The Conjuring 3: Five other horror movies based on true stories

The third movie in the Conjuring franchise, titled The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, released in several markets around the world on Friday (June 4). The film, as per Warner Bros India, will hit Indian theatres when they reopen. Like every other Conjuring movie, it claims to be based on or inspired by a real story. This is always a tall claim, but it has been one of the series’ USPs.

What are some other horror films that make the same claim? We have listed a few here. You’ll find yourself surprised to find that even some of the popular horror films took inspiration from alleged true stories.

1. Psycho (1962)

It has been around for more than half a century, but legendary British filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s classic remains as watchable as ever. And the twist still creeps the hell out of those who have seen this movie dozens of times. In case you did not know, the story of the film and the novel behind it is said to be inspired by Ed Gein, a mentally deranged murderer who, apart from the murders, disinterred corpses from graveyards to make things out of them.

2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The iconic slasher film also took inspiration from the gruesome true tale of Ed Gein. Like Gein, Leatherface also had a fascination with human body parts (his name itself denotes his hobby of wearing dead people’s faces).

3. The Birds (1963)

Another Hitchcock classic, another (allegedly) true story. The Birds was based on a novella of the same name. The story was based on a real Santa Cruz event in which a large flock of birds attacked buildings and citizens and then littered the ground as far as the eyes could see.

4. The Exorcist (1973)

Possibly the greatest and the scariest horror movie of all time, The Exorcist was also based on a true story. William Peter Blatty, the author who wrote the book, took inspiration from a real 1949 exorcism of an adolescent boy.

5. The Amityville Horror (2005)

Based on the novel of the same name and also a remake of the eponymous 1979 film, The Amityville Horror narrates alleged paranormal events that the Lutz family underwent. The film’s plot is also related to a mass-murderer (real) called Ronald DeFeo Jr.