The Shocking Truth

The Fugitive

Night of the Living Dead

Saw

Scream

The Godfather

The Best Picture winner for 1972 has several underworld inspirations. Don Vito A. Corleone is based on real mob boss Frank Costello. Don Corleone was born in the same year as Costello, and like Costello earned vast illegal incomes from gambling and bootlegging, and enjoyed unrivalled political clout through friends in the power. Carlo Gambino's life also inspired Don Corleone's character. Both were low-key gangsters, and quite different from their contemporaries. Gambino was careful enough never to be imprisoned, and died in his own home. Like Gambino, Don Corleone had three sons and a daughter. Also like Don Corleone, Gambino's activities came under heavy FBI scrutiny with wiretaps, bugs and lip-readers being employed to gather evidence, but Gambino knew how to conduct his business "in silence" and escaped without any jail time.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

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.

Poltergeist

The story that inspired the "Poltergeist" film is explored.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The story behind "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." The movie was inspired by real-life witness testimony, as well as a series of UFO sightings in Michigan in the summer of 1966.

Casino

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest