15 Horror Movies That Inspired Real-Life Crimes

This one’s a bit of a weird case as the supposed murderer at the heart of the story, Sture Bergwall (aka Thomas Quick), later recanted his confessions and was released from the mental institution he was incarcerated in. But there is a Hannibal Lecter link in there somewhere, however tenuous.

In the early 90s Bergwall confessed to committing over 20 murders – some of which involved cannibalism – in Norway, Finland, Denmark and his native Sweden between the years of 1964 and 1993. The trouble with Bergwall’s confession though was that he was heavily drugged at the time and basically coerced into admitting information related to the crimes with the help of hints from his interrogators.

Nevertheless, between 1994 and 2001 Bergwall was convicted of eight of the murders he confessed to and reportedly encouraged by staff at the psychiatric facility he was incarcerated at to watch films like The Silence of the Lambs and even started comparing himself to erudite cannibal Dr Hannibal Lecter. It’s thought that the film gave Bergwall a few pointers as to how one convincingly confesses to cannibalism and murder.

Then in 2008, Bergwall retracted his confessions and thanks to a lack of any forensic evidence linking him to the murders was eventually released in 2013 in what became known as Sweden’s worst miscarriage of justice in history.

So, although Bergwall didn’t actually murder anyone it was partly with Hannibal Lecter’s help (along with his corrupt interrogators, of course) that he was able to confess to crimes he didn’t commit.