Six Films Based on “True” Stories of the Supernatural
The Haunting in Connecticut
The Amityville Horror (1979):
No one has has ever legitimately proven the existence of ghosts. And yet every now and then a movie claims to be based on a “true” ghost story. These movies are suspiciously indistinguishable from ghost movies that were just made up. The trend started with this exploitation of the family who alleged their new Long Island home was a magnet for fly swarms, nightmares, green slime and a piglike creature. What motive would they have had to make it up? Meanwhile, witness three decades of books, television appearances and nine separate Amityville films, one in 3-D.
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988):
Anthropologist Wade Davis was pissed when Wes Craven turned his account of the alleged zombiefication of Haitian Clairvius Narcisse into a sleazy horror film. In reality, Davis’ claims have been, to put it lightly, debated.
The Mothman Prophecies (2002):
Between 1966 and 1967 in West Virgina, there were sightings of a giant bird-man, right around the time there were alleged visitations from UFOs, poltergeists and Bigfoot. A paranormal hotspot? Or just a particularly gullible W.V. town? Guess.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005):
In 1976, Anneliese Michel, a young mentally ill German woman, died when her devoutly Catholic parents refused her lifesaving treatment, preferring an exorcism. Her parents, as well as the priests involved, were convicted of negligent homicide, and rightly motherfucking so. Cut to the crazy religious Bush II era, and cynically calculating shlockmeisters rework it so she really is possessed, thus serving a cheap broadside against science and reason. (The German film Requiem, released concurrently, took a more realistic stance.)
An American Haunting (2006):
Reaching back to the 19th century, this merry bomb dug up the Bell Witch yarn, in which a Tennessee man was poisoned by a witch.
The Haunting in Connecticut (2009):
Just the one? Based on an episode of A Haunting, the black sheep of the Discovery Channel, this is yet another case of yeahrightsure.
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