5 great horror movies based on real events
If you think that the plots in horror movie scripts are fiction from start to finish, you are very wrong. In fact, many of these films are based on real events.
The Far Out website addressed this topic to find out which famous horror films are not fiction. Here are 5 famous "horror" films whose scripts were based on real events.
Fire in the Sky (Robert Lieberman, 1993)
Robert Lieberman's 1993 film Fire in the Sky received a lot of negative feedback from fans of the genre. However, one thing cannot be taken away from it: the factual material.
The plot of the film is the story of a lumberjack from Arizona who went missing for five days and, when he reappeared, accused aliens of abducting him.
The script for Fire in the Sky is based on Travis Walton's novel The Walton Experience, which is essentially a biography of the author.
The book describes in detail how Walton and his colleagues working in the field saw a blinding light in the sky. And when Walton came closer, he was captured by a powerful beam of energy, after which he disappeared.
As for the movie itself, it has something in common with horror: the eerie scene of the main character's abduction.
Open Water (Chris Kentis, 2003)
Not everyone considers Chris Kentis's 2003 film Open Water to be a horror film, as it was originally created as an independent drama.
The film, which takes place in the ocean, tells the story of two scuba divers who accidentally find themselves in the water after being abandoned by a tour boat. And if this situation may not seem scary enough to some, it should be noted that sharks soon appeared next to them.
In fact, this nightmare became a reality for Tom and Eileen Lonergan, a couple who were "forgotten" in 1998 by the Outer Edge dive company on the Great Barrier Reef. Afterward, they were searched for a long time but never found.
The Strangers (Bryan Bertino, 2008)
There is something particularly eerie about home invasion movies that scares viewers with the idea that we are not as protected from the outside world as we think.
In 2008, Brian Bertino directed the slasher film Strangers, in which a married couple becomes the unwitting victims of a break-in committed by three masked killers.
Bertino was inspired by the cases of murder by members of the Manson sect committed in 1969. Back then, the crazed cult leader Charles Manson ordered his followers to break into the victims' homes and kill everyone in a row, killing many people, including actor Sharon Tate.
The director took this case as a basis, explaining that he wanted to tell a story that focused on the victims rather than explaining the motives for the killings.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
Tobe Hooper's film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, released in 1974, is considered one of the first examples of the slasher genre. It introduced us to a monstrous killer wearing a human skin mask who massacred his victims with a chainsaw.
The plot of The Texas Massacre was based on a real-life killer and grave desecrator, Ed Gein. Like the film's protagonist, he made clothes and interior items from human remains and skin, and decorated his house with bones.
Wolf Creek (Greg McLean, 2005)
Despite the fact that the film's premiere in 2005 went unnoticed by the general public, genre fans remember it. Greg McLean's film tells the story of three tourists who find themselves in the Australian outback, captured by a sadistic psychopath who forces them to plunge into a hellish nightmare.
The plot is based on the murders of travelers in New South Wales (Australia) in 1989-1993. Ivan Milat was behind these crimes, killing seven young people and burying their bodies in the Belanglo forest. This tragic story served as the basis for the film in 2005 and its sequel in 2013.