13 Iconic Horror Movies Inspired by Real-Life Events

What's real: The Haunting in Connecticut is based on very real — and very unsettling — events. People has written about the details of the family's haunting. In real life, Carmen Reed's son did have cancer. The whole family described "a malevolent force that took different forms and would on occasion slap, grope, [or] threaten" them. Reed said, "My son started seeing this young man with long black hair down all the way to his hips . . . he would talk to my son every day. Sometimes he would threaten him, other times he would stand there and just say his name." Nope.