10. The Strangers And The Director's Childhood
When the horror movie The Strangers was released, it struck a particular chord with many people because it claimed to be based on a true story. In the movie, strange people come up to the door of a couple who are staying in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. After the bizarre encounter at the door, the couple starts to fear for their safety. Before long, several frightening people in masks have invaded their home and begin torturing them.
When the homeowners ask why they were chosen for this seemingly random torment, the strangers answer, "Because you were home." This iconic tagline left many people particularly disturbed because the story was supposed to be based on true events, leaving some to wonder how true the story actually was.
According to the director of The Strangers, when he was a little kid, someone knocked on the door when he and his sister were home and asked for a person who did not live at the house. Later, he found out that the men knocking on doors had been looking for a vacant house to rob.
This got the future director thinking about what might have happened if they had decided to enter the house. He also claims to have received a fair amount of inspiration from some of the Manson murders. The combination of strange people knocking on doors and the murder of seemingly random people for bizarre motives left a powerful mark on his imagination and inspired a terrifying horror movie.
9. Friday The 13th And The Boy Scout Camp
The original Friday the 13th didn't yet feature the iconic killer we all know now, but it struck such a chord that it spawned a long-running franchise and many similar movies. While the Friday the 13th movies were never particularly popular in a mainstream way, they developed an incredibly strong cult following.
Some of these fans are so obsessed with the movies that they will go on pilgrimages to sites where events from the movies actually took place. The most popular one is the iconic Camp Crystal Lake where Jason Voorhees originally drowned and where the events of the first movie took place.
People who are not hard-core fans of the film franchise may not realize that Camp Crystal Lake was originally a Boy Scout camp that was rented for one month to the film crew. The Boy Scouts never expected the film to become as popular as it did or give them the attention that it did.
The camp is still an active Boy Scout camp which has to deal with a constant flow of trespassing fans touring the area, making it hard for the young Scouts to actually get anything done and likely scaring some of them senseless. The police regularly arrest people for trespassing, but it seems to do little to stop their enthusiasm. Recently, the camp allowed a brief period of guided tours to dissuade people from bothering them the rest of the year. The tickets sold out almost immediately.
8. Slenderman And The Stabbing
Slenderman was a recently created boogeyman meant to frighten the YouTube generation, although a fair amount of effort was put into making him seem ancient. The preposterous legend of Slenderman claims that this long, thin man with no face, extremely white skin, and a black suit lures children into the woods and then does something nefarious with them.
The details are always incredibly vague, and the stories also claim that just thinking, talking, or even reading about Slenderman makes him come for you. The only way to make him stop coming for you is to stop thinking about him. While most people readily understand that Slenderman is just a clever meme, some people don't understand the difference between fantasy and reality.
Recently in Waukesha, Wisconsin, two 12-year-old girls lured their friend into the woods, and stabbed her 19 times with a knife. Miraculously, the victim survived, and the two perpetrators were arrested for their crime.
