This Chilling Free-To-Watch Psychological Horror Inspired a Real-Life Serial Killer — but It's Totally Not What You'd Expect

It's not rare for a horror film to have been inspired by real-life atrocities. Ed Gein inspired the likes ofPsycho, Silence of the Lambs, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacrealone. It makes sense that filmmakers take inspiration from reality, especially those who want to tap into their audiences' genuine fears and anxieties. What is quite rare, though, is the film itself inspiring horrific crimes. Despite the moral panic in the 1980s and the subsequent Satanic Panic, leading American parents to believe that if their children watched horror movies or listened to metal music, they would turn into serial killers, art borrows from life much more often than life takes from art. But there is one instance from before this period that a film made a very big impression on the wrong person.