Ever watch a horror movie involving a haunted house, as you tell yourself that it’s only a movie? We hate to break it to you, but some of the terrifying films to grace your screen were inspired by real places. From suburban homes to grand hotels, these locations are real-life backdrops of the movies that haunted audiences for decades. Here are the eight real houses that you might want to knock for trick-or-treat this Halloween.
8. The Changeling House (Denver, Colorado)
Remember the 1980s horror classic of The Changeling? In the late 1960s, composer Russell Hunter moved into a two-story mansion in Denver’s Chessman Park to compose music. Instead, he experienced violent haunting that involved banging and shaking the entire house. Hunter investigated and discovered a hidden third-story room where he saw journals of a young, sickly boy who died in the house a century earlier. He also discovered that the boy was a victim of a sinister plot to steal his inheritance.
7. The Snedeker House (Southington, Connecticut)
The 2009 film The Haunting in Connecticut is a real-life tragedy that involves the Snedeker family. In the 1980s, Carmen Snedeker rented a house in Southington, Connecticut, when they discovered mortuary tools of embalming equipment in the basement. With that, they experienced apparitions, temperature drops, and physical attacks by unseen forces. They contacted paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and claimed that a former mortician practices necromancy by using the bodies for dark rituals.
6. The Entity House (Culver City, California)
The 1982 film The Entity was inspired by a story of Doris Bither and her four children who experienced paranormal attacks in their Culver City home. Bither narrated experiences of being physically assaulted by unseen entities, which caught the attention of paranormal investigators from UCLA, including Dr. Barry Taff. The team documented strange happenings, including lights that would arc through the rooms, which would bend and disappear. They also captured Polaroid photos of the light anomaly.
5. Winchester Mystery House (San Jose, California)
This huge mansion in San Jose, California, has inspired numerous films and TV shows like Stephen King’s Rose Red. The legend claims that heiress Sarah Winchester built the house from 1886 until she died in 1922. A psychic told Winchester that she was haunted by the spirits of those killed by a Winchester rifle after the deaths of her husband and infant daughter. This resulted in a labyrinth-like 160-room home with 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, and 13 bathrooms to confuse and trap all vengeful spirits. Until this day, ghosts are said to roam the halls.
4. The Exorcist House (Bel-Nor, Missouri)
The Exorcist, inspired by William Peter Blatty’s novel, is one of the classic horror films of all time. It all happened in a brick home in Bel-Nor, Missouri, in 1949, where 14-year-old Roland Doe experienced paranormal phenomena after playing with a Ouija board. There are strange noises, moving furniture, and violent scratches seen in the boy’s body as the bed shakes. The Catholic Church was called to rescue, where priests documented the boy speaking in an odd voice with flying objects in the room.
3. The Conjuring House (Burrillville, Rhode Island)
The Conjuring is one of the most popular movies out there, appealing to the new generation. It centers on the centuries-old farmhouse about the Perron family from 1971, who experienced a decade of haunting in the Old Arnold Estate. It involves misplaced objects to physical attacks and apparitions. They claimed the spirit to be Bathsheba Sherman, who lived in the property in the 19th century and was rumored to be a Satanist. Since then, the house has had several owners who reported paranormal experiences.
2. The Stanley Hotel (Estes Park, Colorado)
The Shining is a classic film based on Stephen King’s iconic novel, which happens to be very real. It all happened in 1974 when King and his wife Tabitha stayed at the historic Stanley Hotel. King had a nightmare about his son being chased in the hotel’s hallways by a firehose, which inspired him to write The Shining. Also, the hotel itself has a long history of paranormal activity, with the ghost of Elizabeth Wilson, who was injured in a gas explosion in Room 217, where King stayed. There were claims of folding clothes and moving guests’ luggage.
1. The Amityville Horror House (Amityville, New York)
The Amityville haunting spawned a bestselling book and a massive film franchise with 45 movies. It actually happened in 1974 when Ronald DeFeo Jr. died after causing the death of his parents and four siblings. A year later, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the Dutch Colonial home for a bargain price. But for 28 days, they experienced paranormal phenomena like voices and forces that attacked them. The address has been changed from 112 to 108 Ocean Avenue, and the famous windows have been changed.