10 True Ghost Stories That Inspired Horror Films

The secret ingredient to every good horror movie is that tiny little title card that strikes fear into the most hardy of audiences: "based on a true story".

What’s scarier than a psychotic murderer stalking the corridors, demonic entities ready to pounce, or unbelievable monsters lurking in the shadows? Why, it’d be knowing that you can find those very creatures bumbling about in your own home. No thank you.

These ten films have capitalised on poor families traumatised by their very real experiences, bringing terrifying truth into full technicolour so we can see what it’s really like to suffer unimaginable horrors from another dimension, just as they really did. With tales of haunted houses coming in their droves, it's apparent that no films scare quite so intensely as the idea of a ghost inhabiting our homes - an invisible intruder intent on marking their territory, or taking you back to the other side with them.

Able to possess living creatures, move items at will, and inflict very real physical and mental pain are just some of the attributes noted about spectral forms from 'true' public experience. Armed with evidence and traumatised families, these movies depict what it’s like when horror is stranger than fiction: because reality is as strange as it gets...

Home to the infamous Ronald J. DeFeo Junior before being heralded as the site of a real haunting, a small house in Amityville has made waves in the paranormal community since announcing its story in the late 70s.

Inspiring a staggering 17 sequels, reboots, and spin offs since the very first Amityville Horror was bought to the big screen in 1979 - it's fair to say the obsession with ghost stories, and supposedly true ones at that, has never been more capitalised on than with this spooky tale.

The true tale behind Stuart Rosenberg's theatrical release starts with not just one murder, but six, committed at the hands of DeFeo Jr. in 1974. Taking the lives of his parents and four siblings, the 23 year old shot his family in their sleep, citing that he "just couldn't stop" once he'd started.

Over a year later, the Lutz family move into the old DeFeo home for a steal, snapping up the property for its reduced asking price on account of there being a mass murder under its roof. Fair enough. After 28 days however, the Lutz family can't take living in the property any longer - running from their home and into the loving arms of the press, who gladly spread and exaggerated their story to terrify the population for generations to come.

The experiences the Lutz family went through include levitating in their beds, being watched by a strange pig-like creature in the windows, and finding green slime oozing from their walls; alongside the standard drop in temperature and movement of inanimate objects that comes hand in hand with haunting stories. Upon exorcising their home, a voice shouted at them to "get out!"

Get out they did, and proved their story by passing numerous lie detector tests. By Jeremy Kyle standards - that's a bona fide haunting.