63 Horror Movies Based on True Stories

Above Suspicion recounts the story of real-life FBI agent Mark Putnam who—after relocating to a mining town in Kentucky on his first mission—began a two-year affair with a local woman, Susan Smith, who also happened to be his best informant. Things only got twisted and tragic from there.

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The iconic Alfred Hitchcock movie is based on a true story, didn’t you hear? Yes, it was originally a Daphne Du Maurier short story, but before *that*, a bunch of townspeople in Capitola, California apparently woke up to “hordes of seabirds” “dive-bombing their homes, crashing into cars, and spewing half-digested anchovies onto lawns.” Harper’s Bazaar reports that scientists a neurotoxin domoic acid caused the weird bird behavior, but it does make for a spooky premise anyway, doesn’t it?

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While this one is not necessarily a traditional horror flick, its plot itself is certainly horrifying. Lost Girls follows the real-life case of the Long Island serial killer who murdered several young women sex workers on the South Shore of Long Island—and still remains at large.

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Ever heard of Richard Kuklinski, the prolific hitman with a violent temper who managed to keep his profession a secret from his wife and children for years? Well, this biographical thriller tells his terrifying true story.

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Back in the ’90s, a teen’s attempt to launch Norwegian black metal music in Oslo led to a series of shocking publicity stunts. This deeply unsettling flick tells the story of the Norwegian black metal scene from the perspective of Mayhem co-founder Euronymous.

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This thriller tells the story of Spanish photographer Francisco Boix, who was exiled from France in 1939 and brought to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex, where his photographs later played a pivotal role in the conviction of Nazi war criminals. Prepare to be absolutely haunted by this one.

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Featuring an all-star cast, The Texas Killing Fields is all about the many murders that have taken place along Houston’s I-45 corridor between Houston and Galveston, an area known as “the Killing Fields.”

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This thriller follows a young woman (played by Amanda Seyfried) who leaves Manhattan behind to move to a small town with her husband, never expecting that their new home will harbor sinister secrets. Though it’s based on a fiction novel by Elizabeth Brundage, that novel was actually inspired by Brundage’s real-life brushes with the supernatural.

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Inspired by the crimes of convicted murderer Robert Durst, All Good Things revolves around the wealthy son of a New York real estate tycoon (played by Ryan Gosling) who develops a volatile relationship with his wife…and things eventually turn deadly.

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While this one may be mostly fictional, following a couple who unexpectedly become stars in a snuff film, it’s loosely based on the true story of a motel owner who created crawlspaces in the ceiling above rooms for him to watch his guests.

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If you’ve never heard of Centralia, Pennsylvania, that’s because it’s pretty much a ghost town due to the coal mine fire that’s been burning beneath the city since 1962. It may not be well known, but it did serve as inspiration for this haunting movie.

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Set in 1973, this chilling thriller tells the story of a woman (played by Emma Watson) who attempts to rescue her boyfriend from the real-life Colonia Dignidad, an infamous cult in the South of Chile led by preacher (and Nazi) Paul Schäfer.

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Based on the true abductions and killings of 20+ young boys in California in the 1920s (aka the Winneville Chicken Coop murders), this flick tells the story of a mom whose son is abducted, and though the police claim to have found him, the boy they return to her isn’t her own.

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What happens when a graduate student becomes obsessed with the cannibalistic killer she’s researching for her thesis? She begins to give into dark urges herself—and though this story is fictional, it’s inspired by the gruesome true story of Armin Meiwes.

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In 1947, aspiring actress Elizabeth Short was found murdered and mutilated in a Los Angeles park, and her bizarre death has become one of the most famous unsolved murders in American history.

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Based on the infamous 1971 experiment conducted by Professor Philip Zimbardo, this thriller follows what happens when 24 college students role play as prisoners and prison guards and things get wayyyy out of hand.

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Based on the true story of the West Memphis Three, Devil’s Knot follows what happens when three young boys are mysteriously murdered in the nearby woods…and three teens are wrongfully arrested for the crime because they are thought to be satanists.

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A remake of the classic 1979 flick, The Amityville Horror is inspired by the purportedly true experiences of the Lutz family. In the movie, a couple decides to purchase a home in the Long Island neighborhood in Amityville, significantly discounted after the former tenant shot six members of his family there 13 months before—and as you can expect, paranormal creepiness ensues.

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Anyone afraid of crocodiles might wanna skip this one, as it follows the real-life tale of three explorers who encountered a massive (and deadly) croc while making their way through the swamps of Northern Australia.

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Starring Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart, Lizzie retells the horrifying story of Lizzie Borden, who was found guilty of brutally murdering her dad and stepmom with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts, back in 1892 after suffering years of abuse.

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Daniel Radcliffe and Daniel Webber are unrecognizable in this thriller about two white South African anti-apartheid activists who find themselves sentenced to the notorious Pretoria Prison, where they plan a daring escape. It’s based on the book Inside Out: Escape from Pretoria Prison by Tim Jenkin, one of the escapees, and it’s a real nail-biter.

