The Strangers is a 2008 American psychological horror film written and directed by Bryan Bertino. The film follows a couple whose stay at a vacation home is disrupted by three masked intruders who infiltrate the home one night. It is the first installment in The Strangers film series. The screenplay was inspired by two real-life events: the multiple-homicide Manson family Tate murders and a series of break-ins that occurred in Bertino's neighborhood as a child. Some journalists noted similarities between the film and the Keddie cabin murders that occurred in Keddie, California, in 1981, though Bertino did not cite this as a reference.