Buzz
Horror films never fail to draw attention, offering the perfect mix of fear and fantasy. Since these are works of fiction, the terror they evoke can’t truly harm anyone. Even when a film boasts of being 'based on a true story,' it’s often a marketing tactic designed to intrigue. But sometimes, just sometimes, the horror depicted is uncomfortably close to reality. After watching these films, you might find yourself glancing over your shoulder, wondering if the nightmare could actually happen.
10. Alfred Packer - Ravenous (1999)
Alfred Packer, also known as 'Alferd' due to a tattoo misspelling, is perhaps America's most notorious cannibal. In 1874, while trekking to Colorado's gold mines, Packer and five companions—Shannon Wilson Bell, James Humphrey, Frank Miller, George Noon, and Israel Swan—decided to continue their journey through the harsh winter instead of waiting for spring to clear the trail. This decision turned out to be deadly, with Packer being the only one to survive.
The exact events that transpired after the group was trapped in the snow-covered Rocky Mountains remain a mystery. In his confession, Packer claimed that Bell had killed the others before attacking him with a hatchet, forcing Packer to kill him in self-defense. However, some believe Packer was responsible for all five deaths and tried to pin the blame on Bell. The truth may never be known.
What is certain is that Packer survived the harsh winter, eventually reaching the Los Pinos Indian Agency near Saguache, Colorado. Suspicion arose when two Native Americans discovered strips of human flesh near the Agency, leading to Packer’s arrest on charges of murder and cannibalism. During interrogation, Packer confessed, stating, 'I discarded the remaining strips reluctantly, as I had developed a taste for human flesh, particularly the part around the breast.'
Antonia Bird’s darkly humorous horror film Ravenous was inspired by this chilling case, with the character of Colonel Ives being loosely modeled on Packer himself.
9. Joe Ball - Eaten Alive (1977)
In the 1930s, Joe Ball, a former bootlegger and notorious ladies' man, owned the Sociable Inn in Elmendorf, Texas. To entertain his guests, Ball created a swampy pond behind the hotel, stocked with five alligators. For a fee, guests could watch him feed live kittens and dogs to the gators. In hindsight, this was likely a red flag, as the inn had a strange history of high staff turnover—waitresses and barmaids mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
Between 1934 and 1938, women like Minnie Gotthardt, Dolores Goodwin, Hazel Brown, and Julia Turner vanished while working for Ball. A neighbor alerted the authorities when they noticed a barrel behind Ball’s sister’s barn that smelled of decaying flesh. Police arrived at the Sociable Inn to question him, but Ball opened the cash register, pulled out a revolver, and shot himself in the heart. Later, hotel handyman Clifton Wheeler led police to Hazel Brown’s remains, confessing to assisting Ball in her burial. It was rumored that Ball had also fed parts of his victims to the alligators, although this claim remains unverified.
While there was no physical evidence of Ball’s feeding tactics, his story quickly became infamous and was Tobe Hooper’s inspiration for the character of Judd in his film Eaten Alive, which tells the story of a hotel owner who gets rid of his sweethearts by feeding them to his pet alligator.
8. The Finniss River AttackBlack Water (2007)
While the story of Joe Ball might have given you a lifelong fear of alligators, how do you feel about crocodiles? Well, bad news.
On December 21, 2003, Ashley McGough, Shaun Blowers, and Brett Mann were riding ATVs in Australia’s Northern Territory when they decided to wash themselves off in the Finniss River, which was swollen with extra water due to Cyclone Debbie. At some point, Brett Mann lost his footing due to the strong current and was carried downriver as his friends swam after him. Upon reaching Brett, Ashley saw a crocodile and alerted the other two. Ashley and Shaun managed to climb into a nearby tree, but Brett was grabbed by the crocodile and dragged underwater.
A few minutes later, the crocodile resurfaced with Brett’s body in its mouth and waved it in the air. The crocodile then left, only to return five minutes later and pace at the base of the tree, trapping Shaun and Ashley. It remained there all evening and morning, until a rescue helicopter arrived looking for the trio. Ashley and Shaun spent 22 hours trapped in the tree. The body of Brett Mann was never found.
David Nerlich and Andrew Traucki's Black Water is loosely inspired by the real-life incident, following the story of three friends on a river tour in Northern Australia. When a crocodile attacks their boat and kills their guide, they take refuge in a tree to survive. The crocodiles in the film were real, filmed under controlled conditions and later digitally added to enhance the suspense.
