It's always weird to me when I find out that a horror movie is based on a true story. That's because it's usually the most out-there supernatural story imaginable. You know the ones. Goop is flowing out the walls, the house is talking to its inhabitants, All the dolls come to life and water faucets develop hands, but yeah, based on a true story.
And that's the topic for this week's Thursday Movie Picks hosted by Wanderer at Wandering Through the Shelves. Let's get into some "true" madness.
Um...yeah. Wes Craven famously wrote and directed this genre classic, but its not purely from his imagination. He took the idea from an article he read in the Los Angeles Times about Hmong refugees who had come to the U.S. while fleeing from their own, various war-torn countries. A number of these men suffered nightmares so severe they refused to sleep. Of course, everyone has to sleep at some point. When they did, some of these men inexplicably died. Craven took this story, mashed it up with some traumatic events from his own childhood, and voila, Freddy Krueger.
This is the movie based on a true story that won't quite admit it. It says it's based on the fantasies of Henry Lee Lucas, not necessarily the crimes. That's because no one knows how many murders Lucas actually committed. He confessed to hundreds, was ruled out as the perpetrator in most of them, and eventually convicted of 11. While the film's protagonist shares a first name, he's technically a fictional character. The line is blurred even further when you realize that much of what he does in the film bears a strong resemblance to what is known about Lucas. And all of it is disturbing.
Most people know that the first movie in the Conjuring franchise is based on a true story. So is the second. Once again, we dig into the caseload of Lorraine and Ed Warren. This one involves the haunting of two tween-age sisters in London in the late 1970s known as the Enfield Poltergeist. Truth told, I don't know how much I believe anything the Warrens say, but as a movie, this one is nearly as good as its predecessor.
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