7 Horror Movies With Creepy Urban Legends

You'd think that after all these years, just the words 'based on a true story' would be enough to strike fear into the hearts of cinema-goers the world over. When horror movies become real, then so do all their unsettling subject matters, like the potential to be violently axe-murdered as if in The Strangers, or sucked into a fleshy alien pod for experiments like Fire in the Sky. Even when you know they're exaggerations for entertainment's sake, nothing's scarier than a little seed of truth when it comes to horror movies.

And sometimes, those true stories branch out from the confines of the screen and take root in the real-life production process, too. We've all heard tell of cursed movie sets and actors haunted by their film parts that only deserve a dismissive scoff, but still - there's some legendary production stories out there that are just TOO inexplicable to be simply brushed aside once you get to the bottom of their sensational stories.

Looking at some of the more outlandish claims of the horror industry then, let's see what truth we can find lurking in the darkness, since reality is the horror movie we're all forced to live through. And of course, it's the scariest one of them all...

Back in the day, making a big movie about religion and the devil would stir up all sorts of controversy - and if you ask producer William Castle, he'd tell you that controversy wasn't just levelled from our plane of existence. He was certain that supernatural effects had taken hold of the film production, with a series of dark events playing out that suggested the film's evil was being reflected in reality.

First, the composer of the film was knocked into a coma at a party, falling from an escarpment and dying four months later in a strange parallel to Rosemary's friend Hutch. Then Castle - as the man who sourced the story and functioned as one of the founding pillars of its creation - suffered terribly with gallstones to the point that he had to get them surgically removed, and has never had a hit movie since.

By far the most infamous and scary event to unfold from filming is of course the death of heavily pregnant Sharon Tate however, wife to director Roman Polanski that was murdered in their home by Charles Manson and his followers. She had appeared in the film as an extra, and was quoted as calling the devil 'beautiful' by a friend after her passing.

The links between all the supernatural elements of the movie and their real-life tragedies are terrifying to tie together. "The story of Rosemary's Baby was happening in real life. Witches, all of them, were casting their spell,” Castle has said of the project.