7. Travis Walton - Fire In The Sky (1993)
Have you ever witnessed something that defies explanation? Meet Travis Walton, who claims to have been abducted by aliens on November 5, 1975. On that night, Walton and his coworkers were driving home from work when they spotted a UFO hovering over the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Springerville, Arizona. Travis, attempting to get a closer look, was struck by a blue-green beam of light and knocked unconscious. His coworkers fled the scene, returning only to find Travis gone and no sign of the UFO.
Travis claims that he then fought off extraterrestrial beings before being returned to Earth in Heber, Arizona after a five-day disappearance. His story garnered widespread attention, leading him to undergo at least 12 lie detector tests about the alleged abduction. The first test, conducted right after his return, indicated deception, but he passed the remaining tests. All six of his co-workers also passed similar tests. The film Fire In The Sky is based on Travis’s memoir of the ordeal, though it adds the usual Hollywood flair.
6. Adolfo Constanzo - Borderland (2006)
Adolfo Constanzo was a notorious practitioner of black magic, particularly his own variant of Palo Mayombe, an Afro-Caribbean religious practice involving the ritual sacrifice of animals. While the religion didn’t originally include human sacrifices, Constanzo chose to alter the belief system for his personal gain by incorporating such acts.
As the head of a cult and drug cartel, Constanzo was behind the ritualistic killings of 23 people in Matamoros, Mexico, between 1988 and 1989. The victims' organs were taken and used in Constanzo's nganga, an iron cauldron, to perform spells that were intended to protect his criminal enterprise and ensure its success. His follower and lover, Sara Aldrete Villareal, admitted that she obeyed him due to his overwhelming presence. A chilling trademark of the cult was turning the spines of their victims into necklaces. Constanzo ended his life during a manhunt that ensued after his cult murdered an American college student, Mark Kilroy.
The 2007 film Borderland is loosely inspired by Constanzo’s blood-soaked rituals, telling the tragic tale of three Texas college students who are kidnapped by a Mexican cult and readied for sacrifice.
5. Father Gary Thomas - The Rite (2011)
In recent years, there has been a marked rise in the demand for exorcisms in the United States, with Washington’s Pew Research Center reporting that '40 percent of Americans believe that angels and demons are active in the world, and 28 percent believe this to a greater extent.' Priests like Father Gary Thomas have stepped up to meet this growing need.
Thomas became an official exorcist after completing a course at the Vatican's Athenaeum Pontificium Regina Apostolorum in Rome. There, he trained under Rome’s top exorcist, Father Carmine De Filippis. Throughout his exorcism experiences, Thomas has witnessed unsettling occurrences such as patients' heads twisting in unnatural, rigid ways, epileptic-like convulsions, and serpentine movements. His training in exorcism formed the basis for Matt Baglio's book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, which would later inspire Mikael Hafstrom’s film adaptation.
The Rite is a film about Father Michael Kovak (a character based on Thomas), a seminarian who learns the art of exorcism from Lucas Trevant (a character inspired by Father Carmine). Thomas, who praised the movie for its authenticity in depicting exorcisms, served as a consultant on set. During his time there, some actors expressed concerns about potentially opening doors to demonic forces through their involvement in the project. Father Thomas reassured them, stating with a smile: “Possibly.”
4. Wade Davis - The Serpent And The Rainbow (1988)
The success of films like World War Z has made the zombie genre incredibly popular in recent years. But few may realize that one of the earliest zombie films was actually inspired by a true story.
Wade Davis, an American anthropologist, traveled to Haiti after hearing a tale that seemed almost too fantastical to believe. In 1962, Clairvius Narcisse, a Haitian man, was declared dead and buried by his family. However, in 1980, he inexplicably returned to his village. He claimed that a voodoo sorcerer had used a substance known as 'zombie powder' to put him in a death-like sleep, only to later revive him and force him to work on a plantation. Once the sorcerer and plantation owner passed away, Clairvius returned home.
Intrigued by the story, Davis sought to delve deeper into the origins of the mysterious powder, which he found was a blend of tetrodotoxin and bufotenin, potent toxins derived from specific species of pufferfish and frogs. Once the victim regains consciousness, they are given a paste made from datura seeds, which induces a state of amnesia and heightened suggestibility, often described as ‘zombie-like’. Davis chronicled his experiences in Haiti in his book The Serpent and the Rainbow, which was later adapted into a film of the same title by the iconic horror director Wes Craven.
