10 True Ghost Stories That Inspired Horror Films

Based on the novel of the same name by Frank De Felitta, Audrey Rose recounts the story of a young girl that is killed in a car crash, only to be reincarnated in another body and discovered by her grieving father halfway around the world. Bringing the ideologies of Hinduism and reincarnation to the forefront of the film, director Robert Wise created a psychological horror piece that seems far too crazy to be true.

But, with all movie magic aside, it actually is. The film had a grounding in reality that was extremely close to home for De Felitta, though it was his son Raymond that inspired the events of the novel rather than a little girl.

The author wrote the book and subsequent screenplay after witnessing his Raymond exhibit knowledge he had no way of accessing - becoming proficient in ragtime piano with zero prior training on the instrument. When De Felitta questioned his son on how he was performing such a complication piano piece, he exclaimed that it was 'his hands doing it' of their own accord.

After speaking with a Los Angeles Occulist named Barbara Ryan, she claimed that it was a memory from a past life coming through into his current one, a skill that a previous version of his son would have learned rather than a freak coincidence on the family piano: namely, an 'incarnation leak'. Raymond is apparently a soul that has been through many lifetimes, and can pick up where he left off in the last one at will.