The Strangers

💎💎THE STRANGERS💎💎- Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) are expecting a relaxing weekend at a family vacation home, but their stay turns out to be anything but peaceful. First, a mysterious and dangerous woman arrives at the door while James is out on an errand. When he returns, he accidentally kills his friend Mike (Glen Howerton), mistaking him for an intruder. And then real danger does show up – in the form of three masked torturers, leaving Kristen and James struggling for survival. A young couple become the unwitting victims of a horrific late-night home invasion in this harrowing thriller. Explore your worst fears imaginable with this shocking suspense thriller inspired by disturbing true events. After a 4 a.m. knock at the door and a haunting voice, Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt’s (Scott Speedman) remote getaway becomes a psychological night of terror as three masked strangers invade. Now they must go far beyond what they thought themselves capable of if they hope to survive.

A young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants. After returning from a wedding reception, a couple staying in an isolated vacation house receive a knock on the front door in the mid-hours of the night. What ensues is a violent invasion by three strangers, their faces hidden behind masks. The couple finds themselves in a violent struggle, in which they go beyond what either of them thought capable in order to survive. Based on a true story, a couple on the rocks stay in a residential house in the woods. Knocks on the door in the night are the start of what proceeds to be a fear inditing ploy by three unknown masked individuals. With the masked frighteners getting more violent and no means to contact help, the couple must hold out as long as possible.

Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) return to the remote summer vacation home owned by James’s parents in the mid-hours of the night following a friend’s wedding reception. After an episode between the couple when Kristen turns down a marriage proposal from James, they receive a knock on the at the door. When they open the door, there is a young blonde woman standing there with her face partly obsured by a burnt outdoor light. “Is Tamara home?”, she asks. “No, I think you have the wrong house,” they tell her. The mysterious woman then walks off into the night. James fixes the door light and then leaves the house to go buy cigarettes and get his kind off of things Meanwhile Kristen stays at the house alone. The blonde woman returns, asking for Tamara, but this time Kristen does not even open the door. “You already came by here,” she tells the woman, who responds with “Are you sure?” The smoke alarm goes off soon after, due to the fireplace being blocked and Kristen pulls the alarm off the ceiling and it clatters to the floor. Someone begins banging at the door. Kristen, a little unnerved at the entire situation, locks the doors in the house and calls James asking him to hurry back, when the phone line goes dead. Kristen plugs her cell phone in to charge it, changes into jeans and a flannel shirt and then picks up a half-smoked cigarette. As she stands in the living room of the house, a man wearing a sack mask emerges from the hallway behind her.

Another barrage of knocks come from the front door and Kristen sees the smoke alarm, which was previously lying on the floor, sitting neatly on the center of a dining room chair. She hurries to grab her cell phone, but it has been taken off the charger and is nowhere in sight. She hears something hitting the windchimes and making a dragging noise on the back patio and she slowly armed with a kitchen knife, walks toward the sliding glass door. She pulls the curtain back and the man in the mask is standing there and he slams his hand on the window. She screams in terror and bumps into the phonograph in the living room, knocking the needle off track, which causes it to begin repeating the same phrase from a country song. Suddenly, the front door opens slightly and Kristen approaches it. In between the crack of the door someone wearing a doll-like mask peeks her head through. Kristen closes the door, locks it and hides in the bedroom, yelling for the strangers to go away. Suddenly, the vinyl album stops skipping and footsteps come down the hall. Fortunately, it is only James, who is entirely unaware of what is going on. The couple searches the house, but find nobody and James initially believes Kristen to be letting her imagination get to her. The couple sees the blonde woman, now wearing a Doll face mask (Gemma Ward), standing in the back yard, staring at the house. James then goes outside to the car to retrieve his cell phone, only to find the car entirely vandalized and his cell phone stolen. Doll face touches the back of his neck as he is crouched down in the car and runs off, only to reappear a few feet from the car. He tells her to leave and Kristen pokes her head outside in concern. James turns to Kristen and when he turns back around, Doll face has vanished. James returns to the house and he and Kristen find his cell phone sitting on the piano with its battery removed .James decides it’s time to leave.

