Bryan Bertino wrote and directed The Strangers, a psychological horror movie released in 2008. Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) are on vacation when their stay is disturbed by three masked robbers who invade the house. The script was inspired by two real-life events: the Tate murders, which involved numerous homicides, and a series of break-ins in Bertino’s neighbourhood when he was a youngster. Although Bertino did not mention the Keddie cabin killings in Keddie, California in 1981, some media observed similarities between both the movie as well as the Keddie cabin murders.
The movie was shot on location in rural South Carolina in the fall of 2006 on a $9 million budget. This was originally scheduled for such a November 2007 theatrical release but was postponed until May 30, 2008.
The picture was a surprise smash at the box office, collecting $82 million worldwide. Critics gave it mixed reviews, with some enjoying the atmosphere and tension while others applauding the narrative and characters.
It has been understood by modern cinema historians as a critique of pastoral life’s supposed safety as well as an examination of stranger-on-stranger violence. It has become a cult classic inside the years following its publication. On March 9, 2018, The Strangers: Prey at Night, a sequel, was published.
“Death is a random act in post-9/11 horror—the outcome of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the cliché goes,” wrote cinema historian Kevin Wetmore of the movie’s presentation of violence as just a mirror of its contemporary culture. Premarital sex is generally a prelude to being, unlike in 1980s slasher horror, when participating in undesirable conduct such as drinking or taking drugs is often a prior to being.
Mike Mayo noted the movie’s “grim realism,” trying to write that perhaps the main characters “could have wandered out of a gloomy Ingmar Bergman movie,” eventually branding the movie as such an example of “naturalistic domestic horror” akin to Michael Haneke’s Funny Games inside The Horror Show Guide: The Ultimate Frightfest of Movies.
On May 27, 2008, Lakeshore Records published a musical score produced by score producer tomandandy as well as distributed by Lakeshore Records. The album garnered mostly good feedback from critics. “It’s a frightening tune for what seems to be a film which will make you jump and make sure the doors are closed at night,” critic Jeff Swindoll says. “This is an outstanding music that lends a fantastic chill-factor to the picture,” writes Blogger News’ Zach Freeman, who gives it an A.