“ Real - life ” does n’t necessarily mean “ dead on target , ” specially when the context is spook stories but flighty legends have a way of work daddy culture , as in the upcomingWinchester starring Helen Mirren . The film is base on the life of a substantial someone who believed spirits were guiding the construction of her mansion .
In honor of Sarah Winchester and her famously / allegedly haunt - filled house , here ’s a listing of ghost stories so fascinating and back - prickle ( and , it probably goes without saying , so ripe for cinematic ornamentation ) that they inspired ten feature films of their own .
1) The Amityville Horror
Though the 1977 book that launched the Lutz family and their Dutch Colonial domicile into supernatural stardom was bill as “ a true write up , ” it was later set up that the slime - oozing bulwark , ghost pigs , and basement portals to hell were kinda , sorta , totally made - up . Still , the seat did have an genuinely amazing past tense ; before the Lutz family moved in , 23 - year - quondam Ronald DeFeo methodically gun down his parents and four siblings . So whether or not demons dwell there , or just the remnants of a terrible crime syndicate tragedy , is left to the imagination . And The Amityville Horror certainly capture a peck of imagination , enough for nearly two dozen movies . It also made sure that anyone else who moved into the star sign on Ocean Avenue would indeed be cursed … by drove of peculiarity - seekers .
2) The Conjuring
From 1971 to 1980 , the Perron house ( mom , dad , and five daughters ) lived in a ramshackle farmhouse in Rhode Island . In 1974 , illustrious extrasensory researchers Ed and Lorraine Warren — who were also on the Amityville case , as seen in the prologue to The Conjuring 2 — visited to look into the family ’s claims . Of of course , there was never any solid proof , but in 2013 Andrea Perron , the previous of the five sister , told USA Todaythat though the film had “ some consequence of fabrication , ” she vividly remembered the presence of spirit , some of them “ tempestuous , ” as well as find a séance in which her female parent became briefly possessed . Whether or not audiences believe the lawful - write up hook does n’t really matter—2013 ’s The Conjuring was both genuinely shivery and a massive collision .
3-4) The Conjuring 2 and Ghostwatch
In the late seventies , just north of London in Enfield , England , a pair of tweenage baby exact to witnessvery strange happeningsin the house they share with their mom and two brother — thing like sudden cold order of payment , objects launching themselves through the air , chairperson sliding across the floor , and unexplained knocks . On more than one occasion , the younger sister claim to be communicating messages from an elderly man who perish in the house . Naturally , a media frenzy was born , with skeptic and believer offer grounds both ways , and the case soon had a catchy name : The Enfield Poltergeist .
Though “ the British Amityville ” is now wide believed to have been a hoax , at the 2016 premiere of The Conjuring 2 — which was heavily inspire by the Enfield phenomenon — Margaret Nadeen , who was 12 at the time of the events , told People : “ We did n’t infer what was happening . We went through period of time where we just could n’t conceive what materialize really . It ’s frightening . ” In addition to The Conjuring sequel , the Enfield Poltergeist also informed Ghostwatch , a 1992 BBC Halloween special that famouslyterrified viewer who fall for its faux - documentary solidifying - up , believe it was totally real .