They go outside and attempt to drive away in the car, even with its tires slashed, but a truck pulls up behind them, driven by a different unidentified woman, wearing a mask that resembles a pin up. The Man in the Mask (Kip Weeks) appears in front of the car and a dark-haired woman wearing a Pin Up Girl Mask (Laura Margolis) rear-ends the car, as James and Kristen scramble back into the house. They find a shotgun and gun shells in the bedroom, along with the words “Hello” written all over the bedroom window in red paint by the villains. They approach the front door with the gun and the Man in the Mask begins to break through the door with an axe. They block the door with the piano and James attempts to shoot him but misses. They then hide in a room from the hallway, armed with the gun toward the open doorway. James’s friend Mike (Glen Howerton) whom he called earlier, arrives at the house and has a rock thrown through his windshield. He approaches the house and hears country music playing loudly on the record player. He enters through the back glass door, just as Doll face emerges from the shadows behind him. He sees the house in a complete disaster and he walks down the hallway as the music continues playing. The Man in the Mask appears behind him, holding up his axe preparing to strike. Just as the music stops Mike steps in the doorway and James fires the gun, striking Mike right in the head. He dies instantly and after a few seconds James and Kristen realize they shot the wrong person. The villains paint “KILLER” on the back door to taunt James and he heads to the barn outside to use a ham radio for help. He spots Pin Up Girl emerging from the barn and attempts to shoot at her from down on the ground, but the Man in the Mask runs up behind him at full speed. Kristen soon follows after she senses the presence of the Man in the Mask in the house. She falls, twists her ankle and is unknowingly stalked through the front lawn by Pin Up Girl. Once she gets to the barn, she fiddles with the radio, but it is then destroyed by the Pin Up Girl.

Kristen then crawls back to the house as Doll face sits on the swing set in the backyard and Pin Up Girl stands in the front of the barn. Once inside, Kristen cannot find James and the power goes out. The Man in the Mask then enters the front door and Kristen hides in a pantry as he lurks around the living room. He leaves and just as Kristen is about to slip out of the pantry, Doll face appears in the door’s slit-shutters and smashes it through. She then pauses and notices the engagement ring and Kristen emerges from the pantry, while Doll face taunts her by spinning a butcher knife around on the counter. The Man in the Mask then enters the house, holding a defeated James by his shirt collar. Kristen runs to the bedroom, but the window does not open. The lights come back on and she creeps back towards the hallway. Upon reaching the doorway, The Man in the Mask rushes towards her, slamming her head into the back wall of the hallway. She falls to the floor and he drags her down the hall. She is initially unconscious but soon begins to claw at the floor and the screen fades to black as she screams.

It is then daylight and each of the strangers loom over Kristen and James, who are now tied to chairs in the living room; Kristen has been dressed back into her white gown. Kristen cries and asks “Why are you doing this to us?” to which Doll face emotionlessly replies, “Because you were home.” Each villain removes their mask, but the camera does not show their faces. The three strangers then take turns stabbing both James and Kristen and then leave in their pickup truck. As they drive down the road, they stop to talk to two boys delivering religious pamphlets. Doll face gets out of the truck and asks for one, to which one of the boys asks, “Are you a sinner?”. “Sometimes”, she says and when the children are out of ear shot, Pin Up Girl says quietly, “It’ll be easier next time.” The three strangers then drive off. The two boys approach the house and enter to find a bloody and disastrous scene. James lies on the floor dead and Kristen in the hallway having dragged herself a short distance away from the living room, her white gown saturated in blood. One of the boys approaches Kristen’s body and just as he is about to reach toward her, she grabs his arm and screams in terror.

The Strangers is a 2008 American slasher film written and directed by Bryan Bertino. The plot follows Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman) whose stay at a vacation home is disrupted by three masked criminals who infiltrate the home. The screenplay was inspired by two real-life events: The Manson family Tate Murders, a multiple homicide, as well as 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.

