10 People Who Copied Movies In Disturbing Ways

8. A Teenager Died After Copying Into The Wild's Lead Character

Into The Wild
Paramount Vantage

Cult hit Into The Wild follows a disillusioned man, Christopher McCandless, who escapes modern society by venturing into the wilderness, where he lives for several months.

At first, it seems to be a story about hope, about "finding yourself" by removing all the hustle and bustle of 20th century life. Unfortunately though, things don't end well when Christopher realizes how unforgiving nature can be, and he ultimately dies after eating a poisonous plant.

In 2013, the real-life story of an Arizona teenager called Johnathan Croom also had a similarly bleak ending, after he took inspiration from the film and headed out into the forest. A month later, he was found dead, just 1,000 feet from his abandoned car.

Croom's father said that he watched Into The Wild a lot, and attributed his desire to live in the wilderness to his "broken heart", which was caused by the end of a relationship.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!