5 horror movies based on true events: “The Conjuring,” “The Exorcist” and more

The scariest horror movies aren’t the ones with the most detailed monsters or the most expensive special effects. It’s the words that end with words based on a true story, because nothing the imagination can conjure is quite as upsetting as knowing that something like this has actually happened to real people in the real world. Here are five horror movies based on events that were true and truly terrifying.

According to Providence Magazine, the film is based on the real-life experiences of Roger and Caroline Perron, who moved to a farm on Rhode Island’s Round Top Road in 1971 and reported a series of paranormal activity that eventually drew paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren to their door. Directed by James Wan and starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, the film builds its terrors with patience and skill that make every scare seem sincerely deserved. The story was later documented in detail by Perón’s eldest daughter, Andrea, who was old enough to remember the whole thing.

According to NBC News, on November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed his entire family in their home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York, before claiming to have heard voices telling him to do so. A year later, George and Kathleen Lutz moved in with their three children and reported paranormal activity so severe that they fled the house in the middle of the night after just a month. James Brolin and Margot Kidder lead the cast in a film based on a story that is neither fully explained nor entirely dismissed.

According to All That’s Interesting, the real Annabelle is not a porcelain doll but Raggedy Ann, brought to the attention of Ed and Lorraine Warren by two young women who believed she had been inhabited by the spirit of a benevolent child, only for the Warrens to conclude that the entity inside was actively searching for a human host. An exorcism was performed and the doll was transported to the Warrens Mystery Museum in Connecticut, where it remains closed to this day. The film, directed by John R. Leonetti, this true story is so strange and he builds a sustained, suffocating atmosphere of dread around it.

Inspired by the documented 1949 exorcism performed on a young boy in Maryland, a case recorded in detail by the priests involved and never satisfactorily explained, the film follows a young girl whose sudden and violent transformation leads her mother to exhaust all medical explanations before heading to church. Directed by William Friedkin and starring Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, and Max von Sydow, the film remains one of the most disturbing films to date. The seriousness with which the cast and crew treat the material gives it a heaviness that most horror films never achieve.

According to People, screenwriter Kevin Williamson conceived the idea for “Scream” after catching wind of the horrific Gainesville murders in August 1990, in which Danny Rolling, nicknamed the Gainesville Ripper, targeted college students in a killing spree that became a national sensation. Directed by Wes Craven and starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette, the film revolves around a teenage girl stalked by a mysterious killer in a small town. It has become one of the most influential horror films of all time.