Deadline reports that Bryan Bertino, the man behind cheap horror film “The Strangers” is set to write and direct “This Man” for Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. The new film is a supposedly fact-based tale about a regular joe who has been in the nightmares of people he has never met before. That’s kind of odd. Take the “true story” talk lightly, the film is based off of a website by Italian sociologist Andrea Natella, and a commenter in the original article claims that the entire thing is a guerrilla marketing campaign as the website is registered with “guerrillamarketing.it.”
Being a true story or just a guerrilla marketing scheme makes no difference in the long run as it won’t affect the quality of the film in any way. Admittedly, it is a pretty neat campaign and is sure to get people talking. Though the film’s plot sounds a bit intriguing and creepy, we don’t doubt that it will end up fizzling in the third act when it ends up answering why this man is appearing in everyone’s dreams. While something like that is better left unanswered and meant to at least be a metaphor of some kind, chances are the studio won’t want to disappoint audiences by leaving the story open, so they’ll most likely disappoint them with a half-assed explanation on the dreams. Then again, this is the man who directed “The Strangers,” which is notorious for having no twist or motivation at all, so maybe the “whys” will be left unanswered.
Also on Bertino’s plate is the script for “The Strangers 2,” which will be directed by Laurent Briet and will have Liv Tyler reprising her role as Kristen McKay. We reported this back in early April, but this writer still can’t believe how redundant a sequel to that film might be. Even if it gets all “Alien” prequel on us, do we really care where the strangers came from? The original made a $70 million profit along with making back its $10 million budget, but the reviews were mostly negative, and audiences don’t seem to be clamoring for a sequel like they did with “The Ring” and the utterly retarded “Jeepers Creepers.”
“This Man” is presumably being written now, with casting news and such to come at a later date in time.