Scary movies with real life backgrounds

 
**The $25 Amazon Gift Certificate goes to... Brenda!**
Thanks, everyone, for your comments.


As Spooky Day approaches, I thought I'd take a look at some popular scary movies that have more behind them than just a screenwriter eager to cash in on the paranoramal craze. These are oldies but goodies, and if you haven't seen them (or if you have), you might want to search them out for your Halloween fright-fest. Your friends might not believe you when you them them the background of these movies!

Jack Nicholson in The Shining

The Shining (1980)

This movie takes place in an isolated location, a large and luxurious hotel that is closed down for the winter due to impassable roads. This means the few who remain (caretaker, etc.) are trapped there as both the snow and the isolation deepen. Terrible things have happened at the hotel and left ghostly impressions behind that aren't exactly friendly to the humans in their midst. It's a psychological drama as well as a horror movie that will have you breathing fast.

Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, CO

The background: The movie was based on the book The Shining by Stephen King. He was inspired to write it after a stay in Room 217 of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. In 1911, a housekeeper was nearly killed by a gas leak explosion in Room 217. Doors open and close and lights turn on and off by themselves in that room. Stephen King spotted the ghost of a small child who calls out to his nanny on the second floor. According the the staff, Room 418 is the most haunted room in the hotel. Ghosts of children playing can be heard in the hallway. The movie was not filmed in the Stanley Hotel, as many think, but the hotel does offer ghost tours and ghost hunts based on its many reported hauntings. EMF paranormal detectors are provided. There are tunnels beneath the hotel. Ooh!

Hollywood's Amityville Horror House

The Amityville Horror (1979)

In this movie, a newly married couple and their three children move into a large house on the coast of Long Island. They've been warned about the house's history by the real estate agent. A man had murdered his sister, two brothers, and father in the home, claiming that ghosts had lead him to do it. The couple bought the house anyway because it was perfect for their family and because the price was low due to the tragedy. But there's an evil spirit in the house, or is it the house itself that's evil?

112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, NY

The background: The movie was based on The Amityville Horror: A True Story by Jay Anson. The book was a purportedly factual accounting of the paranormal experiences of the family of George and Kathy Lutz. In 1974, Ronald DeFeao did murder his four relatives in the Amityville home at 112 Ocean Avenue. George and Kathy Lutz moved in, dismissing the warnings by locals that the house was haunted. The next 28 days convinced them otherwise. Among the sightings in the house were a little boy on the second story landing and a dark cloaked figure. The one that creeped me out the most was that daughter Missy had a ghost friend named Jodie. Missy described Jodie as an "angel who could change shapes" who told her "You'll live here forever." Uh oh. The Lutz family fled the house on a dark and stormy night.

Movie's Regan, possessed girl

The Exorcist (1973)


During the early 1970s, there were several movies dealing with possessed innocents (or not so innocents), including Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, and The Exorcist. Entertainment Weekly considers The Exorcist the scariest movie of all time, a prime endorsement for your Halloween entertainment. I've seen this movie several times, and it has me ready to run screaming from the room every time. Mom Chris MacNeil has a good relationship with her daughter Regan until the girl begins having seizures and levitating, all the while cursing creatively. After exhausting all other avenues (doctor, psychiatrist), Mom turns to a pair of priests to force the demon from her daughter.

Ronald E. Hunkeler,
possessed boy

The background: The movie was based on the book The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, describing the lengthy exorcism procedure performed on a teenage boy in 1949. The boy's name is Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. First in a private home and then in the psychiatric wing of Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, Fr. Raymond J. Bishop, Fr. Walter Halloran, and Rev. William S. Bowdern performed the ritual of exorcism. Rev. Bowdern took the main role; he was The Exorcist. The bed shook, Ronald spit and cursed, markings appeared on his body, and Ronald broke Father Halloran's nose while thrashing around in bed. A detailed diary was kept. Forty-one witnesses, including the priests who performed the ritual, signed statements that they believed the exorcism was authentic. Today Mr. Hunkeler is a married man with three children who lives in Maryland and has only vague memories of the events that took place when he was 14 years old.
 
What do you think of these supposedly true stories? Let me know by commenting below for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate. The drawing ends at midnight CST on November 2nd. Plenty of time to trick-or-treat and still enter!

I'm starting a Facebook fan page because my profile page is going to hit the 5,000 friend limit. Please like the Dakota Banks page, where you can enter a drawing to win a Nook Color e-reader (drawing ends November 15th). Let your friends know, too!

People are Scary

People are the scariest things out there. Or at least, they have the potential to be.

I’m in Colorado right now for a wedding, and had the chance to get together with some friends and just talk the other night. Since most of us were writers, we started talking writing (obviously) and then started telling stories about the creepiest things that have ever happened to us, or stories that we’ve heard.

I think everyone at some point has a brush with something inexplicable. At least once in their life, and sometimes more. And as we were sharing these stories, about strange figures seen in the middle of the night, fingers waving you into a creepy basement, or scary children with solid black eyes, one of the stories really stuck with me.

A friend of mine was up late, his parents were out of town, and he was all alone in his house. Around two in the morning he shut off all his lights, and passed by the front door to head up the stairs. And there, on the other side of the window next to the front door, was a man.

At two in the morning. Less than five feet from him. We all agreed that even with the ghost stories, a stranger outside the window was the scariest by far.

Like I said before, people are the scariest things out there. I think one of the things that makes urban fantasy novels so interesting is that, at the end of the day, it’s not about the scary vampires, or the blood-thirsty monsters: it’s about the people. On some level we’re conditioned to understand when the monster does something evil. But when it’s an ordinary person? Or worse yet, someone you used to consider a friend? That’s when we really get invested, and where the real fear starts.

In my YA novel, A Touch Mortal, one of the overarching plots of the book involves the war between Heaven and Hell, and some of the kids that are trapped in the middle. But it isn’t the angels in the book that strike a chord with me: it’s the teenagers. Lovable but damaged teenagers who make their choices listening only to the flood of emotions tangled up inside them. Some choose well. And others not so much.

But I think that’s what makes people so interesting. They have the potential to be super creepy, like popping up on a stranger’s doorstep at two in the morning and just STARING inside. Or like a best friend who decides he’d rather be evil than your friend anymore. Or like dating the bad boy who turns out to be REALLY bad. We expect monsters to try and hurt us, and we expect the supernaturals to be more than just a pretty face. We sympathize with their struggles. But at the end of the day, we all have to decide if we want to embrace our inner scariness.

What do you guys think? Leave me a comment and let me know.