Around the same time he put down his drafting tools, Kruger started writing screenplays. And though he admits that these early scripts were “god awful,” he persevered. After completing nearly a dozen unsold screenplays (and taking film production courses at New York University), Kruger got his big break: His script for Arlington Road won a writing competition affiliated with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was quickly optioned by an independent producer. It took a few years for the project to find a studio home, but in the meantime Kruger earned his first on-screen credit by selling a Desperate Hours-ish thriller called Killers in the House to the USA Network. Not long afterwards, Dimension Films snatched up Reindeer Games and threw in a multi-picture deal in the bargain. Kruger was on his way.
Though his reputation as a dependable thrillmeister has brought him several high-profile horror assignments—including the chance to spin off The Ring and The Ring Two from the Japanese franchise on which they're based—Kruger admits he's not a fan of the genre.
"I never had much interest in the traditional blood and gore sort of horror story,” he says. “What I do like about projects that flirt with horror is that they're often structured like mysteries that build to a big reveal or the solution of a puzzle."
That very structure can be found in The Skeleton Key, which incorporates hints of the supernatural into a plot reminiscent of the “old dark house” mysteries of yesteryear. In the film, Kate Hudson plays Caroline, a live-in nurse hired to care for a dying man (John Hurt) in the creepy backwoods mansion he shares with his eccentric wife (Gena Rowlands). After Caroline finds a key that opens every door in the house, she discovers a hidden room ... and a deadly secret.
Shot on location in and around New Orleans, The Skeleton Key aims to capture the sinister, moss-draped atmosphere of the bayous. In fact, it was the prospect of working on a thriller with a strong regional flavor—something that could only be done in a unique American locale—that inspired Kruger to write the script in the first place.
"I'd just finished the script for the first Ring movie, and part of my process on that project had been translating iconic Japanese notions about the supernatural into a more American setting,” Kruger says. “That got me thinking about American mythology about the supernatural. And it seemed to me that the one thing America could really claim as its own, without any equivalent in European or Asian culture, was what had grown out of the melting pot of New Orleans—specifically, hoodoo, which is essentially American folk magic. So that became what The Skeleton Key revolves around."
But despite the influence of “supernatural mythology” on his script, Kruger insists the film has little in common with the typical Hollywood horror movie.
"It's very much a mystery and a psychological thriller,” he says. “It bears almost no resemblance to a horror picture per se—those are just the trappings of it."
Kruger's other big summer project, The Brothers Grimm, also straddles genre boundaries—though very different ones. The movie reimagines the famous German folklorists as small-time con men swindling gullible villagers by performing bogus “exorcisms” of local ghouls. But things turn truly grim for the brothers when they stumble upon an actual supernatural threat.
Though the project started life as a horror/adventure/mystery, Brothers Grimm director (and legendary Monty Python alumnus) Terry Gilliam encouraged Kruger to take it in a very different direction. The result: a horror/adventure/mystery ... buddy comedy?
"Terry Gilliam really emphasized the comedy,” Kruger says. “There's still a mystery engine to the plot and there are several frightening sequences, but it became this really fun, wild ride of a movie. It's unlike any of my other work."
Kruger's next project—an adaptation of Annette Curtis Klause's young adult novel Blood and Chocolate—is more of a return to form. Expected to go into production by the end of the summer, the film will tell the story of a female werewolf struggling to suppress her wild side after she falls in love.
"It's sort of the same old thing for me,” Kruger admits with a laugh. “It flirts with the horror genre but it's really a character-based psychological thriller. At its core, it's a wonderful metaphor for the conflict between our civilized and bestial impulses and drives. The werewolf genre isn't done well very often, so hopefully some of that [subtext] will come through."
Perhaps it's that kind of insight—the knowledge that fur, claws, and blood aren't enough to make a werewolf flick scary or interesting—that separates Kruger from his less successful peers. Though he made the switch from amusement park thrill rides to Hollywood scream machines years ago, Kruger still sounds like a designer when he talks about the proper way to scare people silly, and he has an architect's appreciation for how to build chills from the ground up.
"Engineering specific suspense sequences is fairly simple,” he says. “What's difficult is constructing an overall story in which those pieces contribute to the whole, where the narrative ties everything together, every piece. As the screenwriter, that's your job—making sure you've told a story properly.
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