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Hollywood marketers love to say their movies are “based on a true story.” Of course, those stories are often just ALLEGEDLY true, so you have to take these claims with a grain of salt.Still, there are 13 horror movies based on true . . . and ALLEGEDLY true . . . stories:
1. “The Amityville Horror” (1979). If this house was haunted, why haven’t any other occupants had trouble with ghosts?
2. “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984). Wes Craven wrote it after hearing a story about a kid who had terrifying nightmares and ultimately died in his sleep.
3. “The Conjuring” (2013). Ed and Lorraine Warren were real-life paranormal investigators. The movies are based on their actual exploits.
4. “Annabelle” (2014). She’s actually a Raggedy Ann doll, not some creepy porcelain thing like in the movie.
5. “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” (2005). Based on the story of a young German woman who died after nearly 70 exorcisms.
6. “The Exorcist” (1973). The 13-year-old boy at the heart of the “real” story grew up to have a completely normal life as a NASA engineer.
7. “Poltergeist” (1982). No children were abducted via tube TVs. Just creepy goings-on in a house on Long Island.
8. “The Rite” (2011). The priest played by Anthony Hopkins currently resides at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, California.
9. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974). As everybody knows thanks to Netflix, this one’s very loosely based on the story of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein.
10. “The Strangers” (2008). This one’s based on three separate real-life incidents, including the Manson Family murders.
11. “Winchester” (2018). You can still visit the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California.
12. “The Birds” (1963). In Capitola, California in 1961, hordes of black seabirds started slamming into cars, windows and people’s homes and dying. The behavior was caused by an infection from marine phytoplankton.
13. “Scream” (1996). Based on the story of the Gainesville Ripper, who killed five college students in Florida in 1990.
