Horror Films based on True Stories

The Real Story: The character Norman Bates was inspired by Ed Gein, a Wisconsin man who was arrested in 1957 for committing two murders and digging up the corpses of countless other women who reminded him of his dead mother. He skinned the bodies to make lamp shades, socks and a "woman suit" in hopes of becoming a woman. He was found to be insane and spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.

The Real Story: William Peter Blatty, screenwriter and author of the novel The Exorcist, was inspired by an article he read in college at Georgetown University about an exorcism performed on a 13-year-old boy in Mount Rainier, Maryland in 1949. The story's details have been muddled through the years -- perhaps intentionally so, in order to protect the family -- but the boy's actual home lay in Cottage City, Maryland, and the exorcism was performed in St. Louis. Evidence points to the boy's behavior not being nearly as outrageous or supernatural as was portrayed in the film.

The Real Story: Perhaps the most notorious horror movie "based on a true story," the film is based on a self-proclaimed nonfiction book describing what George and Kathy Lutz experienced during their four weeks in the house, including disembodied voices, cold spots, demonic imagery, inverted crucifixes and walls "bleeding" green slime. Most, if not all, of the events portrayed in both the book and the movie have been called into question by investigators, and it is widely believed that the entire incident was a hoax.

The Real Story: Again Ed Gein (see Psycho), whose exploits also inspired the films Deranged and, in part, The Silence of the Lambs.

The Real Story: Screenwriter and novelist Peter Benchley was inspired in part by a series of shark attacks that plagued the New Jersey shore in 1916. Over a 12-day period in July of that year, five people were attacked, four of whom died. A seven-foot-long great white shark was killed on July 14, and its stomach was found to contain human remains. To this day, there is a debate over whether or not that shark was the culprit -- some scientists argue that it was probably a bull shark -- but no further attacks were reported that summer after it was killed.

The Real Story: The movie was inspired by the legend of Alexander "Sawney" Bean, a Scotsman of the 15th or 16th century who reportedly headed a 40-person clan that killed and ate over 1,000 people, living in caves for 25 years before being caught and put to death. His life has inspired numerous stories and films worldwide, including The Hills Have Eyes and the British film Raw Meat, but most serious historians today don't believe that Bean ever existed.

The Real Story: Writer/director John McNaughton was inspired by serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who had an accomplice named Ottis Toole and a romantic relationship with Otis' young relative (his niece, Frieda Powell). However, the movie's killing spree is based more on Lucas' confessions than on actual fact. Lucas confessed to 600 murders, in part because the confessions led police to offer him improved conditions in jail. Most of his confessions were disproved, but Lucas was still convicted of 11 murders, including that of Powell, and spent the rest of his life in prison.

The Real Story: On July 19, 1975, the decomposing, emaciated bodies of 45-year-old twin gynecologists Stewart and Cyril Marcus were discovered in their apartment. The cause of death was extreme withdrawal due to an addiction to barbiturates. It's unclear what led to their shocking state.

The Real Story: Frank De Felitta was inspired to write the novel -- and later the movie script -- after he heard his six-year-old son, Raymond, who'd never taken piano lessons, playing music perfectly on the family piano. De Felitta consulted a Los Angeles occultist, who called Raymond's talent as an "incarnation leak," explaining that the boy had lived many lifetimes. The incident led to the author's personal belief in reincarnation.

The script was based on a nurse who allegedly put a voodoo curse on author Robert Eugene Otto which transformed one of his childhood dolls into a night-time menace. We all have seen scary movies with possessed dolls but knowing that the doll really existed is spooky!

The True Story: Ed and Lorraine Warren are real-life investigators who claim to have investigated over 10,000 cases in their time. One of those cases was that of the Perron family, whose new Rhode Island home was being haunted by malevolent a witch called Bathsheba Sheran, who had lived there in the 19th century.

The Real Story: The film was inspired by Anneliese Michel, a 16-year-old German girl who, in 1968, began displaying symptoms of demonic possession. For years, she suffered paralysis, self-abuse, starvation and demonic visions until 1975, when two priests performed exorcisms of what was believed to be several demons over 10 months. During that time, Anneliese barely ate, and she died of starvation in July 1976. Her parents and the priests were tried and found guilty of manslaughter. They were sentenced to six months in jail.

The Real Story: Reports of sightings of a large, unidentified winged creature -- dubbed the Mothman -- occurred in Point Pleasant, West Virginia for 13 months between 1966 and 1967. Then, on December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge, connecting Point Pleasant to Ohio over the Ohio River, collapsed, killing 46 people.

The Real Story: The film's inspiration was the Parker family, who moved to Connecticut in 1986 to be close to the specialists treating their 14-year-old son, Paul, for cancer. In the basement, where Paul slept, they discovered embalming equipment that implied that the house had been a funeral home. They reported encountering unexplained phenomena, like bloody floors, disembodied voices and shadowy figures. Paul became possessed by a force that caused him to attack his family. Eventually, an exorcism was performed to cleanse the house.

