of the upcoming flicks that I can't help but look forward to is the "Mandy Moore gets eaten to death by sharks" thiller, 47 METERS DOWN. That film is directed by a dude named Johannes Roberts, who you may know as the director of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR.

Roberts, however, will soon be known as the guy that took over directing duties from Bryan Bertino on THE STRANGERS 2. That flick is currently shooting, but while Roberts was out and about recently promoting 47 METERS DOWN, he stopped by Dread Central for an interview about sharks and Moore (get it?)

During the interview, the topic switched to THE STRANGERS 2 and Roberts mentioned quite a few interesting bits of new info. The coolest bit, in my eyes, is that the new entry in THE STRANGERS series is inspired by the works of Mr. John Carpenter!

Johannes Roberts on THE STRANGERS 2:

It’s going to be great, I hope. I’m in week two of filming. It’s Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison, Lewis Pullman, and they’re fucking great. It looks absolutely incredible. 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, but I think it’s going to be a real fantastic movie. I’m super excited about it.

That is a hell of a lot of name-dropping there, Roberts. But it's all good because the man is dropping top-tier flicks and filmmakers. Of course, as you can tell, I am most excited about what his Carpenter influence will be specifically, but the Spielberg/DUEL bit gets me too.

What do you think of director Johannes Roberts comments regarding the currently shooting THE STRANGERS 2? Are you more excited to check out the film now? Let us know what you think on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram!

47 METERS DOWN swims into theaters June 16th.