15 Horror Movies That Inspired Real-Life Crimes

Set in a near-future America in which for a 12-hour period each year all crime (murder included) is legal, dystopian horror series The Purge is supposed to “reflect something in American society about how we look at violence” according to its creator James DeMonaco. That message clearly fell flat for some Americans who took the premise a little too literally.

Last year, 19-year-old Indiana man Jonathan Cruz went on a one-man purge when he shot and killed three men over a four-day period. During the same timespan he also committed a number of other crimes including bodily injury, intimidation and armed robbery and reportedly sent text messages to friends referencing the movie including one reading “I purge every night now”.

There’s also been a few incidents of people trying to incite purges in their own cities like in Louisville, Kentucky in 2014 when a bored teen proposed a local purge on Twitter. The city went on virtual lockdown but thankfully the citizens of Louisville were luckier than Cruz’s victims and nothing came of the incident.

It later came to light the teen tweeter had only been joking and though he wasn’t charged with any crime he probably learned an important lesson about what not to post on social media.