TRUE HORROR: Scary Movies That Actually Happened!?
- 5 hours ago
- 8 min read
With the release of the latest Conjuring movie: The Conjuring: Last Rites, I thought I’d sit down and bang out a little article, a little essay, about one of my favorite weird corners of horror cinema: those movies that are actually based on true incidents.
True stories. Real-life events. And sometimes that’s really hard to believe, because when you watch these movies, they’re so over the top, so insane, so terrifying, you’d never in a million years think, “Oh yeah, that totally happened.” But in some cases, they did. Or at least, something close to them did.
Let’s start with the Conjuring universe itself, because that’s the biggest, most successful modern example of this phenomenon.
Filmmaker James Wan created the whole franchise around the real-life adventures of Ed and Lorraine Warren, those famous paranormal investigators, demonologists, authors, whatever label you want to throw on them.
They’ve been connected to some of the most prominent and controversial cases of hauntings in history. And every single movie in the Conjuring series comes directly from their case files: The Conjuring, Annabelle, The Conjuring 2, Annabelle: Creation, The Nun, Annabelle Comes Home, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II, and now The Conjuring: Last Rites.
All huge hits. All based on supposedly true stories. And they cover the whole horror spectrum: ghosts, possessions, demons, haunted houses, cursed dolls, evil nuns, you name it.
Now, do these movies embellish? Of course. Do they get ridiculous? Absolutely. But the kernel of truth is there, and that’s what makes them fascinating.
Because no matter how much CGI is flying around the screen, you’ve still got that nagging thought in the back of your head: “Wait, this actually happened to somebody?”
And look, if you know me... if you listen to my podcast, if you used to listen to me on the radio, if you read this blog, you already know: horror is my favorite genre. Always has been. Since I was a toddler, literally. I love horror movies. Any type, any style.
Brooding, psychological horror. Sleazy slashers. Special effects gore-fests. Ghost stories. Found footage nightmares. Quiet creepers.
You name it, I love it. And one of the things I find most interesting, and honestly most fun, is discovering that some of the scariest horror movies ever made are, in fact, rooted in real events.
And there are a ton of them. Just throwing out some titles: The Entity (1982), with Barbara Hershey, based on a terrifying real case. Jennifer’s Body, the Megan Fox cult classic, is supposedly based on a true incident.
Communion with Christopher Walken, alien abduction and all. Wolf Creek, a brutal Australian horror film, is ripped straight out of real-life outback killings. Fire in the Sky, also aliens, and also supposedly true.
The Silence of the Lambs, believe it or not, was stitched together from the lives and crimes of serial killers like Ted Bundy, Edmund Kemper, and Gary Ridgway. The Exorcism of Emily Rose comes directly from the tragic story of Anneliese Michel, a 23-year-old who died in 1976 after a botched exorcism. The Strangers (2008), yep, that one too.
The Black Dahlia. Charlie Says. The Hills Have Eyes. Open Water, one of the best shark movies ever made, absolutely based on true events. Devil’s Knot. The Watcher. And here’s the kicker: even Child’s Play, yes, the Chucky movies, were inspired by the real-life story of Robert Eugene Otto, a painter who allegedly owned a cursed voodoo doll that terrorized his family.
Now, why are audiences so drawn to these “based on a true story” horror movies? What’s the hook? For me, it comes down to one word: plausibility.
It’s the difference between watching Freddy Krueger slice up teenagers in their dreams, fun, scary, but ultimately fantasy, and watching a film where the on-screen horrors might have actually happened to someone, somewhere.
That “true story” label plants a seed in your head: this could happen to me. It blurs the line between safe entertainment and real-life danger. It’s the same instinct that makes us slow down to look at a car wreck, or binge on true crime documentaries.
Horror plus reality is a potent cocktail, and it lingers with you longer than any fictional boogeyman ever could.
Of course, the truth gets bent, exaggerated, twisted for Hollywood. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that when you leave the theater, you’re looking over your shoulder a little bit more.
You’re questioning that creak in your house. You’re side-eyeing that doll in the corner of the room. You’re wondering if there’s something out there (ghosts, demons, serial killers, aliens, whatever) that could actually cross into your life.
That’s why people love these movies. They scare you in a way that’s more personal, more believable, and honestly more disturbing.
That’s why I thought, with The Conjuring: Last Rites hitting theaters right now, it would be fun to put together a list.
Ten horror movies that are based on true stories. Ten films that, no matter how insane they look, have some connection to real life.
Some are accurate, some are wildly exaggerated, but all of them are fascinating, frightening, and in some cases, unbelievable.
So sit back, dim the lights, and maybe keep a crucifix or a nightlight nearby, because here we go.
10 Horror Movies Actually Based on True Stories:
Robert Eggers’ black-and-white descent into madness with Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson screaming at each other, farting, hallucinating, and fighting over a lantern is surreal, funny, and terrifying. But the root of it is real.
In 1801, two Welsh lighthouse keepers named Thomas Howell and Thomas Griffith got stranded during a storm. One died, and the other was stuck with his corpse for weeks, losing his mind in isolation. Eggers took that real tragedy and turned it into myth, folklore, and Lovecraft.
