17 Horrifying Crime Movies Whose True Stories Are Way More Terrifying

Scary crime movies are even more horrifying when we know they’re based on true stories. It’s terrifying to think someone actually encountered a serial-killing monster masquerading as a human being. Reality always hits close to home, and these movies are some of the best films in horror. Here are the scariest true crime movies ever.

Not all the movies on this list are, strictly speaking, crime films. Not in the sense that The Departed or The French Connection or Heat are crime films. However, they all have their roots in real crimes or bizarre cases, such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose, in which priests and a girl's parents may have been responsible for her death. 

Okay, it’s true, Freddy Krueger wasn’t actually a real person who killed teenagers in their sleep. However, the premise of A Nightmare on Elm Street was based on the story of a perfectly healthy young Cambodian refugee who was having terrible nightmares before finally dying in his sleep. Famed serial killer and grave robber Ed Gein was so heinous and psychotic, some of the most iconic film characters in the history of cinema are based on him. Gein served as the inspiration for three characters from a few of the scariest true crime movies ever: Norman Bates from Psycho, Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, and Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Some of the crime films based on true stories from this list are more factual than others. For example, Dahmer and Monster are not horror films inspired by actual murders, they are biopics of the real murderers. Not every single aspect of those films are 100% factual, but for the most part, they tell the stories of Jeffrey Dahmer’s and Aileen Wuornos’s twisted lives.

It’s not just a movie. These films should and will haunt you, once you know there were actual victims behind the massacres. Make your voice heard and vote up for your favorite scary movies based on true stories. If you can't get enough of this list and want more crime, horror, and just kind of straight up disturbing movies based on real crimes, see 13 Horror Movies and the True Stories They're Based On, The Best Scary Movies Based on True Stories, and Hard-to-Sit-Through Movies Based on Real Atrocities.

Perhaps the be-all, end-all of slasher films, Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) follows a group of teenagers who are slaughtered by the film's scary boogieman Leatherface and his cannibal family. The plot of the movie is total fiction, but it was marketed as a true story in order to boost ticket sales. However, Leatherface is based on real-life notorious serial killer and grave robber Ed Gein, who was known to keep his victim's body parts as trophies.

Gregory M Wilson's 2007 horror film The Girl Next Door was based on Jack Ketchum's 1989 novel of the same name, which was inspired by real-life events. In 1965, in Indiana, 16-year-old Sylvia Likens was tortured and killed by Gertrude Baniszewski. The prosecutor called the case, "the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana."

You might find it hard to believe A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was based on a true story. The narrative device of Wes Craven's slasher film, in which knife-for-fingers Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) kills innocent teenagers in their sleep, is entirely fictionalized. However, Craven based the movie on an Los Angeles Times article he read.

Craven described the idea for the premise of A Nightmare on Elm Street:

"I’d read an article in the LA Times about a family who had escaped the Killing Fields in Cambodia and managed to get to the U.S. Things were fine, and then suddenly the young son was having very disturbing nightmares. He told his parents he was afraid that if he slept, the thing chasing him would get him, so he tried to stay awake for days at a time. When he finally fell asleep, his parents thought this crisis was over. Then they heard screams in the middle of the night. By the time they got to him, he was dead. He died in the middle of a nightmare. Here was a youngster having a vision of a horror that everyone older was denying. That became the central line of Nightmare on Elm Street."

What is it about sinister dolls that can be so petrifying? "Hi, I'm Chucky. Wanna play?" Tom Holland's supernatural slasher film about a murdering doll is based on the story of artist and author Robert Eugene Otto's childhood doll.

The story goes that a Bahamian servant made the doll (called Robert the Doll) for Robert while she was taking care of him in 1906. However, the family reportedly did not treat the servant well, so she placed a voodoo curse on the doll. Robert's parents claimed to hear the doll laugh and talk, and, because it jealous, it destroyed the boy's other toys. Neighbors even reported spotting the doll peering from different windows of the house when the family was not home.

The Amityville Horror (1979), based on the book by Jay Anson, is typically the first film we think of when we were hear, "scary movie based on a true story." The movie follows the Lutz family as they move to a new house on Ocean Avenue in Amityville, NY. After a series of odd paranormal-like events, the Lutz's believe the house is haunted, only to discover that a past owner killed his whole family in their home by way of an axe (in reality, he shot them with a rifle, at first claiming voices told him to do it, later admitting he was drunk and high on heroin at the time).  

There are currently 17 films and 1 remake in the Amityville film series. Though these films are primarily supernatural horror, the first movie in the series is rooted in the true story of the Lutz family murders. 

The 2005 film is based on the life of young Anneliese Michel, who was believed to be possessed by demons. She was so possessed, in fact, that she underwent multiple exorcisms over the course of several months, after she was diagnosed with epilepsy and began having extreme seizures and depression. She also heard demonic voices (one told her she would "stew in hell") and experienced hellish visions. In th end, she died, but not before telling the priests who performed her final exorcism they should "beg for absolution." 

SPOILERS

In the film, Emily (Jennifer Carpenter) dies from what appears to be malnutrition. However, the exorcising priest, Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson), is put on trial for her murder. The film is actually more legal drama than horror movie, though the flashback scenes of Emily's possession are truly horrifying to watch.

The Exorcist (1973) was based on a book written by William Peter Blatty, who also wrote the screenplay. The story was inspired by a real young boy, pseudonym Roland Doe, who was reportedly possessed by demons. Doe's Catholic parents felt his behavior was demonic, and sought a priest to perform an exorcism. Director William Friedkin stayed as true as possible to the real events, and was even given access to the priests's diaries. One major change in the film, the possessed was a 12-year-old girl (Linda Blair), not a young a boy.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) became just the third movie to win the Big Five at the Academy Award, taking home Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also turned the film's refined cannibal antagonist, Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), into a pop culture phenomenon.

The film's source material, a novel by author Thomas Harris, based the villain in the story, Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), on several serial killers, including Ed Gein. Following the death of Gein's beloved mother, he decided he wanted to become a woman. Just like Buffalo Bill did in the movie, Gein began constructing a "woman suit" by collecting body parts from newly deceased females. 

A young couple (Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler) is terrorized by three mentally deranged, masked lunatics in The Strangers (2008). The film's writer-director, Bryan Bertino, revealed that the home invasion premise was inspired by a time during his childhood when a stranger knocked on his door and asked for someone who wasn't there. The director later found out that a series of break-ins had occurred in his neighborhood, the perpetrators of which would knock front doors and, if no one was home, enter the house. Bertino was also inspired by Manson Family murder true crime novel Helter Skelter.

The film opens with the following narration: "What you are about to see is inspired by true events. According to the FBI, there are an estimated 1.4 million violent crimes in America each year. On the night of February 11, 2005, Kristen McKay and James Hoyt left a friend's wedding reception and returned to the Hoyt summer home. The brutal events that took place there are still not entirely known."

The Conjuring (2013) follows a pair of paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). They are called on by the Perron family, a married couple with five daughters, to figure out what's haunting their Rhode Island farmhouse. The actual Warrens are real-life paranormal investigators, and their reports are the alleged foundation for the film The Amityville Horror. The marketing campaign for The Conjuring centered on the "based on a true story" concept. Commercials for the movie even featured the actual Perron family.