Real Horror Movies That Were Based on True Events

The Conjuring, 2013

Conjuring depicts the 18th-century farmhouse in Rhode Island where Roger and Carolyn Perron (Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston) and their five daughters allegedly were terrified and even possessed by spirits.

Ed Warren died in 2006, but Lorraine, now 86, was a consultant on the film and remains a paranormal investigator. She insists that many of the movie’s harrowing moments actually happened.

“The things that went on there were just so incredibly frightening,” she says, citing her own investigation nearly 40 years ago. “It still affects me to talk about it today.”

Roger and his wife Carolyn Perron moved into their Harrisville, Rhode Island home in 1970. Built in 1736, the country home surrounded by 200 acres was the ideal spot for them to raise their five daughters: Andrea, Nancy, Christine, Cynthia, and April. However, it didn’t take long for the home’s older inhabitants to make their presence known.

From almost the first day, they family began to notice several bizarre occurrences. Strange voices in the middle of the night and furniture moving about of it’s own accord was fairly common place. It wasn’t surprising considering that the house had been the home to several generations of families. For the most part, the spirits were harmless, but there was one ghost who didn’t appreciate having to share the home.

Born in 1812, Bathsheba Thayer was the mother of four children, three of whom died at a very young age. Although, during that time an infant’s death wasn’t all that uncommon, it did arouse suspicion in the local town. Some of the townsfolk even believed she was sacrificing her children to the devil, although these claims remained unsubstantiated. After several unexplained encounters with this not-so-friendly ghost, the Perron’s were convinced that Bathsheba was haunting their new home. Most of the Perron family had encountered Bathsheba at one time or another, but it seemed to focus a lot of its attention on Carolyn. Not only would it issue verbal warnings fairly regularly, Bathsheba likes to show up in “person” just to make sure she was really getting her message across.