While most repulsion picture are complete works of fiction , the genre occasionally offer up up stories that are based on terrifying and jaw - dropping real - life upshot , like the nine collected here .
1.A Nightmare on Elm Street(1984)
Premise : A supernatural slayer stalk his prey while they stargaze during mystifying slumber .
Real - Life Inspiration : Wes Craven basedA Nightmare on Elm Streeton aseriesof newspaper article from theLos Angeles Timesabout a strange phenomenon where untried Asiatic refugees would enigmatically die in their sopor . It was report that many would pass up to kip , citing terrifying nightmares that they dread would lead to death .
allot to Craven , the paper " never correlated [ the three clause ] , never articulate , ‘ Hey , we ’ve had another history like this ' " :
2.Child’s Play(1988)
Premise : A sequential Orcinus orca ’s soul possess a toy skirt and wreaks mayhem .
Real - Life Inspiration : In 1909 , Key West painter and author Robert Eugene Ottoclaimedthat one of his fellowship ’s handmaid place a fetich curse on his puerility toy , Robert the Doll . Supposedly , the chick would cryptically move from room to room , strike hard furniture over , and conduct conversations with Otto . Robert the Doll was go forth in the loft until Otto ’s last in 1974 , when new owners move into his Florida home . The young mob also claimed mysterious body process would pass in the house link up to the dame . Today , Robert the Dollis on display at Key West ’s Fort East Martello Museum .
3.The Amityville Horror(1979)
assumption : A untested family moves into a firm where a slaying was committed , and live strange and terrific occurrences .
Real - Life Inspiration : ground on the book of the same name , The Amityville Horrorfollows the paranormal events that terrify the Lutz family . In 1975 , the family moved into112 Ocean Avenuewhere , unbeknown to them , Ronald DeFeo , Jr. had brutally murdered his family 13 month before they arrived . While in their new home , the sept claim they come across green gook on the rampart and red - eyed pigs gaze into their kitchen and aliveness room . After less than a calendar month , the Lutz kin moved out of the pocket-sized town of Amityville , New York .
4.Psycho(1960)
Premise : A secretary goes on the rill after she steals $ 40,000 , only to wind up in a motel where the host and his female parent are more than they appear to be .
Real - Life Inspiration : Psycho’sNorman Bates isloosely basedon convicted murderer and grave robberEd Gein , who , during the belated fifties , killed women and unearthed army corps in Wisconsin . He also forge human skin into bantam keepsakes and whatnot , such as face masks , belts , and chair coverings . psychotic ’s novelist Robert Bloch base Bates on Gein , but changed the character from a grave robber and murderer into a sequential killer who arrange like his female parent . The Texas Chainsaw MassacreandThe Silence of the Lambsalso establish their serial orca — Leatherface and Buffalo Bill , respectively — on Gein .
5.The Exorcist(1973)
assumption : Two Catholic priests execute an exorcism on a youthful girlfriend who is possessed by the monster .
genuine - Life Inspiration : The Exorcist’sauthor and screenwriter William Peter Blattybasedthe novel and film on a 1949 article inTheWashington Postheadlined , " Priest Frees Mt. Rainier Boy report obtain in Devil ’s Grip . " The article followed Jesuit non-Christian priest William S. Bowdern , Edward Hughes , Raymond J. Bishop , and Walter H. Halloran participating in the rite of dispossession on a male child with the pseudonym " Roland Doe " in Maryland . According to the priests , they allegedly experienced the boy speaking in tongues , the bottom shaking and hovering , and object flying around during the ordeal . The exorcism was one of three official Catholic Church - sanction exorcisms in the United States at the time .
" perchance one day they ’ll light upon the cause of what happened to that untested man , but back then , it was only curable by an dispossession , " William Friedkin , the director ofThe Exorcist , toldTime Out . " His family were n’t even Catholics , they were Lutheran . They start up with medico and then psychiatrists and then psychologists and then they endure to their minister who could n’t serve them . And they offend up with the Catholic Christian church . TheWashington Postarticle says that the boy was own and exorcised . That ’s pretty out on a limb for a home newspaper to put on its front page … But you ’re not run to see that on the front Sir Frederick Handley Page of an levelheaded newspaper unless there ’s something there . "
6.The Girl Next Door(2007)
assumption : An auntie overrefinement and pervert her niece , and a locality boy conk out to alarm the authorities .
Real - Life Inspiration : base on Jack Ketchum ’s novel of the same name , The Girl Next Doorisbasedon the execution of Sylvia Likens , a 16 - year - previous lady friend from Indiana in 1965 . Sylvia and her sister Jenny were leave in the care of Gertrude Baniszewski , a family booster , when their parents lead town as jaunt carnival doer . Baniszewski , along with her children and a few neighbourhood shaver , locked Sylvia in the basement , where they excruciate and abuse her until she go of a brain hemorrhage and malnutrition .
7.The Conjuring(2013)
assumption : Two paranormal research worker help oneself a family who move into a secluded home plagued by weird events .
actual - Life Inspiration : The Conjuringisbasedon real - liveliness paranormal investigatorsEd and Lorraine Warrenand their experience with the Perrons , a kinsfolk who moved into a Rhode Island farmhouse and experienced ghostly and terrific happening in 1971 .
" WhenInsidiouscame out and was successful the account about the Warrens come to me and I was like , ' Oh , my gosh , this is really coolheaded , ' ” director James WantoldEntertainment Weeklyin 2013 . " But I did n’t just want to make another ghost story or another supernatural pic . One affair I had never explore was the prospect to tell a story that ’s found on real - life grapheme , real - life people . So those were the thing that head me toThe Conjuring . "
The Warrens also had apossessedRaggedy Ann doll that was the divine guidance for the twirl - off filmAnnabelle .
8.Open Water(2003)
Premise : Two aqualung divers becomestrandedin shark - infest waters after their term of enlistment grouping accidentally go away them behind .
Real - Life Inspiration : Open Wateris base on American tourists Tom and Eileen Lonergan , a span who were fall behind at sea when their circuit group left them behind while scuba diving event near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 1998 . When the diving ship’s company actualise the error two day later , they organise a hunting party , but the Lonergans were never found . The only thing that was establish was a underwater diver ’s slate ( an submersed communicating gadget ) with a S.O.S. subject matter on it that scan , " [ Mo]nday Jan 26 ; 1998 08am . To anyone [ who ] can help us : We have been abandoned on A[gin]court Reef by MV Outer Edge 25 Jan 98 3 premier . Please help us [ come ] to rescue us before we give-up the ghost . Help ! ! ! "
9.The Blob(1958)
premiss : A mystical foreign life - var. terrorizes a lowly town and consumes everything in its path as it get bigger and bighearted .
veridical - Life Inspiration : Believe it or not , The Blobisbasedon a 1950 clause fromThe New York Timestitled , " A ‘ Saucer ’ Floats to Earth And a hypothesis Is Dished Up . " The story follow four Philadelphia police military officer who came into contact with a strange gooey material , which is now believed to be " Star Jelly , " a gossamer gelatinous substance . When one of the officer tried to move the goop , it start up to fade away and vaporise , so there was nothing to show the FBI when they get on the fit except a bit on the ground .
