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Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Best Hollywood War Movies Based On True Stories And Events

War Horse (2011)

Best World War 1 Movies Based On True Stories And Events

V/H/S (2012)

Interesting Found Footage Horror Thriller Movies You Should Watch!

Single Location Horror Movies

Scary Single Location Horror Movies That Are Terrifying

Best Horror Movies Based On True Stories & Events

A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) | "Janghwa, Hongryeon"

Best Korean Horror Movies You Should Definitely Watch (At Night)

blair witch project

Top Calorie Burning Horror Movies You Can Watch Instead Of Having Sex

Titanic (1997)

Best Disaster Movies Inspired By True Events & Stories

40+ Best Horror Movies Based On True Stories & Events

  • Last updated on December 1, 2017 by Shalini Singh(ShaliniSinghSOS)
  • Short URL : https://movie.sc/2BoeWz2
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Part 1 Of This List – Another 20+ Movies [PREVIOUS PAGE]

READ
5+ Creepiest Dolls From Horror Movies That Will Scare You

Continuation of “40+ Horror Movies Inspired By True Events” (Part Two)

22. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Storyline: The vampire comes to England to seduce a visitor’s fiancée and inflict havoc in the foreign land.

True Event: Vlad the Impaler is the Prince of Wallachia (now Romania). Vlad III’s family name “Dracul” means “The Dragon.” During the 15th century, his brutality in fighting the Ottoman Empire was legendary; he almost killed tens of thousands. This inspired the movie makers depicting Vlad during “The Impaler Years,” forsaking God like some Romanian Sid Vicious.


23. The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

The Ghost and the Darkness

Storyline: In 1896, a construction engineer from the British Army, J.H. Patterson is sent to build a railway bridge across Uganda’s Tsavo River for the British East African Railway. Soon after he arrives, workers begin to disappear at night from their tents – never to be seen alive again. The engineer soon discovers that a pair of man-eating lions are stalking around the bridge and campsites, killing the workmen for food.

True Event: The film is based upon The Man-Eaters of Tsavo by Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, the man who actually killed both real lions.


24. Ravenous (1999)

Ravenous

Storyline: Captain John Boyd’s promotion stations him at a fort where a rescued man tells a disturbing tale of cannibalism.

True Event: The film revolves around cannibalism in 1840s California and some elements bear similarities to the story of the Donner Party and that of Alferd Packer. Screenwriter Ted Griffin lists Packer’s story, as recounted in a couple of paragraphs of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man, as one of his inspirations for Carlyle’s character.


25. From Hell (2001)

From Hell

Storyline: This movie’s story goes around Jack the Ripper through the eyes of one of the investigators played by Johnny Depp, a troubled clairvoyant police detective. The film is to the point, violent and visually impressive as it takes you through the actual murders. An horrifying account of the murders and its aftermath.

True Event: In 1888’s, a notorious serial killer by the name of Jack the Ripper horrified east side London with him murdering prostitutes in Whitechapel. He was never caught and Ripperologists who still study his killings and mechanism, consider him the best mastermind ever. He wrote letters with the victims’ blood and kidney attached to it; he was out in the open with an unknown number of murders. A very intriguing period in criminology and victimology, Jack The Ripper’s killings are an all-time favorite mystery discussion.


26. The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

The Mothman Prophecies

Storyline: Reporter John Klein gets lost while driving and ends up in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where he encounters the so-called Mothman, a winged creature whose appearance seems to foretell disastrous events — notably, the collapse of a bridge over the Ohio River leading to Point Pleasant.

True Event: Reports of sightings of a large, unidentified winged creature — dubbed the Mothman — occurred in Point Pleasant, West Virginia for 13 months between 1966 and 1967. Also, on December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed, killing 46 people. Maybe loch ness monster theory will come up as another horror movie to rock the block.


27. Dahmer (2002)

Dahmer

Storyline: Based on the true crime story of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, this movie tells the emotionally riveting story of a man who turned his darkest fantasies into a horrifying reality.

True Event: Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1987 and 1991. His crimes involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism.


