Truth is stranger than fiction, as the saying goes, and nowhere is that maxim more true than in the world of horror movies. While there are several films like Studio 666 and Malignant that rely on over-the-top scares and purely fictitious threats, many classic horror films draw inspiration from true events and natural phenomena.
At times, “based on true events” is a tagline most horror movies use just to draw in a crowd, but sometimes there’s a nugget of truth behind the monsters. In fact, several famous horror characters from Leatherface to even Freddy Krueger have at least a shred of fact mixed in with the fiction.
Bruce The Shark (Frank Mundus’s Shark)
Although the events seen in Steven Spielberg’s still-fascinating Jaws were entirely fictional and based on the book by Peter Benchley, the image of the massive shark rising up from the ocean depths was inspired by an actual event. In fact, Benchley drew influence from an actual shark hunter, Frank Mundus.
Not only did Mundis serve as the inspiration for Quint in both the book and the movie, but his most famous catch became the voracious monster that kept swimmers out of the water. Weighing in at over 3000 pounds, the massive shark caught by Mundus would scare anyone out of Amity.
The Strangers (The Manson Family And The Keddie Cabin Murders)
At first glance, any movie about three masked serial killers stalking a couple in their home might sound like something worthy of a late-night movie with Joe Bob Briggs. However, the three eerie assailants seen in The Strangers hit a little closer to home than the average viewer might originally think.
Director Brian Bertino has claimed that the film was inspired by three separate events, including one from his own experience. Although they lacked the freaky masks, the murder of Sharon Tate and the mysterious Keddie Cabin murders were all too real, and all three events were just as horrifying as those presented in the film.
The Phantom Killer (Texarkana Moonlight Murders)
The events surrounding the Moonlight Murders in 1946 are something of a local legend around Texarkana. The Town That Dreaded Sundown was one of the first true slasher movies, and it owes its existence to a shocking and mysterious set of murders committed by a hooded assailant.
While parts of the film were altered for narrative purposes, there were ties to actual victims and investigators. Some were more artistically licensed than others, but there were enough similarities between the two to grab the attention of the town when the film first premiered.
The Hill People (Sawney Bean)
Leave it to Wes Craven to create an absolutely chilling cannibal family. Leatherface and the rest of the Sawyers might take more than a few liberties with an actual murder case, but Craven’s cannibals receive their calling from a piece of Scottish history.
The cannibals hiding in the caves of The Hills Have Eyes are loosely based on the highwayman, Sawney Bean, and his carnivorous clan. According to legends and accounts, Bean was supposedly responsible for the disappearances of several travelers along the Galloway Coast, killing and eating a number of lost travelers with his family.
Pennywise (John Wayne Gacy)
Although it might be cheating counting Pennywise alone, John Wayne Gacy has been known as the original creepy clown since the ’70s. Granted, that’s a title someone has to earn with major acts of evil under their belt. The crimes committed by Gacy before his arrest in 1978 were worthy of a whole franchise of horror movies by themselves.
Gacy was once a pillar of his community, moonlighting as Pogo the Clown for community functions before he became known for using his charming persona to lure his victims to their deaths. In a similar fashion, Pennywise uses his colorful jokes and banter to lure the children of Derry into his waiting jaws.
Freddy Krueger (Dream-Related Deaths)
“When you die in your dreams, you die for real…” That’s a line that terrified hundreds of viewers way back in the ’80s, and fans wouldn’t be remiss if they thought it was simply a chilling phrase from the mind of Wes Craven. That being said, while Freddy Krueger is indeed the stuff of nightmares, the phenomenon that inspired his method of murder is all too real.
A wave of sleep-related deaths swept southeast Asia during the ’80s, one such case resulted in the man of a young boy who woke screaming and died of fright. It certainly sounds like more than fertile ground for a horror story or two.
Dracula (Vlad Dracula)
It might be a little better known, but the infamy of the count’s true identity is practically just as well known as the Bram Stoker novel. It’s no secret that Count Dracula was inspired by the real-life Count Vlad Tepes, better known to the public as Vlad the Impaler. The bloodthirsty ruler of Walachia and his violent ways served as the chilling inspiration for Stoker’s book and many other Dracula portrayals.
Known as one of the largest figures in Romanian history, Vlad III ruled Romania from 1448 to 1477. His horrifying moniker came from his practice of impaling his prisoners on large wooden stakes, and that was only one of his infamous methods of torture. Suddenly a vampire doesn’t seem like such an evil creature.
The Mummy (King Tut’s Curse)
“Death shall come on swift wings to him that toucheth the tomb of the pharaoh” was the phrase that inspired a similar curse when Universal brought the sorcerous Imhotep back to life in the original Mummy. Perhaps the most famous mummy to come before the invention of film was the body of Tutankhamen unearthed by Howard Carter in 1922.
The death of Lord Carnarvon, the patron of the excavation, was thought to be the result of the Pharaoh’s Curse. The “swift wings” referred to in the warning were mirrored by an infected mosquito bite Carnarvon received while on the expedition. However, Canarvon also suffered from chronic illness well before he entered the tomb, making his untimely death and the curse merely an eerie coincidence.
Norman Bates (Ed Gein)
While some will be quick to compare the likes of Leatherface and Buffalo Bill to the Butcher of Plainfield, it’s Norman Bates that bears the more accurate resemblance to the infamous Ed Gein. Known for grave robbing and creating a skinsuit out of human flesh, Ed Gein’s story is one of the most disturbing accounts in the annals of crime. However, he wasn’t quite the monster the likes of Leatherface would have some believe.
Ed Gein wasn’t an imposing man. In reality, he was a hermit who was more of a strange and quiet type. Although he needed no chainsaws or night-vision goggles, Gein was responsible for the deaths of Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan. Both women resembled his overbearing mother, a factor which went into the creation of the owner of the infamous Bates Motel.
