Horror movies are great because they are fictional; the killers aren’t real. Once the movie ends, you’re safe. Some of the best horror franchises, in fact, have introduced viewers to beloved killers like Halloween’s Michael Myers and Scream’s Ghostface. They’re fun to watch because they give viewers a jump scare and show us the darkest side of humanity that doesn’t actually exist — or does it?
As it turns out, several fictional movie characters aren’t all that fictional. They are based on real people and real events. From Leatherface to Hannibal Lecter, here are 10 horror movie characters that are based on real people and events.
10 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre — Leatherface
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released in 1974 and is the first of nine film installments. Starring Marilyn Burns, Paul Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen, the film follows a group of friends who fall prey to a family of cannibals on their way to visit an old homestead. The film was marketed as being based on true events to attract a wider audience. While the plot is largely fictional, the character of Leatherface was inspired by the crimes of murderer Ed Gein.
Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield, was an American murderer and body snatcher. He gained notoriety in 1957 when authorities discovered that he stole corpses from local graveyards and made trophies, keepsakes, and furniture from their skin and bones. Gein also confessed to killing two women in 1954 and 1957.
9 Psycho — Norman Bates
Psycho is a 1960 psychological horror film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Martin Balsam. When a secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer’s client, she goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man named Norman Bates, who is under the domination of his mother. Norman is also based on Gein, namely the relationship between Gein, Norman, and their mothers.
8 Scream — Ghostface
Another slasher franchise, Scream includes five films and a television series. The first film was released in 1996 and stars Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lilliard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, Jamie Kennedy, and Drew Barrymore. The film follows high school student Sidney Prescott (Campbell) and her group of friends in Woodsboro, California as they become targets of a mysterious killer known as Ghostface.
The masked killer Ghostface was inspired by the Gainesville Ripper. Daniel Harold Rolling was a serial killer that murdered five students in Gainesville, Florida over four days in 1990. While he was only convicted for the five Gainesville murders, he confessed to raping several of his victims, committing a triple homicide in Louisiana, and the attempted murder of his father in May 1990.
7 Silence of the Lambs — Hannibal Lecter
Silence of the Lambs is a 1991 psychological horror film adapted from Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel of the same name. The film stars Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, a young FBI agent who is hunting serial killer, “Buffalo Bill” (Ted Levine), who skins his female victims. Clarice seeks the advice of Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant psychiatrist who is imprisoned due to his crimes as a cannibalistic serial killer.
Hannibal Lecter is based on the little known Mexican murderer named Alfredo Trevino. Trevino was a doctor who was interviewed by Lecter’s creator Thomas Harris. While doing research at Nuevo León State Prison, Harris saw Trevino save the life of an inmate. Upon leaving, Harris discovered that Trevino was one of the prisoners convicted of murdering and mutilating his lover. He was also suspected of killing and dismembering several hitchhikers during the late-1950s and early-1960s.
6 A Nightmare on Elm Street — Freddy Kreuger
The first installment in the franchise, A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in 1984, written and directed by Wes Craven. The film follows teenager Nancy Thompson as she races to uncover the dark truth hidden by her parents after she and her friends become targets of the spirit of a serial killer with a bladed glove in their dreams. If they die in the dream, they die in real life, too.
Freddy Kreuger was inspired by Hmong refugees, per GameSpot, who fled to the United States because of war and genocide in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the 1970s. The refugees suffered disturbing nightmares and were unable to sleep. Some of the men died in their sleep soon after.
5 Halloween — Michael Myers
John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher film Halloween stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, with P.J. Soles and Nancy Loomis in supporting roles. The film follows Michael Myers, who escapes from a mental hospital fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night in 1963. He returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
In a 2003 documentary, Carpenter revealed the main inspiration for Michael Myers came from a visit to a mental institution. He met with several severely mentally ill patients, including a young boy around the age of eleven or twelve, who he said had “the devil’s eyes.”
4 Dracula — Dracula
Released in 1931, Dracula is a supernatural horror film based on the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker. Bela Lugosi plays Count Dracula, a vampire who moves from Transylvania to England and preys upon the blood of living victims. Dracula is based on Vlad the Impaler. Vlad was a ruler of Wallachia between 1448 and his death in either 1476 or 1477. He led a great war and plundered Saxon villages, impaling everyone they captured. Before his death, he is reported to have massacred tens of thousands of people.
3 Misery — Annie Wilkes
The film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Misery was released in 1990, and stars James Caan and Kathy Bates. Caan plays famed novelist Paul Sheldon, who wrote a series of Victorian romance novels featuring a character named Misery Chastain. While traveling, he gets caught in a blizzard and gets into an accident. A nurse named Annie Wilkes (Bates) finds him and brings him to her remote home to care for him. However, it is soon revealed that Wilkes as a few screws loose as she keeps him captive and orders him to write a new book for her, abusing him if he doesn’t do what she says.
Annie Wilkes is based on Genene Jones, a serial killer responsible for the deaths of dozens of infants and children in her care as a licensed nurse during the 1970s and 1980s. She used injections of digoxin, heparin, and later succinylcholine to cause medical crises in her patients. While the exact number of victims remains unknown, the number is believed to be around sixty.
2 The Girl Next Door — Ruth Chandler
The Girl Next Door is a 2007 horror film based on Jack Ketchum’s 1989 novel of the same name. The novel was inspired by the murder of Sylvia Likens, to whom the movie is dedicated. The film follows the torture and abuses committed on a teenage girl in the care of her aunt and the boys who witness the crime, but fail to report it. The villain Ruth Chandler (Blanche Baker) tortures and has her children torture a young girl in her basement.
Ruth is based on a real-life woman who did the same thing to a young girl. Gertrude Baniszewski tortured and murdered Sylvia Likens in 1965. Both the character villain and the real villain used a red-hot needle to carve words into the victim’s stomach, showing just how horrifying people can be.
1 It — Pennywise
Another Stephen King adaptation, It is a two-part psychological horror film. The first adaptation was released in 1990 and a remake was released in 2017, with the second chapter being released in 2019. The movies take place into two different periods, when the main characters are children, and 30 years later. Seven pre-teen outcasts fight an ancient, evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. They believe that they defeat it, or at least seal it away. However, thirty years later, the creature resurfaces, and they must return to Derry to finish it off.
The demon clown known as Pennywise is based on the infamous serial killer and sex offender John Wayne Gacy, who raped, tortured, and murdered at least 33 young men and boys in Chicago. Gacy was given the nickname “Killer Clown” as he performed as Pogo the Clown and Patches the Clown.