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Set in Mexico City, this movie is loosely based on the story of Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo, a drug lord-slash-satanic cult leader who thought it was a chill idea to do things like human sacrifices. The movie follows three college students who go to Mexico for a good time, but after a night partying with two local women, one of them goes missing…

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The Chucky remake starring Aubrey Plaza and Gabriel Bateman is actually the retelling of a story based on a (supposedly) real-life possessed doll. Painter Robert Eugene was allegedly given a doll by a woman who worked for his family, and the story goes that she practiced voodoo and cursed the doll to get revenge on the family.

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This independent psychological thriller about a young woman who gets trapped in a ghostly house is a remake of the 2010 film La Casa Muda, which was allegedly based on a true story about actual incidents that occurred in a small town in Uruguay in the ’40s.

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A remake of the 1974 original, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is loosely based on the actions of real-life murderer Ed Gein who—like fictitious serial killer Leatherface—would mutilate the bodies of his victims and wear their skin over his own.

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Starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling, Murder by Numbers was inspired by the case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two college students who kidnapped and murdered a 14-year-old boy in an attempt to commit the “perfect crime.”

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When I was a kid, I thought cannibalism was an entirely made-up concept. Oh, to be young and innocent, when the name “Jeffrey Dahmer” means absolutely nothing to you—and definitely not “cannibalistic serial killer.”

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The fact that the real identity of the Zodiac Killer, one of the most notorious serial killers in the U.S., has never been solved makes this manhunt movie 1,000 times creepier. For all we know, the murderer who terrorized the San Francisco Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s is still out there…

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Sometimes I daydream about going completely off the grid and how peaceful it would be. Then I remember all the real-life camping horror stories, like this one—about a predatory black bear who attacked a couple during a camping weekend in Ontario—and I’m like, “You know what? I’m good with my closet-sized NYC apartment.”

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Compliance will give you full-body chills. Not only is it powerfully acted and unusually shot, but the true story upon which it’s based is absolutely mind-boggling: A man posing as a cop convinces a fast-food restaurant manager to strip-search one of her employees.

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The Tate-LaBianca murders are undeniably horrific, devastatingly sad, and also the stuff of Hollywood legend. In this flick, Hilary Duff plays Sharon Tate, the actress/model who was murdered by Charles Manson and his “family.”

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Another must-watch for anyone fascinated by the Manson Family is Charlie Says, which documents the work of Karlene Faith, a graduate student who helped the Manson women come to understand the magnitude of their crimes at the California Institution for Women.

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Loosely based on the Philip experiment that took place in Toronto in 1972, The Quiet Ones is about a nutty professor attempting to discover a parapsychology breakthrough. The original experiment and the movie pose the same questions: what is the supernatural, what is its source, and does it really exist?

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Reportedly based on the true story of Carmen Snedeker and her family, this horror flick follows the fictional Campbells as they move into a house (which was formerly a mortuary) and begin to witness terrifying supernatural phenomena.

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A sequel to the 2009 film, this psychological thriller was inspired by the events surrounding the real-life Wyrick house in Ellerslie, Georgia, which was—you guessed it—apparently majorly haunted.

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Monster is a biographical crime drama about Florida sex-worker-turned-serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who murdered seven of her clients between 1989 and 1990. Charlize Theron’s killer (heh) performance as Wuornos earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

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This deeply disturbing film does almost too good a job of portraying the the true story of the 1999 Snowtown murders in a rural Australia town. It’s hard to watch the horrific abuse and corruption of a teenager, and it’s even harder to stomach the fact that this actually happened in real life.

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This horror film tells the story of a teen girl held hostage by a deranged couple and her efforts to escape. Based on the Birnie murders of 1986, Hounds of Love is disturbing enough to warrant a few puppy TikTok breaks while you’re watching.

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This horror film follows three Australian travelers who are terrorized during their travels by a psychopath. It is inspired by the separate true crimes of Ivan Milat and Bradley John Murdoch, who both were found guilty of murdering backpackers in outback Australia.

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Yep, this one is based on what really happened to American tourists Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who were left behind on a scuba diving expedition off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. By the time the diving company realized its mistake two days later, it was too late and the couple was never seen again.

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Helen Mirren stars in Winchester as a firearm manufacturer’s widow who thinks she is being haunted by the ghosts of people who were killed by the rifles of her husband’s company. The mansion she lives in is based on a real place, known as the Winchester Mystery House, where the real-life woman Mirren plays reportedly spent 38 years constructing and renovating based on directions from spirits.

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It sounds like the setup for a good joke, but it’s actually the plot of this movie: A cop and a priest team up to take on the supernatural. It’s based on self-proclaimed “demonologist” Ralph Sarchie’s memoir, Beware the Night, in which he tells supposedly true and terrifying stories.

