It’s late at night, you’re looking for something to watch on Netflix or on VOD and decide that just before going to bed it would be best to put on a horror movie. You’re not afraid, at least that’s what you tell yourself, and as the movie progresses, you find that the thing that preoccupies you the most is throwing at the movie “No, such a thing can’t happen in reality.” But while most people finish the movie and move on with their lives, there are those who actually draw inspiration from them and start planning their own murder.
Take for example the 17-year-old cousins Mario Padilla and his 14-year-old cousin Samuel Ramirez, who in 1998 decided to draw inspiration from two films “the scream” the popular. After watching both movies, Padilla convinced his cousin to hold his mother on the floor and stabbed her to death with four knives and a screwdriver. If that wasn’t enough, after their arrest they admitted that they planned to purchase two costumes and voice-altering accessories in order to be as similar as possible The famous “shout”.
According to the police, evidence was found against the two indicating their desire to murder at least five more people, including Padilla’s classmate, who was described as very similar to Drew Barrymore, who played one of the first victims in the original “Scream” movie.
- “We decided it was time for everyone to walk their own path” Statik and Ben Al Hasof
Another horror movie brand that became the inspiration for the murder is “the night of the masqueradeIt featured the character of Michael Myers, a 6-year-old boy who murdered his sister and returned 15 years later to continue the killing spree. The second film in the series, released in 1981, led a year later to a horrific murder case, in which a man named Richard Dalmer imitated almost exactly A scene from the movie and the murder of two elderly people in their home.
According to the indictment filed against Dalmer, in December 1982 he went to the home of a couple for whom he worked as a gardener and murdered them both. The court dismissed the indictment after Dahlmer’s confession was obtained through illegal means, but Dahlmer himself admitted in 1984 that he did not remember the murder at all because he consumed drugs and experienced a hallucination in which he believed he was in the movie “Night of the Masks 2”.
Jump to 2004. In September of that year, in London, a man named Daniel Gonzalez decided to fulfill his dream and become a serial killer while imitating two iconic characters from the horror genre – Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Jason (Friday the 13th). The inspiration? the film “Freddie vs. Jason” released in 2003.
In three days, Gonzalez murdered four people and attempted to murder two more. He attacked them all with a knife, while wearing a hockey mask – Jason’s trademark. After his arrest he was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was sent for testing after he told the police that “the dream was to know what it felt like to be Freddy Krueger”.
the franchise toothe saw” was not left behind, when in 2007 it became a horrible reality. For those who don’t know, the movie series features the character of Jigsaw, who kidnaps people for his pleasure and forces them to go through “death games” in order to escape.
In 2007, as mentioned, two girls caused an elderly woman to have a stroke, after they sent her a text message stating that one of her friends had been hidden in her house and that the house was about to be filled with poisonous gas. In 2011, one of the film’s fans even went further and tortured another person in order to give him the secret code to his credit card. He then stabbed him to death and tried to imitate a well-known scene from the movie where the victim is separated from his spine.
Jumping in time again, to 2016. The horror movie genre has long been looking for a way to renew itself and found it in 2013 with the movie “the purge“, in which, according to the plot, the USA is controlled by a party that allows once a year, for 12 hours, to commit any crime, no matter how heinous, in order to prevent crime the rest of the time.
Three years after the release of the film, 19-year-old Jonathan Cruise decided to test the plot in a practical way. Cruz went on a four-day trip where he murdered three people. In the end, one of Cruz’s acquaintances, who admitted to the police that he arranged to supply her with drugs and bragged about how he had shot another man in the head. According to her, he even wanted to show her a video recording one of the acts. The same evidence that Mr. Cruz would later use to convict him.
For example, one of the text messages found on his cell phone read “I clean every night now.” In court, Cruz confessed to the acts he committed and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of early release.