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28. Open Water (2003)

Open Water

Storyline: This movie is similar to “Jaw” trip, this movie was about the scare, the fright of being stranded alone. Alone in the ocean, surrounded by sharks. Two couples encounter in such situation, and the scare rendered it another scary movie of the decade.

True Event: In January 1998, married couple Tom and Eileen Lonergan disappeared off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef after a diving company accidentally left them behind in the water. It took two days for the crew to realize that they left the couple behind. A search was conducted, but their bodies were never found. Belongings discovered weeks later showed no signs of the violent shark attack, though the film includes some.


29. Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt (2004) | Romasanta (original title)

Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt

Storyline: An uproar is caused when some mutilated corpses are discovered, giving way to the legend of the “Werewolf of Allariz.” A traveling vendor rolls through the forest in his old wagon. A woman from every village on his route faithfully awaits him.

True Event: Based on a script by Alfredo Conde, according to the end credits the film is based on a true story, that of Manuel Blanco Romasanta, Spain’s first documented serial killer.


30. The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Storyline: A priest is on trial for the death of a young woman named Emily Rose, upon whom he had performed an exorcism. Through flashbacks, we see the tribulations that she suffered while possessed. Another exorcism conquest and another variety of supernatural conflict.

True Event: The film was inspired by Anneliese Michel, a 16-year-old German girl who in 1968 began displaying symptoms of demonic possession. She suffered paralysis, self-abuse, starvation and demonic visions for years until 1975. When two priests performed exorcisms of what was believed to be several demons over ten months.


31. Wolf Creek (2005)

Wolf Creek

Storyline: This is a horror tale of two female British tourists and an Australian man venture into the Australian Outback to camp in Wolf Creek National Park. When their car breaks down, they’re rescued by a tow truck driver who ends up holding them captive and torturing them.

True Event:The inspiration behind this movie horror includes Bradley John Murdoch, who killed a British tourist and tried to abduct another in July 2001 and Ivan Milat, who picked up hitchhikers and took them into the woods to torture and kill them during the ’90s. They were both later captured and sentenced to life in prison.


32. An American Haunting (2005)

An American Haunting

Storyline: An all American family in a good suburban with lots of paranormal haunting to creep you out. Nineteenth-century landowner John Bell and his family are tormented by an invisible entity, which targets his daughter Betsy in particular.

True Event: The movie is based on the legend of the Bell Witch, a tale that originated in Tennessee in the 1800s. John Bell was poisoned by the ghost. The filmmakers announced that this is validated by the State of Tennessee as the only case in US history where a spirit has caused the death of a human being. But there is no such validation on record yet it is believed to be true.


33. The Zodiac (2005)

The Zodiac

Storyline: An unknown man attacks and murders don’t-know-how-many unlucky bodies around the country and leave letters, messages, suspects, and terror. He is never caught even when effective police force gets obsessed with the case.

True Event: A serial killer who was active in and around Northern California in the 1960s and who has never been captured used to kill random victims with brutality and left messages all around. Lots of clues but none leading to the killer. He was one of the most prolific serial killers of all times.

You can also consider Zodiac (2007) movie.


READ
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34. Them (2006) | Ils (original title)

Them

Storyline: Lucas and Clementine live peacefully in their isolated country house, but one night they wake up to strange noise… they’re not alone… and a group of hooded assailants begins to terrorize them throughout the night.

True Event: Though there is no real evidence anywhere, it is believed that the filmmakers are doing something akin to what the Texas Chain Saw Massacre did. It claims to be based on a fact, but it had so little resemblance to actual incidents.


35. Grimm Love (2006) | Rohtenburg (original title)

Grimm Love

Storyline: In Germany, as graduate student Katie Armstrong researches cannibal killer Oliver Hagen for her thesis. She becomes obsessed with her subject and ultimately plunges into a lifestyle similar to Hagen’s and the thousands of people like him.

True Event: This film is inspired by the Armin Meiwes cannibal murder. He is a German man who achieved international notoriety for killing and eating a voluntary victim whom he had found via the Internet.


