The 'unwanted company' cinema craze started in the 1980s with films like Fatal Attraction and Dead calm and blossomed in the 1990s with the likes of Pacific Heights, Single White Female, Unlawful Entry, Internal Affairs, Fear, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Bad Influence and Poison Ivy. Some trends are easy to explain; the musicals of the 30s were a reaction to the great depression, Film Noir was related to the uncertainty of post war life and new Hollywood came out of post Vietnam identity, but this trend is harder to pin down.
Fear of strangers, concerns about threats to stability and unhealthy influence are themes of the genre. This was the end of the Reagan era and the start of the GW Bush era with it's connections to the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War.
So what drove the writers and producers of Hollywood to produce this output?
Could it have been the boom in home entertainment? Watching a movie in the comfort of your own home about someone invading the comfort of your own home may have been an astute combination, but that's not it as they generally did well at the box office.
Baby Boomer anxiety perhaps. The home ownership and urban aspiration that had been worked for so vociferously threatened by the arrival of a an unwanted guest. The Bad Man/Bad Woman lurking on the fringes of a perfect life, the new Bogeyman.
Tarantino and Transpotting rocked up and the cinema landscape changed again. The Deadly stranger receded into the background of the mainstream but worked their way into a genre where they have thrived. That genre of course was horror. The real home of the outsider.
The heyday of the mainstream period of stranger danger was an enjoyable one with fine actors relishing their parts and is an overlooked era of filmmaking.
Who knows, these unwelcome guests may reemerge with the increased fear of the outsider. After all, cinema is at it's best when it reflects life.
