Stephen King Once Praised This Underrated 2000s Horror…

Summary

King loves recent adaptations like "The Life of Chuck" and eagerly awaits upcoming projects.
"The Strangers" is King's pick for a truly terrifying horror movie with a simple yet chilling premise.
Over-explanation in modern horror films dampens the scares; King appreciates the subtlety of classics like "Scream."

Stephen King adaptations might not always be perfect, but it's a particularly exciting time for the beloved author. He's received a lot of praise for his three 2025 movies (The Life of Chuck, The Monkey, and the fall's The Long Walk), and there's even more in the pipeline. I'm most interested in Mike Flanagan's Prime series Carrie, which started production, and I'm also curious about Netflix's remake of Cujo.

Since King writes so many spooky tales about kids, clowns, and vampires, he's also happy to let his fans know what movies and TV series he's terrified of. He once wrote a fascinating piece and praised one 2000s horror movie that actually scared him, and I also think it's one of the better releases of that decade.

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Stephen King once praise a movie set in a terrifying and sad post-apocalyptic world, and it's available on a streaming service.

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By Aya Tsintziras

Stephen King Once Praised The Strangers For Being A Scary Horror Movie (And Mentioned Some Of His Favorite Classics)

Slasher Villains Real Killers- The Strangers

In a 2019 article for Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King praised The Strangers, the underrated 2008 horror movie starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman. King wrote that after he saw the movie in theaters:

"I found myself musing on what’s scary and what’s not. Whatever it is, The Strangers had enough of it to do incredibly well at the box office."

He continued:

"Horror is the scene in The Strangers where Liv Tyler tries to hide beneath the bed…and discovers she can’t fit there."

The beloved author also mentioned his favorite classic horror movies The Blair Witch Project, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Carnival of Souls, and Night of the Living Dead. These are the films that he actually thinks are scary, and he thinks their low budgets have something to do with it. King thinks that The Strangers is as frightening as those iconic films and finished his essay by noting that the movie's scariest scene is simple and "all the explanation a good horror film needs." Of course, he was talking about the moment when Kristen McKay (Tyler) asks the masked killers why they're hurting them, and the answer is, "Because you were home."

I agree that The Strangers is horrifying, and it might just be the scariest horror movie I've ever seen. While other classics such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Sinister genuinely creeped me out, I first watched this 2008 movie late at night alone in the basement of my grandma's house, and it was a singular and eerie experience. While more than a few 2000s horror villains are corny,

King also shared that he thinks there is one main problem with most contemporary horror movies: they overexplain what's going on in the audience. As a result, he doesn't think that most movies released these days are genuinely terrifying. King wrote, "Big movies demand big explanations, which are usually tiresome, and big backstories, which are usually cumbersome."

This is a good point and one reason why I think Scream is the strongest and most enduring slasher franchise. Each movie features a big Ghostface reveal, but instead of a lengthy explanation that is dull and forgettable, audiences get just enough information about who they are and what their motive is before Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and the other characters jump into action. I agree with King that more movies should take that approach. If the masked killers gave Kristen and her partner James Hoyt (Speedman) a long explanation about why they were targeting them, it wouldn't land the same.

The Strangers Sequels Miss The Mark And Aren't Scary At All

After The Strangers, the sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night was released in 2018, followed by The Strangers: Chapter 1 in 2024. As the name suggests, the 2024 movie starts a new trilogy. The Strangers: Chapter 2 is slated for September 25th, 2025, and The Strangers: Chapter 3 is also in the works, although there is no official release date as of yet.

While I think it's impossible for audiences not to feel a chill run down their spine by the end of The Strangers, I'd argue that the other movies in the franchise aren't even remotely frightening. Prey At Night's trailer park setting isn't nearly as eerie as the secluded country home in the original movie, and Chapter 1 doesn't stand out enough from the first movie, either. Like King, I think The Strangers excels at scaring audiences because it doesn't have a dull scene where the killers explain their motive. Horror fans don't have high hopes for the third entry in the new trilogy, and I think it's best to rewatch the original.