36. Primeval (2007)

Primeval

Storyline: An American news crew travels to Burundi to chronicle the capture of a man-eating crocodile, which ends up being 30 feet long and responsible for over 300 deaths.

True Event: The story is based on Gustave, a 20-foot-long crocodile living in Burundi. It is said to be the largest crocodile on record on the African continent. It is rumored to have killed 300 people. High-profile attempts to capture Gustave have failed, and the creature, believed to be over 65 years old still lives in the Ruzizi River area of Burundi, according to them.


37. Borderland (2007)

Borderland

Director: Zev Berman

Casting: Brian Presley, Rider Strong, Damian Alcazar

Storyline: The Mexican Cartels tapped a man to be their enforcer and he also had a satanic site and took to ritually killing hundreds of people and torturing them in all kinds of sadistic and disgusting ways. The only good news is this killer won’t be able to get you since he died in a massive hail of bullets at the hands of Mexican Special Police.

True Event: Based on the true story of Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo. He was the leader of a religious cult that practiced human sacrifice. They normally dismembered human bodies and offered as a sacrifice. Costanzo and his followers kidnapped and murdered Mark Kilroy in the spring of 1989.


38. The Girl Next Door (2007)

The Girl Next Door

True Event: The film is loosely based on real events surrounding the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Gertrude Baniszewski during the summer of 1965.


READ
50+ Interesting Found Footage Horror Thriller Movies List

39. The Strangers (2008)

The Strangers

Storyline: After returning from a wedding reception, a couple staying in an isolated vacation house receive a knock on the door in the mid-hours of the night. What ensues is a violent invasion by three strangers, their faces hidden behind masks. The couple find themselves in an intense struggle, in which they go beyond what either of them thought capable of surviving.

True Event: Director Bryan Bertino stated that the film was inspired by a series of break-ins that occurred in his neighborhood as a child, as well as some incidents that happened during the Manson killings. Bryan Bertino said the film was inspired by the infamous Manson murders.


40. The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

The Haunting in Connecticut

True Event: The movie is loosely based on the real-life stories of Al, and Carmen Snedeker who lived in a reportedly haunted former funeral parlor in Southington, Connecticut.


41. The House of the Devil (2009)

The House of the Devil

True Event: It is similar to the techniques used in some horror films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Amityville Horror. Satanic Panic certainly caused a lot of commotion during the Reagan era.


42. he Silent House (2010) | La casa muda (original title)

The Silent House

Storyline: The film focuses on Laura, who, second by second, intends to leave a house which hides an obscure secret, unharmed. Laura and her father Wilson settle down in a cottage they have to renew since its owner will soon put the house up for sale.

True Event: The plot is based on a true story that happened in the late 40’s in a small village in Uruguay.


43. The Possession (2012)

The Possession

Storyline: A young girl buys an antique box at a yard sale, unaware that inside the collectible lives a malicious ancient spirit. The girl’s father teams with his ex-wife to find a way to end the curse upon their child.

True Event: This story plot is inspired by a true event happened to one family over the course of 29 days.


44. The Conjuring (2013)

The Conjuring

Storyline: Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse.

True Event: Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated the Perron’s Rhode Island farmhouse for mysterious activities from 1973-1974.


45. Deliver Us From Evil (2014)

Deliver Us From Evil (2014)

Storyline: New York police officer Ralph Sarchie investigates a series of crimes. He joins forces with an unconventional priest, schooled in the rites of exorcism, to combat the possessions that are terrorizing their city.

True Event: Based on the real-life events of Ralph Sarchie, a New York cop who meets a Castilian priest when he is pulled into a case which the priest convinces him, against the officer’s religious beliefs, is demonically related.


46. Annabelle (2014)

Annabelle (2014)

Storyline: A couple begin to experience terrifying supernatural occurrences involving a vintage doll shortly after their home is invaded by satanic cultists.

True Event: Based on the real life case from the files of Ed and Lorraine Warren.


READ
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40+ excellent horror movies based on true stories and events! Do let us know if you are aware of any such horror movie based on or inspired by actual real events, we’ll add them to this post with your credit. Also if you find this post useful, do share.

