15 Horror Movies That Inspired Real-Life Crimes

When it comes to iconic horror antagonist, Halloween’s Michael Myers ranks up there with the likes of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that just like his villainous peers he too has inspired a couple of brutal crimes.

In 1982 a little over a year after the release of the first Halloween sequel, a California man named Richard Delmer Boyer decided to rob married couple Aileen and Francis Harbitz, both in their late sixties, while high on PCP and cocaine. While in their home, Boyer claims to have suffered a drug-induced flashback that made him believe he was being attacked by Michael Myers but during which he actually murdered Aileen and Francis.

More recently, in 2012 Texan teen Jake Evans shot his 48-year-old mother Jamie Evans and his 15-year-old sister Mallory to death in their home after repeated viewings of Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween remake.

In a written confession released to the media after his arrest, Evans detailed the movie’s opening scene in which a young Michael Myers kills his family and said, “I was amazed at how at ease the boy was during the murders and how little remorse he had afterward. I was thinking to myself it would be the same for me when I kill someone.”