Horror movies are scary but what happens when they cross into reality is even wilder. Sometimes the line between a movie and actual events gets totally blurred. Here are ten terrifying films with strong connections to real life incidents that will definitely give you the chills.
Child’s Play and the Haunted Doll
In 1903 a young boy named Robert received a doll that he named after himself and they were totally inseparable. Soon after his parents started hearing strange voices coming from the doll and other people even claimed they saw it glaring right at them. The creator of the movie took this creepy local legend and turned it into the iconic character Chucky.
Psycho and the Wisconsin Case
This famous psychological thriller with Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates took a lot of notes from a real guy named Ed Gein. The writer lived just forty miles away from Gein in Wisconsin and noticed some crazy similarities between him and the fictional character. Both of them had very dominant mothers and even kept shrines to them in their homes.
The Exorcist and Roland Doe
Parts of this legendary scary movie were based on an actual exorcism performed on a Maryland boy known as Roland Doe back in 1949. Two priests were called in by the worried family because the boy was acting super erratic and they genuinely believed his crazy behavior was caused by something evil taking over him.
The Amityville Horror and the Lutz Family
This story is based on the alleged paranormal things George and Kathy Lutz experienced after they moved into a big colonial home in New York in 1975. The house had a really dark history from the year before when a terrible tragedy happened to the previous family living there. It makes you really wonder what kind of energy gets left behind in old houses like that so maybe I should just stick to renting new apartments.
The Hills Have Eyes and Sawney Bean
This movie was made as a modern version of the old Sawney Bean story from Scotland. Bean was reportedly the head of a massive 48 member clan that lived in the wild and did some truly unspeakable things to travelers. It is pretty wild to think this crazy desert movie was actually based on a tale from the sixteenth century.
A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Sleep Problem
The whole idea for this movie came from some newspaper articles in the seventies about refugees who fled to the United States from Cambodia and started having extremely disturbing nightmares. Many of them literally refused to go to sleep because they were so scared and a number of them never woke up due to a sudden unexpected syndrome.
The Silence of the Lambs and Buffalo Bill
The terrifying character Buffalo Bill was actually pieced together from six different real life people including Ed Gein and Ted Bundy. Gein famously made weird things out of skin. Bundy would pretend to be injured just to ask people for help before attacking them. The movie just combined all these horrible traits into one super scary guy on screen.
Summer of Sam and the City Panic
This movie directed by Spike Lee focuses on the infamous crimes committed by David Berkowitz in New York City during the late seventies. Berkowitz targeted multiple victims and ended up hurting several people while claiming he was just following orders from his neighbor’s dog. The panic in the city during that time was completely real and the movie captured that stressful vibe perfectly.
The Strangers and the Knock at the Door
The inspiration for this home invasion movie came straight from the director’s own childhood experiences. One night a stranger knocked on his door asking for someone who was not even there and he later found out his neighbors empty homes had been ransacked. The movie also took some ideas from an unsolved case in a California mountain town making it feel way too realistic.
The Conjuring and the Perron Family
When Roger and Carolyn Perron moved into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island back in 1971 they quickly noticed some highly mysterious activity going on so paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren were brought in to help. It is always a little extra creepy when the real people involved actually help make the movie about their trauma since Lorraine ended up serving as a consultant for the film.
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