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This compelling documentary series digs deep into notorious real-life murders and paranormal events and explores how Hollywood turned them into its most memorable thrillers.
2017
Ted Bundy was one of the most notorious serial killers in history when author Thomas Harris used him as his inspiration for the murderous "Buffalo Bill" in The Silence of the Lambs. With stars Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins on board, the film became a grisly box office hit and surprise Oscar winner for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress.
It's a home right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. But behind the walls of the picturesque three-story house on 112 Ocean Avenue, in lay a deep dark secret. It was the site of brutal mass murder the residents of Amityville thought would never happen in their small town. Six people dead, including four children. Why would someone kill a seemingly innocent family as they slept in their beds? This is the Shocking Truth behind The Amityville Horror.
It's 1949 and a strange series of inexplicable events have turned a small brick home in St. Louis into a scene straight from hell. A 13-year-old boy is at the center of a series of bizarre happenings - objects that fly across the room, furniture that levitates and bloody words spontaneously carved onto skin - which become The Shocking Truth behind the horror classic The Exorcist.
Henry Hill knew he wanted to be a gangster by the time he was 13 years old. But after 20 years of gambling, arson and drug dealing and the infamous Luftansa Heist, he was running for his life. This is the Shocking Truth behind the Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.
A cold-blooded killer begins his reign of terror in 1969. A panicked San Francisco lies in the grip of fear. Nobody knows where - or when - he will strike next. In his taunts to local police and newspapers, the killer claims to have murdered as many as 37 people. A chilling mystery is about to unfold. How did visionary director David Fincher turn this story into what critics call the gold standard for fact-based serial killing thrillers?
The Conjuring is one of the scariest movies of all time, but the shocking truth is that the horrifying events that happened in the movie really happened to the Perron Family in their Harrisville farmhouse back in the early '70s.
On the surface, he looks perfectly harmless. But behind those innocent looking eyes is the soul of a killer. Norman Bates from Psycho is one of the most memorable psychopaths in movie history. But the inspiration for the character was all too real. Ed Gein was known as "the Butcher of Plainfield" a sadistic psychopath who made horrifying souvenirs from the body parts of his victims. His crimes were committed against the living - and the dead. Like Norman Bates, he developed an unhealthy bond with his mother. And his devotion to her - even after her death - led him to commit unspeakable acts that shocked a nation.
As the heir to a billion dollar fortune, John Eleuthere du Pont, could buy whatever or whoever he wanted. When the avid wrestling fan persuades gold-medal winner Dave Schultz to join his team, he thinks he's getting the chance of a lifetime. In Foxcatcher the chilling story of delusion and paranoia, Director Bennett Miller, asks where the line between insanity and obsession is drawn and how far someone will go to get what they want?
In 1957, Charles Starkweather went on a killing spree that shocks people to this day. With his girlfriend Caril Anne Fugate in tow, the two cut a swath across the peaceful Nebraska countryside leaving bodies in their wake. The story is iconic enough to inspire several movies, most notably Oliver Stone's hyper-kinetic jet-black satire Natural Born Killers. Why does a road trip murder spree from the 50s still fascinate us decades later. discover the shocking truth.
Danish flight attendant Helle Crafts goes mysteriously missing after starting divorce proceedings against her philandering husband. Her body is never found but police discover enough evidence on a wood chipper to arrest and convict her killer. How did this horrible crime provide the grisly inspiration for the acclaimed black comedy and Oscar winning film Fargo?
Richard Mallory was an electronics-store owner in Florida who went missing November 30, 1989. When county police discovered his car the next day, they suspected foul play, but no one could have imagined that this was the first step in a killing spree that would last almost a year. Extensive police investigation finally led to the capture, conviction and execution of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute grifter who became the centre of a media firestorm during her time on death row and the focus of the Academy Award winning drama Monster.
During the summer of 1916, the resort beaches of the Jersey Shore ran red with blood. For 12 days the Jersey man-eater terrorized the Eastern Seaboard. Five people were attacked and only one survived, leaving the public and scientists wondering just what was in the water - and when it would strike again?
2018
The Godfather tells the gripping tale of the Corleone family and their struggle for power in the bloody world of organized crime in 1950s New York. The film was a box office smash that reignited the gangster picture, but the brutal gangland violence on screen had nothing compared to The Shocking Truth of real life mobster Frank Costello.
"Friday The 13th" is the story of a group of teenagers who are stalked and murdered while trying to reopen a summer camp at Crystal Lake. But the shocking truth is that the film is based on the real life murders of three teenagers at Lake Bodom, Finland.
Before there was a Freddy Krueger, there was the night terror. The horror icon wasn't born in a boiler room, but he did originate in troubling dreams. A string of real-world deaths inspired the A "Nightmare on Elm Street" films. Witnesses and survivors didn't report a burn-scarred face or a striped sweater. Death came without warning or explanation, while its victims slept. In the late 1970s to the mid 80s, more than 110 men died in their sleep. Until their quiet final moments, they were young and healthy. Their families were stunned. Investigators were bewildered. With the victims all being Asian, medical authorities named the sleep scourge "Asian Death Syndrome." Witnesses and families called it the night terror. The first case was reported in California's Orange County in 1977. By the summer of 1981, 20 people had fallen victim to the night terror. Authorities and medical responders were powerless as men across the country went to sleep and never woke up.
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