(Cover image source: IMDb/Warner Bros./New Line Productions/Universal Studios)
The thrill, racing of the heart, and a feeling of chill running down your spine are the essence of horror films. The horror genre has a remarkable power to draw us back in. It’s the abrupt jump scares, the guilty pleasure of peeking between your fingers, and the yearning to learn about the unknown. It is understandable why this genre is still among the most addictive.
Even though there are several sub-categories when it comes to horror films, something stands apart. No amount of body horror or blood-filled slashers can compete with “based on true events.”
Top 10 Horror Movies Based on True Events
The moment you start watching a horror film and the phrase “based on true events” comes on the screen is when you know it’s going to make you shudder. Because nothing is scarier than a movie plot line that is plausible enough to happen to you or someone you know.
We created a list of horror films based on real-life incidents and are sure to make you shudder through your fingers while you watch.
10. The Strangers (2008)
Three distinct real-life situations are combined in this Bryan Bertino thriller. The most obvious is the Manson Family’s home invasion and murder of Sharon Tate, her friends Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski, as well as Steven Parent, who was visiting the home’s keeper.
According to Screen Rant, The Strangers also includes elements of the Keddie Cabin Murders, which took place in a tiny Californian vacation town and resulted in the deaths of four people. The killers were never caught; hence, that case ended in a void.
Finally, Bertino drew inspiration for the film from his own childhood. When the renowned director was home alone one day, a gang of people knocked on his door, frightening him and asking for someone who didn’t live there.
9. Veronica (2017)
We can tell a movie is amazing when it finishes with graphic details from the actual case and states, “Based on a true story.” The 2017 Spanish movie Veronica is based on the true tale of a 15-year-old girl who, following a seance at her school, began having seizures and hallucinations.
The film deftly examines the aftermath of demonic possession. We observe several demons, Veronica’s inability to eat, and shadows hovering around her house. As we watch Veronica make a concerted effort to fix her errors and fail, the tension permeates the screen. We are horrified by the climactic images in which Veronica’s body is twisted, her lips and eyes wide open. After seeing the movie, we’re willing to wager that one goes to sleep with their lights on!
8. Poltergeist (1982)
Steven Spielberg, who is the writer of this American supernatural horror film, had a lot of material to work with in 1982’s The Poltergeist. The film is based on actual events that happened at the Herrmann house in Seaford, Long Island, in the 1950s.
“One morning in February 1958, James Herrmann received a phone call from his freaked-out wife, Lucille, telling him that strange things were happening in their home,” per LongIsland.com.
After hearing mysterious popping sounds throughout the house, their teenagers discovered caps of “shampoo, bleach, and a vial of holy water,” all of which had been taken out of their respective bottles. James even thought that the popping might have been caused by an odd chemical reaction, but the family disregarded the eerie experience.
After a priest prayed over the house, the religious Catholics went to him, but after that, the situation became “more violent, with figures smashing and a bookcase falling over randomly.” Life Magazine wrote an article about the Seaford poltergeist case, which went viral.
7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Talking about the best horror films must include a slasher, and what’s better than the iconic Freddy Krueger? Robert Englund’s Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street is the personification of the word ‘nightmare.’ He has burn marks, metal claws, and an old, striped sweater.
But Wes Craven, the filmmaker of A Nightmare on Elm Street, got the idea for Freddy Krueger after reading about a youngster who had terrifying night terrors and died in his sleep. “I’d read an article in the L.A. Times about a family who had escaped the Killing Fields in Cambodia and managed to get to the U.S,” he told Vulture in 2014.
“Things were fine, and then suddenly the young son was having very disturbing nightmares. He told his parents he was afraid that if he slept, the thing chasing him would get him, so he tried to stay awake for days at a time.”
His parents believed that this crisis was resolved when he eventually fell asleep. Then, in the middle of the night, they heard cries. He was dead by the time they reached him. In the middle of a nightmare, he passed away. A child was seeing a terrifying vision that the adults were trying to ignore. That turned into A Nightmare on Elm Street’s main line.
6. The Rite (2011)
The Rite, directed by Mikael Håfström, is a 2011 film, loosely based on Matt Baglio’s book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist.
