Ten Paranormal Movies/Television Series to Watch On Amazon Prime in January 2020

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Scary Movies and Series

It’s winter, it’s cold and well it’s perfect for watching supernatural horror. So we’ve put together a list of the best paranormal movies and television series on Amazon Prime right now to keep you entertained during these cold months. Maybe save The Shining for a nice snowed in some wintery night.. or not. We will be updating this list on a monthly basis as new titles become available and older titles leave.

January 2020

10.) The Woman in Black

Director: James Watkins

Writers: Jane Goldman

Cast:  Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer, Sophie Stuckey, Liz White

Arthur Kipps, a lawyer, is recently widowed and grieving from the loss of his wife when he is sent to a remote village. Soon after his arrival, it becomes clear that the villagers are hiding a terrible secret. Kipps discovers that his late client’s house, for which he is there, is haunted by the spirit of a woman who is trying to find someone and something she lost, and no one is safe from her.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 67%

9.) The Innkeepers

Director/Writers: Ti West

Cast: Sara Paxton, Pat Healy, Kelly McGillis

When two employees at a New England hotel decide to investigate stories of hauntings and ghosts, their actions waken an unwanted presence.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

8.) Carrie (1976)

Director: Brian DePalma

Writers: Lawrence D. Cohen

Cast: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta, William Katt, Nancy Allen, Betty Buckley

In this adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel, secluded and sensitive teen Carrie White faces taunting and teasing from classmates at school and abuse from her mother at home. When strange occurrences start happening around Carrie, she begins to suspect that she has supernatural powers. Invited to the prom by the empathetic Tommy Ross, Carrie tries to let her guard down, but things eventually take a dark and violent turn.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

7.) The Blair Witch Project

Directors/Writers: Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick

Cast: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard

Found video footage tells the tale of three film students who’ve traveled to a small town to collect documentary footage about the Blair Witch, a local legend. Over the course of several days, the students interview townspeople and gather clues to support the tale’s truth. But the project takes a frightening turn when the students lose their way in the woods and begin hearing horrific noises.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 87%

6.) Hereditary

Writer/Director: Ari Aster

Cast: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Millie Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Gabriel Byrne

When the grandmother of the Graham family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry, trying to outrun the sinister fate they have inherited.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

5.) The Shining

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Diane Johnson

Cast:  Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd

Jack Torrance becomes the winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his writer’s block. He settles in along with his wife, Wendy, and his son, Danny, who is cursed by psychic premonitions. As Jack’s writing goes nowhere and Danny’s visions become more disturbing, Jack discovers the hotel’s dark secrets and begins to unravel into a homicidal maniac terrorizing his family.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

4.) A Quiet Place

Director: John Krasinski

Writers: Bryan Woods and Scott Beck

Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe

A family must live in silence to avoid mysterious creatures that hunt by sound. Knowing that even the slightest whisper, pen drop, or footstep can bring death, Evelyn and Lee are determined to find a way to protect their children while searching for a way to fight back.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

3.) The Exorcist (1973)

Director: William Friedkin

Writers: William Peter Blatty

Cast:  Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn, Jack MacGowran, Jason Miller, Linda Blair

This tale of an exorcism is based loosely on actual events. When the young daughter Regan starts acting odd, levitating, speaking in tongues her worried mother seeks medical help, only to hit a dead end. A priest, however, thinks the girl may be possessed by the devil. The priest makes a request to perform an exorcism.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

2.) The Babadook

Director/Writers: Jennifer Kent

Cast: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall, Hayley McElhinney, Barbara West, Ben Winspear

A single mother, grieving from the violent death of her husband, battles with her son’s fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her and her family.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

1.) The Evil Dead (1981)

Director/Writers: Sam Raimi

Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker

Ashley “Ash” Williams, his girlfriend and three pals hike into the woods to a cabin for a fun night away from it all. There they find an old book, the Necronomicon, and the text reawakens the dead when it’s read aloud. The friends not knowingly, release a flood of evil and must fight for their lives or become one of the evil dead. Ash watches his friends become possessed, and must make a difficult decision before daybreak to save his own life.

