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SCARIER THAN FICTION

The chilling real-life stories which inspired horror films… from Nightmare on Elm Street to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

IF you ever find yourself a little too spooked out while watching a horror flick, you can normally calm yourself down with the knowledge that it's not real.

But these chilling horror films are more than fiction, having been inspired by haunting real-life events which are dark beyond any director's wildest imagination.

 Horror classic Nightmare on Elm Street is among the films which have bizarre roots in reality
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Horror classic Nightmare on Elm Street is among the films which have bizarre roots in realityCredit: Rex Features

A fair few films have drawn inspiration from the same macabre murderer, while others are based on unbelievable newspaper stories which were circulating at the time of them being made.

Even The Blob, an outrageous 50s film about a ravenous alien, is among the horror flicks inspired by events more real than you'd have guessed.

Psycho (1960)

A much-loved thriller, Hitchcock's Psycho tells the story of a woman who ends up at a secluded motel, where she meets her sticky end at the hands of the manager.

The killer in the film, Norman Bates, is a mum-obsessed weirdo, but the character has hauntingly real roots.

While the novel which inspired the film was being written, author Robert Bloch heard of a real-life serial killer called Ed Gein, who murdered at least two women in Wisconsin.

Sick mummy's boy Gein captured Bloch's imagination, and would go on to inspire the character of Norman Bates, if only loosely.

 A vile murderer called Ed Gein was the loose inspiration for characters in a number of iconic horror flicks
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A vile murderer called Ed Gein was the loose inspiration for characters in a number of iconic horror flicksCredit: Getty - Contributor

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

The plot to A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the knife-fingered monster known as Freddy Kreuger, are obviously works of fiction.

But the dark concept was based on real life events, with writer and director Wes Craven admitting that an LA Times article had inspired the horror film.

The article in question told the story of a group of refugees who all died in their sleep around the same time - leading local children to fear that nightmares had killed them.

 Although much of A Nightmare on Elm Street is clearly pure fiction, the concept came from a haunting real-life story
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Although much of A Nightmare on Elm Street is clearly pure fiction, the concept came from a haunting real-life storyCredit: Rex Features

The Exorcist (1973)

Satanic horror classic The Exorcist was based on a real-life exorcism performed in the United States in the 1940s.

Roman Catholic priests performed a series of exorcisms on a 14-year-old boy, who they believed had been possessed by a demon.

The reported events of that exorcism, and the alleged spooky goings-on which followed it, were the inspiration for the 1971 novel the film is based on.

 The Exorcist, a true classic of the genre, was inspired by a real-life American exorcism
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 The Exorcist, a true classic of the genre, was inspired by a real-life American exorcismCredit: Rex Features

Annabelle (2014)

The horror film about a demonic doll sounds too odd to be true but, believe it or not, Annabelle was inspired by alleged real-world events.

The film was based on claims that a haunted doll, now locked up in Monroe, Connecticut, had attacked a group of flatmates and started a chain of events which led to a man's death.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Once again, real-life monster Ed Gein fulled the imagination of the horror writers behind The Texas Chainsaw Massacare.

Although the plot is all made up, the evil character of Leatherface was was inspired by Gein, who made masks from the faces of dead women.

 The character Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on real-life killer Ed Gein
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The character Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on real-life killer Ed GeinCredit: Rex Features

The Blob (1958)

Weird horror flick The Blob depicts an invasion by a gooey alien blob which starts eating its way through a small town in America.

The idea for the film came from an unusual encounter in 1950, when two Philadelphia policemen came across a bizarre, purple blob, six feet wide.

It is believed the mass, which vanished 25 minutes after the policemen found it, may have been a common Earthly substance called "star jelly".

Jaws (1975)

The novel which inspired Jaws, the classic horror film about a giant great white shark, has a bizarre basis in reality.

The fisherman in the film, Quint, was based on a real-life Long Island fisherman called Frank Mundus.

 A spate of shark attacks in 1916 inspired the iconic horror film Jaws
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A spate of shark attacks in 1916 inspired the iconic horror film JawsCredit: Rex Features

Mundus, who had the same mannerisms as Quint, had devoted his life to catching sharks.

And as for the shark in the film, the deadly creature was inspired by a series of real shark attacks which took place in 1916, just off the Jersey shore.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Similarly to Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacare, sick killer Ed Gein would also inspire a character in classic horror film The Silence of the Lambs.

Buffalo Bill, a killer who wore the skins of the women he killed, was inspired by Gein's real-life obsession with making clothes from the skin of corpses he had dug up.

The Conjuring (2013)

The Conjuring follows the story of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are experiencing a series of unsettling disturbances at their Rhode Island farmhouse.

But Ed and Lorraine Warren aren't fictional characters - they were real paranormal investigators who claim to have experienced everything which takes place in the film.

Ed died in 2006, but Lorraine was a consultant on the film - and still claims to this day that the events of The Conjuring are more than fiction.

 The Conjuring follows two paranormal investigators, who actually exist in real life and claim the events of the film reflect their own experiences
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The Conjuring follows two paranormal investigators, who actually exist in real life and claim the events of the film reflect their own experiencesCredit: Rex Features

The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

Horror flick The Hills Have Eyes tells the story of a family who are targeted by a band of savages after becoming stranded in the Nevada Desert.

The monstrous attackers are based on the legend of a Scottish clan which existed between the 1400s and the 1700s.

Lead by feared Alexander Bean, the Scots terrors were believed to have killed and cannibalised as many as 1,000 people, although historians have suggested this figure may be exaggerated.

Regardless, the clan's murderous behaviour inspired the monstrous savages seen in The Hills Have Eyes, and their legacy of fear lives on to this day.

 The savages in The Hills Have Eyes are based on stories about a legendary Scottish clan of cannibals and murderers
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The savages in The Hills Have Eyes are based on stories about a legendary Scottish clan of cannibals and murderersCredit: Rex Features

Previously, we told how it's not just criminals which inspire films... sometimes it's the other way round.

From the Scream copycat murders to a foiled Saw torture plot, these are the crimes inspired by dark films and TV shows.