The real story is as follows; however, obviously, some parts of the movie were dramatized for dramatic effect: After meeting writer Matt Baglio in an exorcism class, Father Gary Thomas was chosen to undergo exorcist training. Then, carrying out his new responsibility, Baglio followed the priest about Rome.
The real-life Reverend Thomas is currently the director of the propaedeutic year program at Menlo Park, California’s St. Patrick’s Seminary and University.
5. Annabelle (2014)
You’ve to be under a rock if you haven’t heard of John R. Leonetti’s directed film Annabelle. The Warrens claim that the real Annabelle doll was so severely haunted that they had to confine her to their occult museum in Monroe, Connecticut.
According to All That’s Interesting, the paranormal investigators say they were called by a priest named Father Cooke when two young women, Donna and Angie, wanted to perform an exorcism to get rid of the spirit of a deceased 7-year-old girl named Annabelle Higgins that had inhabited their doll. However, their stories were never verified.
As per All That’s Interesting, a medium had previously told Donna and Angie that Annabelle’s soul “was benevolent and simply wanted to be loved and cared for” before that.
But when the Warrens arrived, they told the young ladies that Annabelle was in “search of a human host” and that they had been misinformed. After ordering an exorcism, the couple relocated the doll to their occult museum, where she currently sits.
4. The Amityville Horror (1979)
The actual story of The Amityville Horror is that Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed a large number of people at 112 Ocean Avenue in 1974, and then the Lutz family moved into the house and began experiencing paranormal activity.
Although the murders are a known crime, many people believe that the subsequent purported haunting is a hoax or folktale. They believe the stories are driven by discrepancies in the Lutz family’s testimony and their purported financial reasons. The Lutz family left the house after 28 days, claiming to have had intense paranormal experiences.
3. The Exorcist (1973)
Although on-screen possession may seem like a typical concept for most horror films these days, William Friedkin’s 1973 picture The Exorcist stands out. The combination of a child, demonic possession, and the Catholic church makes for an excellent horror movie plot.
The horrifying plotline is, however, based on a true incident faced by Roland Doe. Roland Doe, 13, was devastated by the death of his spiritualist aunt, Harriett, “who’d taught him many things, including how to use a ouija board,” according to All That’s Interesting.
After Harriett passed away, the youngster started having unusual experiences. He scratched at the wall, noticed water trickling from the walls and pipes inexplicably, and, most frightening of all, felt his bed move.
Father E. Albert Hughes conducted the first exorcism on Doe in February 1949 after his parents turned to several Catholic priests for assistance. When scratches that read “Louis” started to develop on Doe’s body a few days after the ceremony, his mother concluded that they had to leave Maryland to receive additional assistance.
The family went to St. Louis, where they met Rev. William Bowdern and Father Walter H. Halloran from St. Louis University, who consented to exorcise young Roland. The youngster was treated until April of that year, when he eventually confessed that the devil had left him.
2. The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
The Scott Derrickson-directed The Exorcism of Emily Rose is not your typical horror film; it is a horror legal drama. The Jennifer Carpenter-starrer horror film doesn’t just introduce you to demonic possession but makes you question your beliefs. What makes the film even impactful is “Based on a true story” coming on the screen. The film is said to be loosely inspired by the real life of Anneliese Michel.
Growing up in a hyper-religious household, Michel was diagnosed with both epilepsy and schizophrenia when he was a teenager. But as her seizures became hallucinations and she began to feel possessed, things took a bad turn. Following Michel’s insistence on being exorcised, her parents turned to Fathers Ernst Alt and Arnold Renz, who started performing a series of exorcisms in September 1975.
The young woman had stopped taking her medication and was discovered to be malnourished and dehydrated. Hence, her parents, Ana and Joseph Michel, as well as the clerics, were charged with negligent homicide after she passed away on July 1, 1976.
1. Conjuring (2013)
The main plot of The Conjuring is based on the actual Roger and Carolyn Perron, who moved into 1677 Round Top Road in Rhode Island in 1971 and allegedly encountered some paranormal activity in the house. However, the filmmakers took some artistic license in creating the picture.
Furthermore, although they play a significant role in the film, paranormal investigators Ed Warren, a self-described demonologist, and his wife Lorraine Warren, a clairvoyant and medium, were not essential to the real-life plot of The Conjuring. The Providence Journal claims that Roger Perron actually ejected them from the house when they arrived.