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Poll: I Got Something Scary For You

A poll by dgranger.
Many of the scarier movies are made from fiction based on or inspired by true life events or people. Classic gothic horror does same thing too. So here are some fiction stories based on or inspired by actual events that have been turned into movies. (That is why this is an image list because some of these have been done more than once.) Which scary story, not movie, got scarier when you found out it is based on a real person or event?

If you got any scary “news stories” (since some of these were news in the past) that were fictionalized into stories and made into movies, series, and etc, submit them to the editor here. This list will not go the full 35!

P.S. A shout out to the true life story of Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) which was also told in the 1st act of the film The FBI Story (1959).

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Make Your Choice

  1. Vote!

    The Body Snatcher (1945)

    “The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson (21 pages long) is about grave robbers stealing bodies and selling them to medical colleges so that the medical students can dissect them and learn. The horror is that these body snatchers weren’t digging up bodies, they were murdering people so that the bodies they sold were fresh. This is based on the William Burke and William Hare murders. Dr. Robert Knox, who is referred to as ‘Dr. K____’ in the short story, was the doctor they sold the corpses too.
  2. Vote!

    Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

    ”The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde” (novella 61 pages long) by Robert Louis Stevenson. While RLS transformed the case into a horror story and a tale of science gone mad, he did base his character on Deacon “William” Brodie, who was a rich respected cabinet maker by day, who used his lock picking skills at night to break into people’s houses at night and stole their property not because of any need, but because it was fun. In Victorian times, stealing property and breaking into houses were offenses that could get you hung. (If you don’t believe me, ask Charles Dickens because, in “Oliver Twist”, that is the real meaning of what Fagan said when he told Sikes that Sikes will get “The Drop” if they were arrested.) Brodie never killed but he was still hung.
  3. Vote!

    Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931)

    “Dracula” (novel and Play) by Bram Stoker. I think everybody now knows that Dracula is based on Vlad the Impaler.
  4. Vote!

    John Dall and Farley Granger in Rope (1948)

    ”Rope” a play by Patrick Hamilton. The fictional play was based on the thrill murders of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb whose story was told a few more times in movies by different authors. They were arrogant wealthy people who killed just to experience the thrill of it and see if they could fool the police and get away with it.
  5. Vote!

    Dean Stockwell and Richard Anderson in Compulsion (1959)

    ”Compulsion” (novel) by Meyer Lavin which is also based on murders committed by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, but this version goes into their trial.
  6. Vote!

    Linda Blair in The Exorcist (1973)

    ”The Exorcist” (Novel) by William Peter Blatty is based on 2 exorcisms which were combined in the book: the 1949 exorcism of “Roland Doe” and the 1634 Loudon possessions of nuns.
  7. Vote!

    Anthony Perkins in Psycho (1960)

    ”Psycho” (novel) by Robert Bloch. Norman Bates is loosely based on Ed Gein who skinned his victims and made things out of their skins, like a suit. Gein knew taxidermy like Bates does. Other films are based on Ed Gein, like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), (written for the screen), and the next … .
  8. Vote!

    Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

    “Red Dragon” and “The Silence of the Lambs” (novels) by Thomas Harris. Dr Hannibal Lecter, is based on Alfredo Ballí Treviño, who was known as the “Wolfman of Nuevo León,” murdered his lover and several hitchhikers. Buffalo Bill in “TSotL”, is based on Ed Gein .
  9. Vote!

    Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar (1931)

    “Little Caesar” (novel) by W. R. Burnett. While the IMDb states that the character Cesare Enrico Bandello is based on Chicago mobster Salvatore "Sam" Cardinella, another source states it was Chicago mobster Salvatore Maranzano who did have the nickname “Little Caesar”. However the director, Mervyn LeRoy, did style Enrico visually to appear like Al Capone. BTW, the original person to be called “Little Caesar”, in a different context of course, was the last Pharaoh of Egypt, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar.
  10. Vote!

    John Cusack in 1408 (2007)

    1408 (short story) by Stephen King. “The story was inspired by real incidents at San Diego's Hotel del Coronado, where a young woman named Kate Morgan took her own life.” https://screenrant.com/1408-movie-true-story-inspiration-hotel-del-coronado/#:~:text=%221408%22%20is%20a%20horror%20movie,Morgan%20took%20her%20own%20life.
  11. Vote!

    The Ripper approaches his latest victim as she lays asleep in her bed.

    ”From Hell” (comic book series / Graphic Novel) by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. Any movie or book claiming to reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper has to be fiction because that madman serial killer has never been caught! Oh, the murder of Mary Jane Kelly, his last victim, did happen in a room while the others all happened outside.
  12. Vote!

    Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

    ”The Phantom of the Opera” (novel) by Gaston Leroux is based on a single horrifying event in the story, the crashing of the chandelier. At the Paris opera, Palais Garnier, in May 1986, near the end of the 1st act of the opera “Helle”, the counter weight of chandelier crashed through the ceiling onto the auditorium floor injuring many and killing one person. Well Leroux, a journalist at the time, using the chandelier crash as the centerpiece of the story, took all the ghost stories, and stories of weird events he had heard happening at that opera house, and created the phantom Eric.
  13. Vote!

    Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Rea, and Beryl Reid in The Doctor and the Devils (1985)

    ”The Doctor and The Devils” (short story) by Donald Taylor. It is the same as “The Body Snatcher” up above — Burke and Hare.
  14. Vote!

    Shelley Duvall in The Shining (1980)

    ”The Shining” (novel) by Stephen King. While the book is actually about his feelings about his father, Mr. King used the stories about hauntings at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado “which overlooks Rocky Mountain National Park.” (Gee, I wonder where King got the name “The Overlook” from.) Supposedly, King did see or hear something while he stayed there. (The poll’s list image shows the real horror in that story - the hotel.)

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