9 Times Movies Predicted or Inspired Real-Life Horror Stories

Life imitates art?

Eden Arielle Gordon

October 25 2020

Normally, we think of horror movies as based on true events, not the other way around.

But on a number of occasions, horror movies have actually inspired or predicted real-life occurrences.

While the vast majority of violent events occur without the influence of movies, and while most people who watch scary movies do not become violent afterwards, every once in awhile, life really does imitate art. Here are eight terrifying and gory examples of times that scary movies crept their way into reality.

Natalia Grace

The tale of Natalia Grace, the girl with dwarfism abandoned by her adoptive parents, has been all over the news lately. According to Natalia's parents, the 9-year-old they believed they adopted was actually a 22-year-old, sociopathic adult woman. Doctors have apparently been unable to determine her actual age.
If this story sounds familiar, you might be thinking of the 2009 film Orphan, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. In that film, a 9-year-old adopted child named Esther is revealed to be...a wicked, sociopathic 33-year-old woman with dwarfism.
▲

Christian Bale in American Psycho

This film has inspired a fair number of actual murders, but no one took things as far as 17-year-old Brian Douglas White. In 2012, White killed his ex-girlfriend with the exact same axe that Christian Bale used to kill his former girlfriend and mother in the film. Just before he committed the murder, he posted the line "Did I mention I'm insane?" on Facebook, a line that echoes the movie quote, "Did you know I'm utterly insane?"
▲

Scream

Scream is a self-aware film series that parodies typical serial killer flick tropes...but ironically, it has inspired a fair number of very real killings. In 1998, a 16-year-old named Mario Padilla and his cousin stabbed Padillo's mother, Gina Castillo, 45 times. The killing became known as the "Scream Murder," because the boys were allegedly inspired by the franchise, and had planned on wearing Grim Reaper costumes and using voice distortion just like the films. However, in court, the judge smartly banned any mention of the film, which the defense lawyers were trying to use.
Chillingly, "Scream" was also cited by several other murderers. To 24-year-old Thierry Johnson, the "Scream" movies were also blueprints for reality. After luring a 15-year-old into his house, Johnson changed into the costume from the Scream film and stabbed the girl 30 times. Johnson later confessed that his actions were inspired by the movie.
▲

Nun ghost

Arguably one of the eeriest movies in recent memory, The Conjuring is inspired by the real-life experiences of private investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren as they investigated the Perrons, a family that moved into a farmhouse and experienced paranormal hauntings in 1979.
According to the people working on the movie set, the filming process was rife with supernatural events. Cast and crew members reported feeling strange winds that would blow around particular people, but not trees. The director also reported noticing that one night, his dog appeared to be barking at something invisible and following it with his eyes.
▲

Possessed girl

The film The Possession is about a girl who gets haunted by a spirit contained in something called a dybbuk box, which possesses characters in the movie. While on set, a fire broke out that burned the prop box—and the owners of the real box (which inspired the film's events) offered the bonafide, allegedly possessed object in exchange.
If the fire was the dybbuk's attempt to possess some Hollywood movie stars, it failed, because fortunately the crew was smart enough to leave the box untouched.
▲

Mia Farrow in "Rosemary's Baby"

Roman Polanski directed the 1968 film about a woman who becomes impregnated with the spawn of Satan. After he made the film, terrible things happened to almost everyone involved in filming it.
First, the film scorer, Krzystof Komelda, fell off a cliff, then died in a coma (the same affliction that characters in the book used to kill Rosemary's suspicious friend). Then the producer William Castle was stricken with kidney stones, and while hallucinating in the hospital, he started screaming lines from the film.
And of course, in 1969, Polanski's pregnant wife Sharon Tate was murdered by the Manson Family in their home. Tate had vied for the part of Rosemary, and apparently hung around the set while it was being filmed. Soon after she was murdered, conspiracy theorists began to propose that Polanski had sacrificed his wife's baby to the devil in exchange for Hollywood success.▲

Brad Pitt in "Interview with the Vampire"

In 1994, Lisa Stellwagen and her boyfriend Daniel Sterling watched Interview With the Vampire. That night, at around 3:00 AM, Stellwagen awoke to see Sterling staring at her. He said, "I'm going to kill you and drink your blood" and proceeded to stab Stellwagen eight times, attempting to actually drink her blood. Fortunately, Stellwagen survived to tell the tale. It's unclear as to whether Sterling was definitely attempting to emulate the film, but he did confess to believing in vampires while on trial.
▲

The Poltergeist

This has to be one of the scariest times that horror films and real life crossed paths. In one scene of Poltergeist, which was made in 1982, two children are filmed being terrorized by an evil clown. Behind them, on the wall, is a poster for the 1988 Super Bowl XXII—which is strange, because the film was made six years before this game was to occur.
On January 31, 1988, Heather O'Rourke—the actress who played the little girl in Poltergeist—died suddenly of cardiac arrest in her sleep.
What else happened on January 31st, 1988? Super Bowl XXII, of course.
(This is deeply terrifying, but just keep in mind that we notice coincidences far more than we notice the billions of times that coincidences don't occur).
▲

Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight"

Joaquin Phoenix's The Joker comes out this weekend, and as most of us know, it's sparked a great deal of controversy. This is partly due to the fact that in 2012, a shooter killed 12 people in Aurora, Colorado during a showing of The Dark Knight Rises—and was allegedly inspired by the Joker, though this story may be a myth. While no reports of violence at any of the new film's showings have surfaced, the U.S. military has issued warnings to servicemembers about the possibility of an attack, and this all has sparked a massive conversation about censorship, the incel community, and what causes people to resort to violence.

As strange and disturbing as some of these incidents are, compared to the number of murders that have occurred and the number of horror movies that have been released, it's actually relatively rare for an act of violence to be spurred on by a work of fiction. And actually, blaming films and media for real-life violence ignores the factors that really cause people to resort to violence, such as misogyny, untreated mental illness, and easy access to firearms.
So, we can keep on enjoying our horror movies in peace, knowing that typically it's real life that inspires horror films, and not the other way around.
▲

ABOUT US CAREERS PRIVACY POLICY TERMS OF USE CONTACT US

© 2020 Popdust Inc. All Rights Reserved.