In a secluded area, away from civilization, James Hoyt and Kristen McKay arrive at night to James’s childhood summer home, returning from a friend’s wedding. Tension abounds between the couple as Kristen rejected James’s marriage proposal to her after the reception. James calls his friend Mike and asks him to pick him up in the morning. Shortly after 4:00am, there is a loud knock at the door. A young blonde woman, whose face is obstructed by poor lighting, asks the couple “Is Tamara home?”, but is turned away by James. James goes for a drive to purchase a pack of cigarettes for Kristen; before he departs, he starts a fire in the hearth. Kristen realizes the chimney flute is closed and attempts to open it; smoke emanating from the fire triggers the smoke alarm. Kristen attempts to disarm the smoke alarm when she is startled by another knock at the door; she drops the alarm on the floor, unnerved. She calls James’s cellphone from the landline, but their call is cut short. Kristen returns to the kitchen, where, unbeknownst to her, a man – the Man in the Mask – watches her from an adjacent hallway. Kristen notices the smoke alarm she left on the floor is now sitting on a chair and realizes someone else has been in the house. Upon going to retrieve he cell phone from the charger, she finds it missing and begins to panic. When she hears a noise from the backyard, she arms herself with a knife and opens the curtains to find the Man in the Mask staring at her. Screaming, she stumbles into the hallway and watches as the front door is forced ajar. When she goes to push the door closed, the blonde woman, now in a doll mask – Dollface – peeks inside. After locking the door, Kristen hides in the bedroom and hears the strangers outside bashing the walls of the house. The noise eventually stops and James returns to the home. After she explains what has happened, he goes outside to the car to obtain his phone, whereupon he finds the car ransacked and vandalized and sees Dollface watching him from afar. The couple attempts to leave in James’s car but another woman in a pin-up girl mask – Pin-Up Girl – rear-ends them with a truck, forcing them to flee.

Back inside the house, Kristen and James find a shotgun and wait for the intruders in a bedroom. Mike arrives and realizes something is wrong after seeing James’s wrecked car. He enters the house and James, mistaking him for one of the intruders, shoots him dead. Devastated, James remembers an old radio transmitter in the backyard shed. He leaves and encounters Pin-Up Girl, searching the backyard with a flashlight. When James tries to shoot her, the Man in the Mask knocks him unconscious, inadvertently discharging the gun. Kristen hears the shot and runs to the shed. She finds the radio, but Pin-Up Girl smashes it with an ax. Kristen rushes back to the house where she encounters Dollface, who taunts her with a knife saying, “You’re gonna die.” She tries to escape but is incapacitated by the Man in the Mask. At dawn, the couple awakens to find themselves tied chairs in the living room with the strangers standing before them. Kristen demands, “Why are you doing this?” to which Dollface replies, “Because you were home.” The strangers unmask themselves to Kristen and James before taking turns stabbing them in the chest and abdomen. After, the strangers drive away in their truck and come across two young boys on bicycles distributing religious tracts. Dollface comes out of the truck and asks if she can have one of their tract cards. One of the boys asks her, “Are you a sinner?”, to which Dollface responds saying, “Sometimes.” The boy gives her one and the strangers drive away as Pin-Up Girl states, “It’ll be easier next time.” The two boys come upon the house and discover the chaotic scene with a ransacked house and the bloodied bodies of Kristen, James and Mike inside. One of the boys approaches Kristen’s body and attempts to touch it. As he reaches out to her, Kristen, still alive, startles him by grabbing his hand and screaming.  

KEDDIE MURDERS

The Keddie Murders are an unsolved 1981 quadruple homicide in Keddie, California, a rural resort town in the Sierra Nevada. The victims were Glenna Susan “Sue” Sharp (nee Davis; born March 29, 1945); her son, John Steven Sharp (born November 16, 1965); daughter Tina Lynn Sharp (born July 22, 1968); and John’s friend, Dana Hall Wingate (born February 8, 1964). The murders took place in Cabin 28 of the Keddie Resort during the late evening of April 11, 1981 or early the following morning and the bodies of Sue, John and Dana were found on the morning of April 12 by Sue’s 14-year-old daughter, Shelia. Sue’s two younger sons, Rick and Greg, as well as their friend Justin Smartt were also in the house, but were unharmed. Tina was missing from the scene.

Tina remained a missing person until April 1984 when her skull and several other bones were recovered at Camp Eighteen, California near Feather Falls in Butte County. Multiple leads and suspects were examined in the intervening years, though no charges were filed. Subsequent Sheriffs in Plumas County would state that the initial investigation was disorganized and poorly conducted, resulting in the overlooking of crucial evidence. Several new leads have been announced in the 21^st Century, including the discovery of a hammer in a pond in 2016, as well as announcements regarding the discovery of new DNA evidence. The Keddie murders have received national media attention, including coverage in People magazine, an Investigation Discovery documentary series and an independent 2008 feature documentary titled Cabin 28. Renewed public interest in the case was sparked in part by the release of the 2008 horror film The Strangers, which various Internet bloggers theorized was inspired by the Keddie murders; despite slight similarities, the film made no such claims to having been based on the crimes.

