Horror movies based on true stories

Since Halloween is one week away, I figured it would be a great time to talk about some classic horror movies and the real life stories that inspired them.

The Exorcist 

The Movie Story: A pair of priests attempt to exorcise a demon that has possessed a 12-year-old girl living in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC.
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.

Psycho

The Movie Story: Norman Bates is a psychologically disturbed hotel owner who has delusions this his dead mother, whose body he keeps in the cellar, wants to kill hotel guests. He develops a dual personality and dresses like her when he commits his murders.

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 Amityville Horror

The Movie Story: The Lutz family moves into a riverside house, the site of a mass murder the year before. They encounter a series of malevolent paranormal events that drive them out of the house after only 28 days.

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 Mothman Prophecies

The Movie Story: Reporter John Klein gets lost while driving and ends up in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where he encounters the so-called Mothman, a winged creature whose appearance seems to foretell disastrous events -- notably, the collapse of a bridge over the Ohio River leading to Point Pleasant.

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.

Open Water

The Movie Story: When unmarried couple Daniel and Susan take a group scuba diving trip, a mistake by the crew while taking a head count of the divers who return to the boat leaves the couple floating alone in the ocean, surrounded by sharks.

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.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Movie Story: A priest is on trial for the death of a young woman named Emily Rose, upon whom he had performed an exorcism. Through flashbacks, we see the tribulations that she suffered while possessed.

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 Haunting in Connecticut

The Movie Story: The Campbell family moves to Connecticut to be near the doctor caring for their ill son, Matt. They soon realize that their new home is a former mortuary haunted by a malevolent force.

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.

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