There are certain movies that quite literally stop your heart. And not in a good way.
Here are a few movies based on real-life serial killers that will make your stomach churn. Read at your own risk… just saying!
1. Monster (2003)
Aileen Carol Wuornos (February 29, 1956 – October 9, 2002) was an American serial killer who killed seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Wuornos claimed that her victims had either raped or attempted to rape her while she was working as a prostitute, and that all of the homicides were committed in self-defense. She was convicted and sentenced to death for six of the murders and was executed by the State of Florida by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.
2. Badlands (1973)
This film is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958, though such a basis was not acknowledged when the film was released. Charles Raymond “Charlie” Starkweather was an infamous American teenaged spree killer who murdered eleven people in the states of Nebraska and Wyoming in a two-month murder spree committed between December 1957 and January 1958. All but one of Starkweather’s victims were killed between January 21 and January 29, 1958 (the date of his arrest). In all the murders committed in 1958, Starkweather was accompanied by his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate. Starkweather was executed seventeen months later; Fugate served seventeen years in prison before her release from incarceration in 1976.
3. To Catch A Killer
John Wayne Gacy was convicted of the torture, rape and murder of 33 males between 1972 until his arrest in 1978. He was dubbed the “Killer Clown” because he entertained kids at parties as “Pogo The Clown.” He ended up in prison after being convicted of trying to sodomize a young boy when he refused to perform oral sex. After getting out, he began luring young men to his home where he would then torture, rape and brutally kill them. One tactic he used to lure them to his house was calling them to his house on the pretext of talking about a job. When one of these boys did not return home, the police became suspicious; Gacy, in his usual bizarre behavior, invited the police in for coffee. When overwhelmed by a strong odour, they searched his apartment, where they uncovered 29 male bodies, ranging in age from nine years old to their mid-20s. After he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1980, he continued to taunt authorities with different versions of his story about the murders in an attempt to stay alive. On May 10, 1994, Gacy was executed by lethal injection.
4. Ed Gein
When police went to Ed Gein’s farm home to investigate the disappearance of a local woman, they had no idea they were about to discover some of the most grotesque crimes ever committed. He grew up with an alcoholic father and a mother who used to teach him about the evils of sex and women. After her death, he became obsessed with the female anatomy and sexual fantasies; he began digging up graves for bodies,including his mother’s body. This went on for 10 years. His experiments involved necrophilia and cannibalism, constructing masks out of his victims’ skin and draping them on himself. He even made a complete body-sized female-like jumpsuit.
When another woman went missing,the trail led to Gein. His house revealed horror beyond imagination: Everywhere they looked they saw various body parts, some used as household items such as skulls made into bowls, jewelry made from human skin, lips hanging, chair seats with human skin upholstery, facial skin that was well preserved and resembled masks, a box of vulva’s among which was his mothers, painted silver.Gein was committed to the Waupun State Hospital for the duration of his life. It was revealed that his reasons for killing older women stemmed from his love-hate feelings for his mother.
5. The Boston Strangler
In the Boston area, beginning in June 1962 and ending in January 1964, 13 women were killed, mainly by strangulation, and sexually assaulted. Most of the victims were found with their own nylons wrapped several times around their neck and tied with a bow.The victims ranged in age from 19 to 85 years of age.In October of 1964, a young woman reported a man claiming to be a detective tied her to her bed and began to rape her. He suddenly stopped, apologized, and left.Her description helped police to figure DeSalvo as the assailant. Several women came forward to accuse him of accosting them when his picture was released to the newspapers. He is reputed to have raped over 300 women (as many as six a day) in four states in a two year period. An inmate, George Nassar, turned in DeSalvo to the authorities as the Boston Strangler in order to collect the reward that was offered for information concerning the murders, it was later discovered that they had made a deal that part of the reward money would be sent to DeSalvo’s wife. DeSalvo confessed to the murders.
Problems occurred when the only survivor of the Boston Strangler failed to identify DeSalvo as the attacker and insisted that George Nassar was her attacker. DeSalvo was never charged with any of the murders. Famous lawyer F. Lee Bailey represented him on the Green Man crimes for which he was found guilty and received a life sentence.
DeSalvo was stabbed to death by another inmate in Walpole Prison in 1973.