5) Annabelle
The popularity of The conjury did n’t break with its sequel . Creepy doll Annabelle , first introduce as a fright - adjacent to the Perron fellowship saga , contract a whirl - off and a prequel - continuation that hound its malevolent shenanigans prior to landing in Ed and Lorraine Warren ’s museum of haunted object . The stories explore in Annabelle and Annabelle : Creation were , of course , 99 pct fictitious , but the dame is real — though in actuality , it ’s a textile Raggedy Ann rather than a pink - cheek , perma - grin porcelain graverobber . The tarradiddle goes that the Warrens contribute the dame into their assembling in 1970 after it tried to strangle a friend of its proprietor . In 2017 , when foundation was free , Lorraine Warren toldUSA Todaythat the bird ( which really is kept in a special glass case , as date in The Conjuring ) is possessed with an “ inhuman demonic spirit , ” note “ it ’s not what the doll looks like that give it scary ; it is what has been infuse within the doll : immorality . ”
6) The Haunting in Connecticut
The specter of the Warrens also lurks within The Haunting in Connecticut ; though they do n’t appear as persona in the flick , they were involve in the “ true story ” that revolutionise the plastic film . In 1986 , the Snedeker family moved to Southington , Connecticut to be closer to the hospital where their son was undergoing discourse for Hodgkin ’s disease . To their humiliation , their new house had , at one time , been a mortuary … and the look of the numb were patently still hang on . The Warrens were call off in and pronounced the house “ possessed,”and though that diagnosis was later widely disbelieve , it was a freaky enough tale to breathe in the first episode of the purportedly “ true story ” TV show A Haunting in 2002 , and later a feature film in 2009 . As it hap , the second episode of A Haunting — about a niggling girl whose fanciful playfellow is in reality a mysterious trace named “ Mr. Gordy”—was also made into a film , albeit with an passing expound secret plan , and with perhaps the most geographically flex motion-picture show title ever : The Haunting in Connecticut 2 : Ghosts of Georgia .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTzgXVosQOU
7) The Changeling
In this 1980 chiller , a heartache - stricken composer ( George C. Scott ) moves from New York to Seattle after losing his wife and nipper in a car chance event . Too bad the aging residence he picks as his new home has the unsatisfied soul of a murdered child wafting through its vintage woodworking . The unearthly encounter that inspired The Changeling actually took position in Denver , circa 1969,when a gentleman’s gentleman named Russell Hunter rent a station that presently revealed itself to be haunted . Even scarier , Hunter lay claim to have discovered a obscure stairway tucked behind a closet , and to have memorise during a séance that the affluent family who once lived in the family had a seedy young son who die out dead and was stealthily “ replaced ” with an adopted kid . This is more or less what sparks the conflict in The Changeling , and while the facts of Hunter ’s taledidn’t inevitably hold up to examination , he turn the eery tale into a screenplay that became a horror classic .
8) The Entity
The 1982 picture show is base on a 1978 novel , but there ’s an allegedly true tale of terror behind both . In 1974 , a Culver City , California mother of four named Doris Bither asserted that she had been sexually assaulted by a terzetto of spirit dwell in her house . She ’d had a harsh spirit even before getting to that power point , and her story was initially throw out as PTSD or a side result of content maltreatment , or both . But parapsychologists Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor launched an investigation , eventually claiming to see the manifestation of a spirit orb of some kind , and the traumatized Bither decided moving out would be her only recourse . The house is still stand today , though nobody who ’s survive in it since Bither fled has ever reported anything unusual . The flick version of Bither ’s trial by ordeal — with the lead character ’s name changed to Carla Moran — is greatly elevated by Barbara Hershey ’s intense wind performance .
9) Lady in White
In this tale set in 1962 , a little boy cite Frankie ( Lukas Haas ) gets catch up in the lookup to see the gruesome serial slayer who ’s been pick off local nestling . He ’s aid by the ghost of one of the fiend ’s other victims — a fiddling lady friend — and keeps running into the spooky title character , who turns out to be the missy ’s ghostly female parent . Though Lady in White is supposedly establish on a ghost storyspecific to the city of Rochester , NY , near where the movie is set and was made , the “ cleaning woman in blank ” ghost is unbelievably common in folklore , with variant popping up around the globe , from Mexico to the Germany to Japan . No matter the culture , however , the spirit is almost always say to be searching for something — in the case of Lady in White , it ’s a disturbed mother who just needs a little help reunite with her girl in the hereafter .
10) The Quiet Ones
A whole mickle of dramatic license is assume with this one , but the “ scientists muck around with the supernatural ” angle is sort of real . Kinda . Very loosely . The film follows a disgrace Oxford professor ( Jared Harris ) and his students as they set out to shew that the supernatural is n’t substantial , mostly through questionable experiments on a young girl who may or may not be possess by an ancient devil . gratuitous to say , all involved believe very strongly in the actual existence of evil spirits well before human action three . The actual - life 1972 outcome that inspired The Quiet Ones was far less spectacular . Dubbed “ the Philip experimentation , ” it involved a cross - section of Toronto residents ( including a former MENSA chairwoman ) who invented an entity and then tried to touch it via a séance — aiming to try that ghosts and their ilk arenothing more than creations of the human mind . Though the psychically determined grouping was somehow able to “ conjure ” things like mysteriously - dim lights and unexplainable rapping noises , they never attain their ultimate goal of actually making a ghost seem . And they certainly never raised anything like the fiery revulsion that eventually make itself make out in The Quiet Ones .
AnnabelleHaunted housesHorrorThe Conjuring
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