10 Scary Stories Based on Real Events
From time to time, people will tell you a scary story. Sometimes it's so frightening that you will convince yourself it's not real but the truth is, that might just be your mind trying to comfort you because the reality is this world can generate horrors that will leave you crippled if you were to acknowledge them. The following are just those stories. Here are 10 scary stories based on real events.
10. Pet Sematary
When Stephen King wrote his novel Pet Sematary, he believed that the tale of dead children coming back from the grave was so disturbing that no one would want to read it. Well, as it turns out, not only was it read, but it sold millions of copies. The most twisted thing about this novel, however, is that it was inspired by a real event. In the story, a family are left traumatized when their son is run over by a truck. They hear a local legend that if they bury their son in a nearby pet cemetery, then he will come back to them. So, in desperation, they do just that, but the son returns without a soul. In real life, King's own son was nearly run over outside their home. With a pet cemetery nearby, this story fell into place and remains one of King's most shocking and gruesome to date.
9. The Devil in the White City
Erik Larson has released a number of literary non-fiction books. These books are dramatizations of events which actually happened. One of his most notable books is The Devil in the White City. It follows the main character Daniel Burnham who created the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Meanwhile, a serial killer with the ironic second name of Holmes used the fair to target his victims. Holmes had built a torture dungeon in a hotel which includes a place to dissect victims, cremate the bodies, and even has a gas chamber as a handy way of dispatching his prey. Holmes then sells his victims' skeletons to medical science. It's a fascinating story but horrifying, because it's true. Serial killers are often opportunistic, and Holmes' twisted approach to use Burnham's fair to attract victims to his hotel is a perfect example of this.
8. The Monster of Florence
In 2008, Douglas Preston and Italian journalist Mario Spezi released the book The Monster of Florence. Preston had moved to the Italian city of Florence and had become fascinated by a famous case. It involved a series of murders in the local area between 1968 and 1985. The killer had identified couples having sex in their cars as his target. He drove around Florence and the Italian region of Tuscany looking for victims. In a bizarre twist, the books' authors became suspects themselves because of their involvement in investigating the case. Some police officers believe that they were either accomplices or the serial killers themselves. The Monster of Florence, then, tells the story of how two authors became wrapped up in one of Italy's most shocking cases as they tried to dig into the truth.
7. Dead Ringers
Dead Ringers was made into a horror film by David Cronenberg and was adapted from the book by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland. The story perfectly sums up the saying, fact is stranger than fiction, follows the lives of Stewart and Cyril Marcus, who were twins. They lived together in a New York apartment during the 1970's. They were both gynecologists and prominent medical experts. In 1975, they were both found dead in their apartment. The cause of death, to this day, remains debated. Some believe they committed suicide together, others, that they died from drug withdrawal. When they were found, their apartment was in complete disarray, filled with decomposing food and feces. In the end, it turns out to be a true story of despondency and depression, and how even those who are successful can suffer from severe mental health issues.
6. Burial Rites
Burial Rites was published in 2013 and written by Australian author Hannah Kent. It won a number of prestigious awards as it brilliantly fictionalized one of Iceland's most notorious murder cases. In 1830, a woman known as Agnes Magnusdottir was accused of two brutal killings. She worked on a farm as a servant. While there, she murdered two men with the help of two accomplices. Agnes and her accomplices were sentenced to death, after which, their heads were removed and put on display as a deterrent. Two days later, the heads mysteriously disappeared. A psychic living in Iceland at the time then began to have nightmarish visions of Agnes, who pleaded that her head be returned and buried with her body. The psychic was able to find the head and finally laid Agnes's soul to rest.
5. Jaws
Jaws stunned audiences when it was released as a film in 1975. The story of a small town terrorized by a great white shark off its shores was written by Peter Benchley. What a lot of people don't know is that the horror of that novel is based on a real event. In the summer of 1916, off the coast of New Jersey, a 25-year-old was savaged by a great white shark in the water. Just a few days later, another victim fell prey to the animal. On July 12th of that year, an 11-year-old boy was eaten by the same shark. The man who jumped in to save him, Watson Fisher, suffered the same fate. The shark continued to feed on those swimming in the waters until a few weeks later, when a 136-kilogram three-meter-long shark was caught. When its stomach was cut open, human remains were found.
4. Audrey Rose
William Blatty's novel The Exorcist is one of the most famous stories of possession. However, another famous book, which also turned into a film around the same time, was Audrey Rose, although it dealt with a different form of possession. Written by Frank De Felitta, the author claimed that the novel was based on experiences he actually had. When his son was born, he soon suspected that the boy was receiving information from somewhere else. He quickly became a brilliant piano player without being taught. Over time, De Felitta believed that his son was the reincarnation of a talented piano player. Using this as a jumping off point, he wrote the story about a young girl named Ivy who is haunted by a terrible night terror and a real stalker who believes Ivy is the reincarnation of his daughter Audrey Rose.
3. The Girl Next Door
Released in 1989, The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum is a crime novel based on a horrific real event. The book follows two teenage sisters who find themselves in the care of their aunt. Over time, both girls are manipulated and abused at the hands of their aunt and her children. The story is based on the real life torture and murder of Sylvia Likens. Sylvia was killed in Indianapolis during October of 1965. What is most disturbing about the case is that Sylvia's foster parent encouraged her children and two other neighborhood youths to take part in the abhorrent treatment of a 16-year-old girl who had been abandoned by her family. The Girl Next Door is another example of how real life contains far more terror and brutality than any fictional story.
2. The Devil in Connecticut
The Devil in Connecticut is a controversial book based on the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Many will know the names of Ed and Lorraine Warren from the popular Conjuring film series. They were the couple who believed that they had the ability to combat demonic hauntings and possessions. They were involved in a number of high-profile cases throughout the latter half of the 20th century. The Devil in Connecticut follows the alleged possession of an 11-year-old boy named David Glatzel. The boy's family were exhausted and terrified by the paranormal occurrences that were surrounding their son. Eventually, Ed and Lorraine Warren offered their services. They supposedly vanquished the demon, but it then entered a man named Arne Cheyenne Johnson, who then murdered his landlord in cold blood.
1. Psycho
The thriller novel Psycho was released in 1959 and was written by American writer Robert Bloch. It follows the character of Norman Bates, a middle-aged bachelor with a dark secret. All the while, a deranged serial killer is on the loose and seems to be connected to him in some way. Just two years before the novel was first published, a man called Ed Gein was famously arrested in Plainfield, Wisconsin. He had murdered two women. When the authorities broke into his remote farmhouse, they found that Gein had turned the bodies into furniture, and even made a suit of human skin out of the body parts. As well as inspiring elements of Psycho, Gein also inspired The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And so, his crimes have left an indelible mark on popular culture and on peoples' nightmares.