Look, I’ll watch Willem Dafoe monologue about farts and sea gods for hours. That dude is a horror story all by himself, and he rules. But knowing there’s a kernel of truth buried in this insanity? Makes it even creepier.
Wes Craven got the idea for Freddy Krueger after reading about a string of deaths among Southeast Asian refugees in the ’70s. Perfectly healthy young men died in their sleep, after days of refusing to rest because of terrible nightmares. Doctors called it Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome.
Freddy with the glove and the hat is made up, but the idea of nightmares literally killing people? Tragically real.
As if sleeping wasn’t already hard enough! Imagine being afraid to close your eyes because your dreams might kill you. Forget Jason Voorhees, this is the stuff that really keeps me up at night.
Alfred Hitchcock’s classic about birds randomly attacking a seaside town sounds ridiculous until you find out that in 1961, in Monterey Bay, California, thousands of seabirds did go crazy.
They dive-bombed homes, crashed into cars, puked up fish everywhere. Turns out they ate toxic algae that made them aggressive and confused. Hitch saw that story and ran with it.
I love that Hitchcock basically said, “Yeah, that happened once, let’s make it the apocalypse.” Every time I see a pigeon look at me funny, I think of this movie.
Kevin Williamson wrote Scream after hearing about the Gainesville Ripper, Danny Rolling, who murdered five college students in Florida in 1990.
He blended that real-life terror with his love of slasher movies, and Wes Craven directed it into the ultimate meta-horror experience. The mask, the phone calls, the rules... pure invention. But the inspiration came from an actual serial killer.
The fact that Scream makes me laugh and jump out of my seat in the same scene is genius. But the Gainesville Ripper part? That’s the detail nobody wants to think about when they’re quoting “What’s your favorite scary movie?” at parties.
Tobe Hooper’s grindhouse masterpiece about Leatherface and his cannibal family was “based on a true story," sort of. Really, it was inspired by Ed Gein, the Wisconsin killer who made furniture, masks, and trophies out of human remains.
He wasn’t a chainsaw-wielding maniac, but his crimes directly inspired Leatherface, Norman Bates, and Buffalo Bill.
I first saw this on the big screen in the ’70s, and I swear you could smell the sweat and the gasoline through the screen. Knowing Ed Gein really existed just makes it all the more disgusting.
David Fincher’s masterpiece about obsession and murder follows the real Zodiac Killer case in Northern California. In the late ’60s and ’70s, the Zodiac killed multiple people and taunted police and newspapers with cryptic letters.
To this day, the case is unsolved. Fincher’s movie is less about blood and more about the madness of trying to solve a mystery that refuses to be solved.
This one terrifies me more than any jump scare. Why? Because Zodiac was never caught. He could’ve been your neighbor. He could’ve been the guy bagging your groceries. He could be sitting next to you in a theater watching this movie. That’s true horror.
William Friedkin’s legendary possession movie was based on the 1949 case of “Roland Doe,” a 14-year-old boy who underwent multiple exorcisms after strange phenomena plagued him: voices, objects flying, scratches appearing on his body.
Whether it was mental illness or something supernatural, it was real enough for the Catholic Church to take it seriously, and William Peter Blatty turned it into the scariest movie ever made.
I saw The Exorcist as an 8 year-old kid and it scarred me for life. I still hear “The power of Christ compels you!” in my nightmares. True story or not, that movie feels cursed.
David Cronenberg’s disturbing psychological horror about twin gynecologists is loosely based on Stewart and Cyril Marcus, identical twin doctors who died together in their Manhattan apartment in 1975.
Official cause: drug withdrawal. But the creepy co-dependence, the shared descent into madness, the strange bond? All real.
This movie is so clinical, so cold, it feels like watching a surgery on your own brain. And the fact that it’s based on real twin doctors? Yeah, that makes it worse. Also...not a good "first date" movie.
John McNaughton’s bleak, gritty film is loosely based on Henry Lee Lucas, a drifter who confessed to hundreds of murders (though most were proven false).
Still, he and his partner Otis Toole did commit horrifying crimes, and the film captures that randomness and brutality with documentary-style realism.
This is the movie I always warn people about. It’s not fun. It’s not entertaining. It’s just grim. But that’s what makes it brilliant, it feels like you’re watching evil itself. And that evil was real... and John McNaughton is a brilliant filmmaker!
Based on John Keel’s book, this incredibly scary and very eerie supernatural thriller dramatizes real reports from Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in the 1960s. Locals claimed to see a strange winged creature (The Mothman) before the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967, which killed 46 people. Many believed the Mothman was an omen.
I don’t know if the Mothman exists, but Point Pleasant sure thinks so. They’ve got a festival and a statue to prove it. And honestly? If I saw a giant winged man with glowing red eyes, I’d move out of town immediately.
So there you have it, ten horror movies that prove truth is often scarier than fiction. Some play it straight (Zodiac, Henry), others twist it into surreal nightmares (The Lighthouse, Dead Ringers), and others exaggerate until they become pure legend (Texas Chainsaw, Elm Street).
But in every case, that “based on a true story” tag makes the whole thing scarier. Because if it happened once, it could happen again. And that’s what keeps horror fans like me coming back for more.
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