8 More Horror Films That Eerily Came True

Candyman is a modern spin on the legend of Bloody Mary, a supernatural entity who is said to appear when somebody calls her name three times in front of a mirror.

Bloody Mary may have inspired many movies, TV shows and video games, but she's actually based on folklore and real-life reports. Italian psychologist Giovanni Caputo explored the truth behind the myth in a 2010 experiment which had 50 participants gaze at their reflections in dim lighting for 10 minutes.

Many of them did see something “otherworldly” while staring into the mirror for so long, with almost 50% claiming they spotted "fantastical and monstrous beings".

There were no reports of a hook-handed man slaughtering any of the participants, but Caputo claims his study explains where the Bloody Mary myth came from and he puts it down to a phenomenon called the 'Caputo effect' or 'perceptual fading'.

This is where neurons in the eye reduce or stop their signals when stimuli is unchanged, refreshing the image but not completely. The subconscious mind fills in the blanks based on expectation or experience, so if you're expecting to see a hook-handed man, the chances are one will materialse.