The Real Story: The real life case of Sylvia Likens, who was left with a family friend, Gertrude Baniszewski, while her circus performer parents traveled. Gertrude terrorized Sylvia similar to the events in the film, ultimately leading to Sylvia's death. Prosecutors on the case called it "the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana."

The Real Story: The movie is based on the legend of the Bell Witch, a tale that originated in Tennessee in the 1800s. It is believed by many to be a work of fiction, although the characters in the story were real. According to the tale, John Bell was poisoned by the ghost, and although the film's marketing declared that it is "validated by the State of Tennessee as the only case in US history where a spirit has caused the death of a human being," there is no such validation on record. Some claim that The Blair Witch Project was also influenced by the story.

The Real Story: Greg McLean originally wrote the script as fiction, but upon learning of two real-life Australian killers who attacked travellers, he edited the story to reflect the real cases –- namely, Bradley John Murdoch, who killed a British tourist and tried to abduct another in July 2001, and Ivan Milat, who picked up hitchhikers and took them into the woods to torture and kill them during the '90s. Both Murdoch and Milat were captured and sentenced to life in prison.

The True Story: Chante Jawan Mallard hit a 37-year-old homeless man with her car in 2001 and left the man stuck in her windshield, trapped in her garage. Mallard was sentenced to 50 years in prison…

The True Story: Director Ole Bornedal cited the story of the dybbuk box as inspiration for the film. Jewish folklore states that a dybbuk is malicious spirit that can possess the living. Numerous owners of one specific box that went for sale on eBay reported strange phenomena happening around it.

The Real Story: Supposedly, the film is based on the "true story" of an Austrian couple who were murdered by three teenagers while vacationing in the Czech Republic, but no concrete evidence has emerged to prove this tale.

The Real Story: In January 1998, married couple Tom and Eileen Lonergan disappeared off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef after a diving company accidentally left them behind in the water. It took two days -- when a bag containing a wallet and passports was found -- for the crew to realize that they'd left the couple behind. A search was conducted, but their bodies were never found. Belongings discovered weeks later showed no signs of the violent shark attack that the film suggests.

Based on a real cult leader Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo, this movie has gory details of how human sacrifice was practiced by the cult.

The True Story: The film's based on Travis Walton's book The Walton Experience, in which the real-life logger details exactly what happened to him in 1975. According to him, he was abducted by aliens and subjected to numerous tests before he was returned to Earth five days later. Walton's story has since become one of the most well-known abduction cases in history.

The Real Story: In 1974, paranormal researchers Kerry Gaynor and Barry Taff investigated the case of a woman believed to be named Doris Bither. Bither lived in Culver City, California and claimed to have been physically and sexually assaulted by an entity. Gaynor and Taff witnessed objects move in her house, captured photos of floating lights and saw a humanoid apparition, but they never saw it assault the woman and never tried to capture it. Gaynor stated that the attacks diminished when Moran moved.

The Real Story: This is based on Joe Ball, a man who killed around 20 women and watched the alligators feed on them. It's so gory but it's worth it because it did happen for real!

The Real Story: In the rainy summer of 1816, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin (soon to be Shelley) visited Lord Byron at his Swiss villa. Due to the rain, they stayed indoors discussing the animation of dead matter and reading German ghost stories. Byron suggested they each write their own supernatural tale, and Godwin came up with Frankenstein, while Byron wrote what would later be adapted by Polidori into The Vampyre.

The True Story: Three friends spent ten hours in a sauna in Georgia when their friend went to the toilet and forgot to go back, not realising he had locked them all in. Luckily nobody died.

The True Story: A legend titled The Black Monk of Pontefract, which tells of a poltergeist haunting that took place in 1974, one of the most violent ever recorded. Joe and Jean Pritchard reported poltergeist activity in their home in Pontefract. As well as objects moving around their home, they also saw a hooded apparition.

The Real Story: The movie is an exaggerated adaptation of a 1985 book by Canadian scientist Wade Davis, a nonfiction account of his experiences with zombification in Haiti. He stated that a powder of natural toxins could be used to place a victim into a death-like state, to be resuscitated in a hypnotic trance by a controlling "master." One notable case referenced was that of Clairvius Narcisse, who reportedly served as a zombie for two years in the 1960s. There remains a debate over the veracity of Davis's claims.

The Real Story: The story is based on Gustave, a 20-foot-long crocodile living in Burundi that is believed to be the largest crocodile on record on the African continent. It is rumored to have killed 300 people, although that number is almost certainly inflated. High-profile attempts to capture Gustave have failed, and the creature, believed to be over 65 years old, still lives in the Ruzizi River area of Burundi.

The True Story: In 1984, a ranch known as the Texas Slave Ranch was raided by authorities who discovered that workers were being kept against their will to work the land. Not only that, there were also recordings of torture sessions involving cattle prods, and the discovery of human remains.

The True Story: According to the filmmakers, their film was based on a viral video called Sleep Study GR16 1971, plus certain cultural beliefs that 'shadow people' are responsible for something called Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome.