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.

Liv Rundgren Tyler is an American actress. She began a modeling career at age 14 before making her film debut in Silent Fall (1994); she went on to achieve critical recognition with starring roles in Heavy and Empire Records, as well as That Thing You Do! and Stealing Beauty. She then appeared in films such as Inventing the Abbotts (1997), Armageddon (1998), Cookie's Fortune and Onegin, Dr. T & the Women (2000), and One Night at McCool's (2001). She then played the elf Arwen Undómiel in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003), which became one of the highest-grossing film series in history.