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The Conjuring stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as ghost hunters helping out a family in a haunted 18th-century farmhouse. The hunters, Ed and Lorraine Warren, are real people, as is the Perron family they assist. Eek!!

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In the Conjuring sequel, the Warrens help out the real-life Hodgson family, who experienced poltergeist activity at their Enfield council house in England back in the 1970s.

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The latest installment in the Conjuring universe revolves around the infamous trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, a murder trial that took place in 1981 Connecticut where the accused claimed he was possessed by the devil.

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Annabelle, the creepy porcelain doll from The Conjuring gets her terror on in this spin-off of The Conjuring. Though the movie doesn’t exactlyyyy follow the true story, the ghost-hunting Warrens have claimed there was a real Raggedy Ann doll that moved by itself and wrote creepy-ass notes saying things like, “Help us.” Big nope.

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Kate Beckinsale plays an architect who moves to a new home with a mysterious room in the attic, which she eventually learns was once used as place for rich people to cast off their disabled children. The plot was reportedly inspired by a Rhode Island woman who discovered a similar room in her house that she says was built by a 19th-century judge to lock away his disabled daughter.

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The movie’s title character is a 19-year-old girl who dies following an exorcism, and the film focuses on the trial of the priest who performed it. It’s based on the real 1976 case of Anneliese Michel, a German woman who died at the age of 23 from starvation following 67 exorcisms to rid her of supposed demons.

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick co-star as a couple with a young daughter who becomes fascinated with an antique wooden box found at a yard sale. Of course, the box turns out to be home to a spirit—and apparently, the movie’s based on a real-life haunted wine cabinet box.

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In The Rite, a mortician enrolls in seminary and eventually takes an exorcism class in Rome, where demonic encounters ensue. The movie was based on the life of a real exorcist, Father Gary Thomas, whose work was the focus of journalist Matt Baglio’s book The Rite: The Making of an Exorcist.

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In this movie, a man travels to find his sister who joined a remote religious commune, where, yep, bad things happen. It was inspired by the 1978 Jonestown massacre, in which cult leader Jim Jones led 909 of his followers to partake in a “murder-suicide ceremony” using cyanide poisoning.

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Three killers in masks terrorize the suburban home of a couple (played by Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) in this invasion thriller, and it’s reportedly based on a quadruple homicide that in occurred in a cabin in the woods of rural California, known as the Keddie Murders.

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This film (which is a remake of a 1976 original) follows a Texas Ranger as he tracks down a serial killer threatening a small town, and it’s based on the Texarkana Moonlight Murders of 1946, when a “phantom killer” took out five people over 10 weeks. The case remains officially unsolved.

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This Spanish horror flick follows a 15-year-old girl who plays around with a Ouija board and accidentally connects with a demon that terrorizes her and her family—and apparently, the movie is based on a real police report from a Madrid neighborhood.

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This is a true (and v creepy) psychological thriller about twin gynecologist brothers who worked and died together under, erm, questionable circumstances in their Manhattan apartment. TL;DR: They descend into madness. The film won numerous honors (it killed it—pun intended—at the Genie Awards in Canada) and starred Jeremy Irons, who played both Beverly and Elliot Mantle.

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Set in a household where a mother justifies horrific and unspeakable acts of abuse under the guise of religious beliefs, four siblings are subjected to an awful environment filled to the brim with torture and anguish. The Afflicted is based on the deadly Theresa Knorr case that took place in 1980s California.

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This might be one of the most revered films of all time—and with good reason. Based on the eponymous 1988 novel, this movie tells the story of Buffalo Bill aka Jame Gumn, a killer who targeted and killed women to craft a suit for himself out of their skin. Luckily, the film’s main character didn’t actually exist IRL. However, he was loosely based on numerous other famous killers, including Jerry Brudos, Ted Bundy, Gary M. Heidnik, Edmund Kemper, and Gary Ridgway.

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This is definitely one of those instances where fact is stranger than fiction. The place: Indianapolis back in 1965. The plot? 16-year-old Sylvia Likens is put under the care of the Baniszewski family, who does some seriously f*cked up stuff to her. The events have been described as the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana, so def be warned: this film based on what happened is not for the faint of heart.

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Jake Gyllenhaal plays a photojournalist who records violent events late at night throughout Los Angeles and sells the footage to local television news stations. However, after catching the attention of a news director, he begins to go to greater (read: more dangerous) lengths to catch the “money shot.” Though Nightcrawler isn’t based on one true story in particular, writer-director Dan Gilroy drew inspiration from real life when he was introduced to photographer Weegee’s photo-book Naked City— a body of work that consists of highly-sensationalized pictures of crime in 1940s New York. Just like Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in this 2014 picture, Weegee would often drive around the city with a police scanner in his car, reach crime scenes before everyone else, and capture images that he would sell to different tabloids.

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