3. John Justin BuntingSnowtown (2011)
John Justin Bunting became notorious after relocating to Salisbury North, a working-class suburb of Adelaide, Australia. There, he and his followers—Robert Joe Wagner, Mark Haydon, and James Vlassakis—brutally tortured and murdered at least 11 locals. The bodies of eight victims were placed in barrels and hidden in a deserted bank vault in nearby Snowtown, leading to the moniker “the Bodies-in-Barrels Murders.” Bunting defended his actions by claiming he was eliminating society's undesirables, such as pedophiles, homosexuals, 'weak' individuals, and anyone else he deemed unworthy.
The gang's first murder victim was a mentally challenged man named Ray Davies, whom Bunting accused of being a pedophile. Davies was subjected to horrific torture before being strangled to death. The methods of torture became increasingly brutal as the body count rose, with some victims being held captive for days before Bunting ended their lives.
Following the murder of Mark Haydon’s wife, Elizabeth, the authorities intensified their investigation into Bunting and his followers. Incredibly, the gang committed their final murder in the vault while under police surveillance. When investigators finally entered the vault, they discovered barrels containing the victims’ remains, along with handcuffs, knives, a bloodied saw, a shotgun, and a device for delivering electric shocks. Vlassakis became the key witness against his former associates after cutting a deal with the prosecution.
The 2011 film Snowtown, later retitled The Snowtown Murders, portrays the murders from Vlassakis’s perspective.
2. Chante Mallard And Gregory BiggsStuck (2007)
Hit-and-run incidents don’t come stranger than this one.
On October 25, 2001, Chante Mallard, a nurse’s aide, spent her evening in Fort Worth, Texas, indulging in alcohol, drugs, and partying. At around 3:00 AM, Mallard decided to leave her friend’s apartment and head home, a decision that would irreversibly alter her life and end another’s.
Gregory Biggs, a homeless man from the area, was crossing a six-lane highway when Mallard struck him with her car, leaving him trapped in her windshield. After a brief attempt to remove him, Mallard gave up and decided to drive home, parking her car in the garage while Biggs remained lodged in the windshield.
Chante reportedly checked on Biggs throughout the night, repeatedly apologizing for the incident. However, she made no attempt to save his life or contact emergency services. Biggs eventually bled to death while trapped in the windshield. The following day, Chante enlisted her ex-boyfriend Clete Jackson and his cousin Herbert Cleveland to dispose of the body in a nearby park, where it was discovered on October 27. Nearly four months later, Chante was arrested after an informant tipped off the police that she had spoken about the event at a party. She was sentenced to 50 years in prison for murder, as it was determined that Biggs could have survived with timely medical intervention.
This chilling tale was later turned into two films: Stuck and Hit And Run.
1. The Texas Slave RanchHoboken Hollow (2006)
In the early 1980s, Walter Wesley Ellebracht operated a prosperous ranch in the hills outside San Antonio, Texas. Alongside his son Walter Jr. and foreman Carlton Robert Caldwell, Ellebracht also crafted and sold carved wooden keychains to passing travelers. To sustain both the ranch and the keychain business, the Ellebrachts lured hitchhikers and drifters with promises of food and shelter, only to force them into slavery. Over the span of four years, as many as 75 vagrants were brought to the secluded ranch, where they were punished with cattle prods for offenses like disrespecting family members or failing to follow orders.
One particularly tragic case involved Anthony Bates, a one-eyed drifter who was picked up by the Ellebrachts in early 1984. Bates suffered severe injuries while using a chainsaw. Unable to continue working, he became a target for the Ellebrachts and other enslaved individuals. Among the brutalities he endured, Bates was often tied to a tree and tortured with a cattle prod, subjected to shocks on his genitals, tongue, and eye socket. Unable to withstand such relentless torment, Bates died in February 1984. His body was then set on fire by Caldwell.
In March 1983, the police raided the “Texas Slave Ranch” following an anonymous tip from Travis Boyd, a former slave who had been freed by the Ellebrachts. The horrifying events would later inspire the 2006 indie horror film Hoboken Hollow.
