Five Horror Films Inspired by True Events

Horror is such a vast and intriguing genre full of many storylines to strike fear into the hearts of viewers everywhere. Stories ranging from deranged madmen, demonic possession, evil dolls, incredible creatures, and so much more. Creators are always searching for ways to terrify audiences and come up with new concepts all in the name of horror. For some filmmakers, they’ve discovered that reality can be far more frightening than fiction. Horror has been taking inspiration from real-life events for years. Everything from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Conjuring, Child’s Play, The Exorcist – the list goes on and on. We’re going to be discussing five of my personal favorites inspired by real-life events.

Let’s Begin.

The Strangers. This film follows a young couple staying in a remote cabin who are terrorized by three masked killers. The killers eventually tie them up and murder them after spending the whole night stalking and attacking them. When asked why they are doing this to them one of the killers simply replied, “because you were home.” The thought of being pursued and by killers with no real motive, whose only purpose is to terrorize and kill you is scary as hell. The unsolved murder that inspired this film is perhaps more terrifying. Filmmaker Bryan Bertino was inspired to make this film from a childhood experience where strangers went door to door in his neighborhood asking for people that didn’t live there and were responsible for a string of robberies in the area. He was also inspired by the Manson murders. But the main inspiration was the Keddie Cabin murders that took place in California back in the 80s. They took place in April in the small, low-population town of Keddie. Sue Sharp and her five kids rented out cabin 28, one they had previously stayed at. One night, Sue was home with her two boys and one of their friends and her youngest daughter – the eldest was staying at a friend’s house nearby. When the eldest returned, she found each of their bodies mutilated and bound with white medical tape and electrical wires. Police found a butcher knife and a bloodied hammer at the scene of the crime. The youngest daughter was nowhere to be found, police eventually found her skull three years later in the woods. While there were two suspects there were never any arrests and the murder remains unsolved.

Hostel. In this film, we have three college kids on vacation in Amsterdam that get involved in a shady organization called Elite Hunting that kidnap people to be auctioned off and tortured. We see the hostel clerk scan their ID’s as they check in, we seem them get suckered and lured by beautiful locals that eventually drug them and take them into this torture ring where they’ve been sold. The thought of going to a foreign country where you’re basically alone and being sold is terrifying – especially when everyone’s in on it. Director Eli Roth was inspired to make this film when he was told about a website in Thailand where you can go into a room and shoot a stranger in the head for $10,000. The site claimed that the strangers “signed up for it because they were broke and were going to die anyway and that part of the money would go to their family.” Roth explained that it was the thrill about taking another life with no repercussions. He also used the general shitty behavior of American’s going abroad that use it as an excuse to do things they’re not supposed to like visit these sorts of “forbidden” parts of these countries and do things like buy drugs, hookers, etc. The reality of it is that people go abroad frequently and sometimes, they don’t come back. The fact that websites exist where you can spend money and go and murder people for sport makes me not want to leave the house.

The Serpent and the Rainbow. The film follows an anthropologist that visits Haiti in search of a drug that’s used in voodoo rituals to turn men into zombies. Once he arrives he finds a man who had experienced the ritual and had previous died, only to return a few days after being buried. The movie was inspired by the novel of the same name written by ethnobotanist, Wade Davis, who traveled to Haiti to research this very topic. The novel tells of the real-life case of Clairvius Narcisse, a “real-life zombie.” The case explains that after feeling ill, Narcisse checked into a local hospital after experiencing trouble breathing. He reported feeling “bugs were crawling all over his skin.” He was soon pronounced dead and he was of course, buried a few days later. Soon after his sister Angelina Narcisse saw him walking down the street. Now typically, once you’ve been buried we don’t expect to see you again until we take our own dirt nap so I can imagine the reaction she had seeing her supposed dead brother up and about. Davis’ journey introduced him the world of voodoo and black magic. He discovered a black magic priests called a “bucor.” These priests were said to possess the power of bringing the dead back to life as zombie slaves. It was said that a bucor was responsible for the event of Narcisse coming “back to life” after placing him in a trance that fooled his doctors into believing he was dead. Once buried, the bucor dug him up and placed him on a sugar plantation to do labor. All of this was made possible thanks to a tetrodoxin powder from a pufferfish that was given to the victim through an abrasion on his skin. The toxin would cause the victim to go into a comatose state long enough for doctors to announce the victim dead. This, along with other concoctions full of hallucinogens and ground human bone were also given to create these zombies. So, if you ever want to kick-start the zombie apocalypse, you know what to do.

I Spit On Your Grave. This film was released in the heart of the 70s Exploitation period. It follows a woman that travels to the countryside to work on her book. While away she’s brutally raped and beaten by a group of men that then leave her for dead. The woman seeks revenge and ultimately uses the men’s own misogyny against them and picks them off one by one. This was a common theme among exploitation films, this revenge plot. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen in our own society, events like this happen all too frequently and director Meir Zarchi was inspired to make this film after witnessing a similar event in Central Part back in 1974. While with his young daughter, Zarchi came across a teenage girl who had been raped and beaten. He proceeded to take her to the police, where he was put-off by how callously she was being treated. Despite having obvious injuries, no one took the young girl to the hospital so he took her himself. He began thinking how sometimes the justice system tends to fail and thought what if the victims took matters into their own hands. This is what makes this film so personal and real, because these things happen all the time and seeing it up close and so in your face forces you to see the reality and brutality of it. It’s also what makes it so satisfying to see the main character get her revenge on the ones that violated her.

A Nightmare on Elm Street. Now, out of all the films mentioned here, the fact that this was inspired by true events surprised me the most. This iconic slasher film is about a group of teens being stalked by Freddy Kruger, a man that uses their dreams to kill them. While there may not be a dream stalker named Freddy out there in the world, there was a case where teens were dying in their sleep. Filmmaker Wes Craven came up with the idea for this film when he came across an article about a teen from Cambodia that was plagued with nightmares and was afraid to fall asleep. His family had survived the Killing Fields in Cambodia, which was basically a mass genocide during the 70s. His family escaped to America but he was plagued with terrible nightmares. Craven went on to explain that the boy had told his parents that he was afraid to sleep because he felt that he would die. The boy went on about something that would chase him and he believed it would kill him. So, he tried to stay awake, using caffeine pills, coffee, whatever it took to help him stay awake for days at a time. Eventually, he fell asleep and all was well until the parents heard him screaming. When they finally got to him he was dead. Much like in the film, the parents didn’t really believe that there was anything after him in his sleep because that sounds ridiculous, right? They’re just nightmares brought on by a traumatic experience, surely, it’ll get better with time. Whatever horrors the teen saw when he shut his eyes, were enough to kill him in his sleep.

Sweet dreams.