While I just recently acquired The Strangers on DVD courtesy of a Hollywood Video fire sale, it is a film I had seen a year or so ago and was taken by it. We discussed it on one of our early episodes as a gripping tale of two unfortunate souls tormented by a deranged clan for the purposes of merely shits and giggles if you will. Early on after the movie debuted to impressive numbers for a horror movie in the summer, there was talk of a sequel brewing. A recent article sheds some light on the status and the story but had one truly disturbing tidbit: studio execs wanted a back story to the titular strangers.

Here’s the thing that you probably know and what studio execs apparently haven’t figured out: back stories in and of themselves can be cool but can also drag down a movie and/or franchise. Immediately, I point out the awesome Halloween as an example of back stories run amuck. The original started off great with just a shape stalking girls and descended into a convoluted series of Druid rituals and darkly dressed men in the sixth installment. While I have a soft spot for Halloween 6, the simplicity from the first was shot and drug to hell in a sea of screenwriters and abandoned ideas. But when they went back for Halloween: Resurrection (I’m not linking to that piece of shit), it was absurd that the plot line of the previous four movies, one of murdering family members, was all but jettisoned.

Now, this is not to say that all back stories are bad or unneeded. I would imagine the greatness of the original Nightmare on Elm Street would have been diluted (yet still effective) with no idea why Kruger was targeting kids in their dreams. Even still, in that franchise, as we delve into his murder, his mother(!), or his children, it lost track of the original intent: scaring the shit out of people without to much thought as to why or how. Monsters are scarier if they just want to kill you, not avenge a death of their sister thirteen years ago due to a freak accident on the monkey bars.

Origin stories work in comic books because you want to see what led to the heroes (or even villains) becoming who they are. Most other movies do not need that level of detail in a character’s story. This is not to advocate the abandonment of a rich character. Far from it in fact.

In Die Hard, is it relevant to know McClane is on the outs with his wife? Yep. Is it important to know how he cut his teeth in the NYPD busting drug dealers and German terrorists, leading to a hatred for Hans Gruber and his kind? Nope and the filmmakers knew it. I would argue there is a difference between character history for a motive and character history for actions.

That said, are there holes in this rant? Absolutely. Are there movies, or characters, that I wish would have a back story not described here? You betcha. The point is, not all characters are created the same. Some are better without (Chris Nolan’s The Joker for example) and some better with.

Studios: don’t try to shoehorn in what clearly does not belong.