The Real Story Behind 10 "Based On A True Story" Horror Films
3. The Conjuring
The pitch: James Wan's follow-up to his success with the Insidious films was hit 2013 horror The Conjuring, a film that gained a marketing boost by selling itself as: "based on the true case files of the Warrens". Claiming to tell a real story of Ed and Lorraine Warren (here played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) and their investigations into sinister events at the Rhode Island farmhouse of the Perron family (Lili Taylor and Ron Livingstone), it went on to become one of the most commercially successful horror films of all time. The real story: Unusually for the stories on this list, The Conjuring uses real names and settings. Producer Tony DeRosa-Grund had been trying to get a film made since hearing a recording of the Perrons while the Warrens were still active. As such, the film had the approval of the real life participants. Lorraine Warren, who is still alive, acted as a consultant and had a cameo in the finished film, while oldest daughter Andrea Perron (who has her own book on the subject and was played in the film by Shanley Caswell) described the film as true aside from "a few discrepancies". So, the Perrons did indeed move into a Rhode Island farmhouse in the early 1970s and reported it possessed, filled with the stench of rotting flesh and poltergeist activity, and they did really call the Warrens in to investigate. It is also true that the Warrens claimed the cause of the spirit activity was a long dead local witch Bathsheba (who was also a real person) and recommended an exorcism. Creepy doll Annabelle, who receives her own lesser spin-off this month, is also based on a separate incident reported by the Warrens. Have we finally found a "true story" horror that is actually true then? Well, that depends on your willingness to believe the evidence of the Perrons and the Warrens (who, as we have already seen, were not always committed to a separation of fact and fiction). There is no evidence of any of this ghostly activity beyond their own accounts, so your view of the movie's "truth" will depend entirely on whether you believe the characters' stories.