Pages: 1 2
Last updated on December 1, 2017
Tagged Horror Movies, True Stories

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Author

Shalini Singh

I'm a law student (by choice), a freelancer (by choice) and a movie freak (by passion) and apart from a bibliophile, a turophile and a writer, I am also a TV show and movie addict. I can write on anything under the sun but give this enthusiast a movie slang or a hint and I can yak about it for days to come.

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    1. Shathyan Raja says:
      January 15, 2013 at 1:35 pm

      Great List.

      Usually I don’t see Horror movies as it lits me to get fear when Im alone :P.

      But here I saw some pics and read some where it has been a real and true event happened which was unbelievable.

      I have just seen 3 movies in this list. Guess you have done a lots of research and wrote.

      Hats Off to your first post. All The best

      Reply
    2. Bharat Chauhan says:
      January 15, 2013 at 1:39 pm

      Great compilation. Though I still feel something is missing.
      What?
      1408 😉

      Reply
    3. Bharat Chauhan says:
      January 15, 2013 at 1:45 pm

      Ooops. Sorry. 1408 wasn’t based on any true events or facts. My bad. 😛

      Reply
    4. Sachin Jade says:
      January 15, 2013 at 4:10 pm

      Thanks Buddy , Great Share 🙂

      Reply
    5. Irfan Siddiqui says:
      January 15, 2013 at 4:10 pm

      What I’m going to do is search and download all 21 movies. 🙂

      Reply
      1. Pradeep Kumar says:
        January 15, 2013 at 4:48 pm

        Thanks mate, actually we have 42 movies here. Part 2: http://moviesdrop.com/horror-movies-inspired-by-true-events/2/ 🙂

        Reply
    6. Pavan Somu says:
      January 15, 2013 at 2:47 pm

      I had already had a few movies from the list which you have already posted on the FB group.. Still I have to grab a few movies.

      Reply
    7. Mac says:
      January 16, 2013 at 1:59 pm

      Outstanding List Bro this is first list . but the big problem is i can understand English 70% . so waiting for next action and crime movie list which is hindi also. thanks again download only one.

      Reply
    8. Kashish says:
      January 21, 2013 at 7:56 pm

      I really like “The Exorcist” and hated “the nightmare on the elm street”, have already seen half of the list and right now downloading the remaining half.

      Thanks for it bro, Nice work 😀

      Reply
    9. Ganesh Babu says:
      January 23, 2013 at 11:07 pm

      Woah ! That was a huge list of movies !
      Watched a few of em ! Great compilation Shalini !

      Would like to see similar kinda posts in the future..

      Reply
    10. angelo says:
      February 9, 2013 at 7:56 pm

      i love all of horror movies.
      blood night was my favorite

      Reply
    11. gaurav gupta says:
      April 4, 2013 at 11:17 pm

      nice collection……………….

      Reply
    12. Hassan says:
      April 20, 2013 at 9:21 am

      ” The Girl next door ” Horror movie ( 2007 )

      Reply
    13. crissy says:
      June 28, 2013 at 12:51 am

      i love horror movies but i don’t know why the hills have eyes scared the shit out of me………..

      Reply
    14. Surya says:
      August 29, 2013 at 8:28 am

      Very interesting horror collection 🙂
      I haven’t watched many of these movies. I am interested to watch these interesting movies. Thanks for sharing.

      Reply
    15. Pingback: Horror Movies Health Benefits: 5 Things You Must Know.
    16. angel says:
      June 2, 2014 at 10:23 am

      Dis horror movies r alwys my best movies among dem de conjuring is d most fav. Of mine!!!!

      Reply
    17. vjjay says:
      April 25, 2016 at 2:37 pm

      good collection.i likei horror movies.do you have more?

      Reply
    18. Brooke Hendricks says:
      July 30, 2016 at 1:34 am

      Awesome List of Horror Movies “Based on True Stories”!! I can’t wait to check out some of your other Movie list and recommendations!!

      Reply
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