4 Movies You Didn't Know Were Based On Real Paranormal Events

The Exorcism of Roland Doe

The true story behind the 1973 horror film, The Exorcist, is scarier than the box-office hit that reportedly caused heart attacks among viewers. Roland Doe was a teenager in the 1940s when he reportedly became possessed by a demon after playing with a spirit board. As the demonic force took hold of him, he would often fall into screaming fits, and bloody marks would appear on his arms. It took Catholic priests 34 days to rid the teen of the demon.

Scream: The True Story

36-year-old Danny Rolling snapped and killed four University of Florida students during a five-day spree in Gainesville, Fla., in August 1990. The crimes came after a childhood marked by severe physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his father. Rolling, who was dubbed the Gainesville Ripper, reportedly camped out in the woods to commune with a demon before stalking and killing his victims. A filmmaker who watched the media coverage during the two-week period when Rolling was on the lam used the events as the inspiration for the Scream franchise.

The Devil Made Me Do It

Famed demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren were on hand when an eight-year-old Connecticut boy underwent an exorcism to expel 42 demons from his body. The boy’s sister and her boyfriend, Arne Johnson, attended the exorcism, and Johnson is said to have invited the unleashed demons to possess him as they left the child. Seven months later, Johnson stabbed Alan Bono to death with a pocketknife and his defense claimed he was not guilty by reason of demonic possession. The story of Johnson’s crime was immortalized as the most recent film in The Conjuring horror movie series.

Ed Gein: The Real Psycho

The man who inspired the main characters in Silence of the Lambs, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Psycho was ruled legally insane after authorities say he killed two women, robbed graves and snatched body parts that he then kept around his home. Ed Gein’s macabre souvenirs included bowls made from skulls, a belt made of nipples, human face lampshades, chairs fashioned from human skin, and the body of a hardware store employee that he’d hung from the ceiling and butchered like a deer.