Real-life crimes inspired by films and TV shows… including Scream copycat murders and a foiled Saw torture plot

VIOLENCE in movies and television programmes is a controversial subject, and debate rages over whether glamorising the criminal lifestyle leads to similar behaviour in viewers.

Here, we examine brutal murders and and horrific pranks that were inspired by big and small screen shows.

SCREAM

Inspired by a scene in the 90s cult horror Scream, lonely Belgian truck driver Thierry Jaradin, 24, brutally murdered 15-year-old schoolgirl Alisson Cambier in November 2001.

Wes Craven’s 1996 movie follows a ‘slasher’ – who wears a black tunic and a ghoulish mask inspired by Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream – as he terrorises a sleepy American town.

Thierry propositioned Alisson one day when she visited him at home. After she refused, he excused himself to another room, where he donned the iconic Ghostface costume.

He used two large knives to stab her 30 times – in the manner of the victim in the film’s opening scene.

After the murder, he called the police and confessed he’d modelled it on the film. He had no criminal record or history of mental illness.

FIGHT CLUB

Homemade bombs exploded across New York City on Memorial Day weekend in 2009.

The culprit was found to be 17-year-old Kyle Shaw, who was a member of a local boxing club.

The teen later admitted trying to launch his own ‘Project Mayhem’ and emulate the assaults on corporate America planned by a character in the 1999 movie, Fight Club.

David Fincher’s big screen adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s gritty debut explored the world of underground bare-knuckle boxing matches and organised terrorism.

Fight clubs have popped up all over the world in the wake of the movie, among populations as diverse as American software developers, Australian schoolboys, and British prisons.

SAW

The Jigsaw Killer in the Saw franchise targets people who are hurting themselves and cruelly toys with them to teach them the value of life.

He never kills anyone, he contends—if they don’t have sufficient will to live, they kill themselves.

Two teenage girls in Tennessee got into serious trouble after playing a Saw-related prank on a 52-year-old woman.

The woman received a voicemail, recorded in the gruesome Saw style, stating that a friend had been hidden in her home, and the caller was about to release the toxic gas they had rigged inside.

She had to decide whether to save herself or risk saving her friend.

The woman was so terrified that she suffered a stroke.

She fortunately recovered, but the girls were charged with phone harassment.

TWILIGHT

Twilight is the romantic fantasy franchise that follows a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire.

The cult film was also blamed for sending one Iowa teen to the dark side.

After a 13-year-old girl was bitten by a male classmate, a headmaster at the school investigated and found the boy had bitten 10 others in a month.

When contacted, the boy’s dad said his son’s love of Twilight made him nibble fellow pupils.

The youngster was later referred to a juvenile correction centre.

AMERICAN PSYCHO

In 2004, Michael Hernandez, 14, lured his school friend into a bathroom stall and stabbed him more than 40 times – a savage murder that got him sentenced to life in prison.

The teen admitted to modelling his behaviour on the serial killers in American Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs.

The South Florida student said he identified with the horror movie murderers and wanted to act out their roles in his real-life plan to become a serial killer.

Michael believed God gave him special powers and agreed with his decision to kill a classmate.

DEXTER

Showtime’s hit drama Dexter about a serial killer has been linked to at least one real-life murder.

In 2009, Andrew Conley, 17, strangled his 10-year-old brother Conner, and dumped the body in a park.

A few weeks after the killing, he told his girlfriend that he wanted to be like the TV murderer.

Conley told police interrogators:”I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s called ‘Dexter,’ and it’s on Showtime. And I feel like him because he’s a serial killer of bad people … but I just feel like him.”

NATURAL BORN KILLERS

Two teenagers obsessed with the film Natural Born Killers carried out copycat murders then boasted about them.

Sarah Edmondson, a judge’s daughter with a glowing academic record, and drug addict Ben Darras could hardly have been more different.

But the pair, from Oklahoma, shared a love of hallucinogens, sex and the 1994 film about lovers who go on a killing spree, starring Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis.

In March 1995 they set about imitating the film’s murders, starting with Ben, 17, robbing and shooting dead the owner of a liquor store.

Days later the couple drove to Louisiana for 18-year-old Sarah’s turn. She shot a cashier at a convenience store who survived but was paralysed.

The couple then returned home and bragged to friends about their exploits.

They were quickly arrested and were jailed in 1995. Ben is still serving a life sentence for murder and Edmondson, convicted of attempted murder, was released on parole in 2010.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

Stanley Kubrick’s creepy A Clockwork Orange inspired a bizarre real-life crime.

Office worker John Ricketts dressed up as a droog from the 1971 film  and assaulted a woman dressed as Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard at party.

The movie was banned from UK cinemas because of the increase in violent crimes following its release.

THE DARK KNIGHT

Demented James Holmes opened fire and rained terror on a movie theatre in Colorado in July 2012.

The orange-haired killer sat in the front row for a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and then, twenty minutes into the movie, shot dead 12 innocent cinema goers.

He was sentenced to life in prison for his actions.

America’s gun laws have come under scrutiny in the aftermath of the shooting spree as it emerged Holmes bought his four weapons legally as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition on the internet.