Photo by Anton Kotlovskii on Unsplash
Watching a scary movie can be a lot of fun when you know it is all just make-believe on the screen. However things get completely different when the opening credits tell you the plot actually happened in real life. Here are the most incredibly famous horror films that drew their terrifying stories straight from bizarre true events.
Veronica
This movie is based on a teen in Spain who used a spirit board and saw dark shadows. She unfortunately passed away after facing strange events that left doctors totally confused.
Fire in the Sky
This movie tells the wild story of an Arizona man named Travis Walton who disappeared for five days back in 1975. His coworkers claimed he was taken by an alien spaceship and the movie shows the terrifying things he says he experienced before returning.
The Amityville Horror
A family found a wonderful house and moved their things inside. They soon learned that a dark crime had happened there a year ago. Scary, ghostly experiences began to happen all around them. It was impossible to ignore the fright. They fled the property before they hit their fourth week.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The creator read actual newspaper articles about men who were terrified to sleep because of bad dreams. These young guys actually passed away resting and that gave the director his main villain idea.
Annabelle
This famous doll is based on a real life Raggedy Ann doll that kept changing positions and leaving strange notes in an apartment. It now sits behind locked glass in an occult museum with a giant warning telling people to never open it.
Winchester
Helen Mirren plays a wealthy woman who spent decades constantly building a massive mansion with staircases that lead to nowhere. She truly believed she had to keep adding rooms to appease the spirits of people harmed by her family’s famous rifles.
Deliver Us from Evil
This film follows a real New York City police officer who started noticing strange things while working his normal shifts. He ended up teaming up with an exorcist after realizing some local crimes had a very supernatural connection.
The Conjuring
Two very famous real life paranormal investigators go to help a family experiencing terrifying events in their secluded farmhouse. This movie kicked off a massive film universe and it is all based on their old case files from the seventies.
The Possession
The creepy story in this movie actually started from a real life online auction listing for a vintage wooden box. The seller claimed the antique item was a Jewish folklore box that brought terrible nightmares and bad luck to anyone who owned it.
Borderland
A fun vacation in Mexico turned into pure horror for three college friends. They stumbled into a highly dangerous secret group. It was a trap. This frightening plot comes from real life events. A cruel cult leader actually operated a dark group in that region during the late eighties.
Black Water
A relaxing boat tour through a mangrove swamp turns into a fight for survival against a giant crocodile. The filmmakers used real crocodile footage to make it scary and the plot is based on a true survivor story from 2003.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
A young student in Germany suffered a terrible fate. Her family and priests tried a spiritual ritual to help her but it failed completely. This movie shows the horror of that night. It also shows the dramatic courtroom trial that followed when the law blamed them for her tragic death.
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