6. Dahmer
This movie is based on the life of Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, who was an American serial killer, rapist, cannibal- some cases which also included necrophilia. When police officers spotted Tracy Edwards running down the street in handcuffs, they investigated and found a few Polaroid photos of dismembered bodies in Dahmer’s apartment, and he was arrested. The officers found a very grisly scene- In addition to photo albums full of pictures of body parts, the apartment was littered with human remains: Several heads were in the refrigerator and freezer; two skulls were on top of the computer; and a 57-gallon drum containing several bodies decomposing in chemicals was found in a corner of the bedroom. There was also evidence to suggest that Dahmer had been eating some of his victims.  He was sentenced to 15 life terms, but was killed by another inmate on November 28, 1994.
7. Helter Skelter
The Manson “Family”, which included Charles Manson and his young, loyal disciples of murder—is thought to have carried out some 35 killings. He was pathologically deluded into believing that he was harbinger of doom regarding the planet’s future.
On August 9, 1969, along with his most trusted comrades – Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian- he murdered his first victims, actress Sharon Tate, writer Wojciech Frykowski and his partner, the coffee bean heiress Abigail Folger, and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring, at Roman Polanski’s Beverly Hills home. According to one of the Family member’s statements, the Polanksi household had been targeted because it represented Manson’s rejection by the showbiz world and society.
The most inhumane killing was that of Sharon Tate, who was mercilessly stabbed in the stomach by Susan Atkins despite pleading for the life of her unborn child. Atkins then used Tate’s blood to write the word “pig” on the front door.
On the following night, Manson and some of his followers murdered wealthy supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife at their house in a similar fashion.
They were sentenced to life in prison.
8. Zodiac (2007)
The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer’s identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa, and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women between the ages of 16 and 29 were targeted. The killer originated the name “Zodiac” in an August 7, 1969 letter to the local Bay Area press, which was just one in a series of taunting letters. These letters included four cryptograms. Of the four cryptograms sent, only one has been definitively solved.
Suspects have been named by law enforcement and amateur investigators, but no conclusive evidence has surfaced. In April 2004, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) marked the case “inactive”, yet re-opened the case at some point prior to March 2007. The case also remains open in the city of Vallejo, as well as in Napa County and Solano County.The California Department of Justice has maintained an open case file on the Zodiac murders since 1969.
9. Speck
Richard Benjamin Speck was an American mass murderer who systematically tortured, raped, and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital on July 14, 1966. Armed with only a knife, he broke into a townhouse which was functioning as a dormitory for several young student nurses, killing all the 8 women residing there; Just one managed to escape by hiding under a bed. Speck held the women in the house for hours, methodically leading them out of the room one by one, stabbing or strangling them to death, then finally raping and strangling his last victim. Speck later claimed he had no recollection of the murders, but he had confessed the crime to Dr. LeRoy Smith at the Cook County Hospital. Speck, age 49, died from a heart attack in prison on December 5, 1991.
Speck said when he killed the nurses he “had no feelings”, but things had changed: “I had no feelings at all that night. They said there was blood all over the place. I can’t remember. It felt like nothing … I’m sorry as hell. For those girls, and for their families, and for me. If I had to do it over again, it would be a simple house burglary.”
10. The Deliberate Stranger
Ted” Bundy was an American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. Shortly before his execution, after more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. The true victim count remains unknown, and could be much higher.
Bundy was regarded as handsome and charismatic by his young female victims, traits he exploited to win their trust. He typically approached them in public places, feigning injury or disability, or impersonating an authority figure, before overpowering and assaulting them at more secluded locations. He sometimes revisited his secondary crime scenes for hours at a time, grooming and performing sexual acts with the decomposing corpses until putrefaction and destruction by wild animals made further interaction impossible. He decapitated at least 12 of his victims, and kept some of the severed heads in his apartment for a period of time as mementos. On a few occasions he simply broke into dwellings at night and bludgeoned his victims as they slept.
Initially incarcerated in Utah in 1975 for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault, Bundy became a suspect in a progressively longer list of unsolved homicides in multiple states. Facing murder charges in Colorado, he engineered two dramatic escapes and committed further assaults, including three murders, before his ultimate recapture in Florida in 1978. He received three death sentences in two separate trials for the Florida homicides.
Ted Bundy died in the electric chair at Raiford Prison in Starke, Florida, on January 24, 1989.
Good night.