BACKGROUND – In the fall of 1980, Glenna Susan “Sue” Sharp (nee Davis; born March 29, 1945 in Springfield, Massachusetts), along with her five children, left her home in Connecticut after separating from her husband James Sharp. She decided to relocate to Northern California, where her brother Don was residing at the time. Upon arriving in California, she began renting Cabin 28 at the Keddie Resort in the rural Sierra Nevada community of Keddie. There, she resided with her 15-year-old son, John (born November 16, 1965), 14-year-old daughter Sheila; 12-year-old daughter Tina (born July 22, 1968); and had younger sons Rick (age 10) and Greg (age 5). On April 11, 1981, around 1:30 p.m. Sue and Sheila drove from Keddie to pick up John and his friend Dana Hall Wingate (born February 8, 1964) from Gansner Park in Quincy, California and brought them back to Keddie about 5 miles (8.0 km) away. Two hours later, around 3:30 pm John and Dana hitchhiked back to Quincy, where they may have had plans to visit friends. Around this time, the two were seen in the city’s downtown area. A local woman, Donna Williams, claimed to have picked them up in front of a tire store and gave them a ride down the road to another friend’s home. The two were later seen attending a party at Oakland Camp in Quincy. That same evening Sheila had plans to spend the night with the Seabolt family, who lived in an adjacent cabin, while Sue remained at home with Rick, Greg and the boys’ young friend Justin Smartt. Sheila departed the home shortly after 8:00 pm, leaving her mother alone with the younger children. Tina, who had been watching television at the Seabolts’, returned home to the cabin around 8:30 pm after Sheila arrived to spend the night.

MURDERS AND DISCOVERY – Around 7:00 am in the morning of April 12, Sheila returned home and discovered the dead bodies of Sue, John and Dana in the cabin’s living room. All three had been bound with adhesive tape and wire. Tina was absent from the home, while the three younger children – Rick, Greg and Justin – were unharmed in an adjacent bedroom. Initial reports stated that the three young boys had slept through the incident, though later this was contradicted. Upon discovering the scene, Sheila rushed back to the Seabolts’ cabin, whereupon James Seabolt retrieved Rick, Greg and Justin through the bedroom window. He later admitted to having briefly entered the cabin through the back door to see if anyone was still alive, potentially contaminating evidence in the process. The murders of Sue, Joh and Dana were notably vicious: Two bloodied knives and one hammer were found at the scene and one of the knives (a steak knife later determined to have been used in the murders) had been bent in half due to extreme force. Blood spatter evidence from inside the house indicated that the murders of Sue, John and Dana had all taken place in the living room. Sue was discovered lying on her side near the living room sofa, nude from the waist down and gagged with a blue bandana and her own panties, which had been secured with tape. She had been stabbed in the chest, her throat was slashed and on the side of her head was an imprint matching the butt of a Daisy 880 BB Gun. John’s throat was slashed. Dana had multiple head injuries and had been manually strangled. All three had blunt-force trauma to their heads, caused by a hammer or hammers. Autopsies determined that they died from the knife wounds and blunt-force trauma.

INITIAL INVESTIGATION – Sheila and the Seabolt family (with whom Sheila had spent the night in the neighboring cabin) heard no commotion during the night; a couple living nearby were awakened around 1:30 am by what sounded like muffled screaming, but couldn’t say where from. Tina’s jacket, shoes and a shoebox containing various tools, were missing from the cabin, which showed no indication of forced entry. An unidentified fingerprint was found on a handrail on the stairs leading to the cabin’s back door. The cabin’s telephone had been left off the hook, its lights were off and the drapes were closed.

Suspects interviewed included a man who disappeared from Keddie shortly after the murders and was later found in Oregon. After submitting to a Polygraph examination, the suspect was cleared. One of the Sharps’ neighbors, Marilyn Smartt (mother of Justin), later claimed she had found a bloody jacket belonging to Tina in her basement and had turned it in to police, though no official record of this exists.