10 Movies Which Unwittingly Inspired Real-Life Crimes

2. Child's Play Series

The premise of Child's Play was always going to cause a furore upon release as mixing children and violence is never the best idea, but I doubt the makers of the Child's Play series quite imagined just what a controversy they would end up in. Child's Play became particularly infamous in the UK for a couple of particularly shocking murders. In the case of Suzanne Capper, a 16 year-old girl who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by six people, her tragic death was linked to Child's Play because during the horrific torture, the perpetrators played a recording of one of them saying "I'm Chucky, wanna play?" over and over again. This led to a huge crackdown on violent films and new legislation was put in place.

Creator Tom Holland was forced to defend his creation repeatedly and he only came under more fire when the tabloid press made links between Child's Play 3 and the horrific murder of James Bulger. The killers of James Bulger were said to have copied a scene from the film where Chucky splashes one of his victims with blue paint, though it was later found out that neither murderer had watched the film. Child's Play was also mentioned in association with the Port Arthur massacre, as the perpetrator was said to have been obsessed with the demonic doll.