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

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Texas Chainsaw Massacre True Story

Categories
Featured Scary Movies and Series

Was There a Real Life Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

The obnoxious sound of Leatherface’s chainsaw slicing through the wall in a decrepit, bone-filled house off the beaten path will strike pure terror in anyone’s heart. In fact, it is possible that many people would drop dead of a heart attack right away if they actually saw Leatherface in real life. Chainsaws are most certainly real.  Masks of flesh are most certainly possible. And deranged cannibalistic psychopaths are absolutely possible.  So, did the Texas chainsaw massacre happen in real life, is there a true story behind it?

Was Ed Gein the Inspiration for Leatherface?

1974 horror movie poster for Texas Chainsaw massacre claiming it is based on a true story featuring a masked man with a chainsaw and a tied up woman
Original Texas Chainsaw Massacre poster hinting that the movie was based on a true story.

Movie Marketing at it’s Finest

As seen above in the poster, the marketing for Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s original 1974 release certainly made claims that it was based on a true story. “What happened is true. Now the motion picture that’s just as real” is the sub text of the movie title.

The Real Inspiration for Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Despite beliefs that Texas Chainsaw Massacre was inspired by a true story, Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its 2003 remake were actually based only loosely on Ed Gein, who is suspected to have taken victims between 1954 and 1957. The most notable similarity is the house in the movies, whose grisly contents were similar to those in Gein’s home seen below.

Edward Theodore Gein Born August 27, 1906 – July 26, 1984, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American murderer and body snatcher. Gein’s crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes from their bones and skin. Gein also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954 and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957. – Wikipedia

Gein was initially found unfit to stand trial and confined to a mental health facility. By 1968, he was judged competent to stand trial; he was found guilty of the murder of Worden, but he was found legally insane and was remanded to a psychiatric institution. He died at Mendota Mental Health Institute of respiratory failure, on July 26, 1984, aged 77. He is buried next to his family in the Plainfield Cemetery, in a now-unmarked grave. – Wikipedia

The Texas Chainsaw movies undoubtedly inspired by Ed Gein. Furniture that has been made out of bone and flesh, Leatherface’s masks made from the flesh of human faces, and a truly unkempt home are all parts of the movies that were inspired by Ed Gein. Still, there are real life examples of home decor, furnishings and masks found made by Ed Gein that show this type of corpse and body mutilation is more than possible, psychologically.  There are many documented cases of human cannibalism, some close to home in the past and some abroad in third world territories still occurring today. Obviously there are murders all the time. 

And thus, yes it is more than possible for a corpse mutilating, murdering cannibal to exist. Yes, it is possible for a real life Texas Chainsaw Massacre to happen. YES, it is possible for a real life Leatherface to exist.

What Would a Real Life Texas Chainsaw Massacre Be Like?

There are many components of a true Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie.  Here are some of the most commonly found attributes which make a Leatherface movie, a real Leatherface movie.

Unsuspecting Victims

Unfortunately for the victims, most do not realize what is happening until it is already too late. Leatherface may be really scary, but he usually does not show up right away. Instead, his family first begins interacting with the victims, almost as though they are normal, contributing members of society.  The victims usually have an ultra low guard by the time they are any where near Leatherface himself.

Tow Trucks and/or Immobile Vehicle Graveyard

A lot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre films feature tow trucks that respond to victim car crashes, and/or a full-on vehicle graveyard.  The vehicles in this graveyard are always immobile and appear as though they may have been there for a long while.

Gas Station and/or Rest Stop

The Leatherface movies almost always start out on the road somehow, and the victims almost always end up stopping at a gas station or a rest stop of some kind for one reason or another.  Usually, it is for gas. Sometimes, they get directions.  It is always unwise to follow those directions…but they usually do!

Blood

There would be lots and lots of blood in a real life Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Sawyers (or Hewitts, depending upon which part of the franchise you are watching) are cannibals and furniture artists…and they prefer human-only parts!  This means being fully comfortable with cutting, slicing and dicing up human flesh and body parts. Not to mention the actual murders themselves.

Human Flesh and Bone Furnishings

Leatherface and his family love crafting the flesh and bone of their victims into furniture.  Their house is absolutely decorated with human body parts. There are human face lamps. There are chairs made of bone.  And a variety of other furnishings and horror decor.

Fun Fact: Did you know you can actually BUY Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Leatherface Inspired Horror Decor?

Yummy Dinner

Leatherface drags victims through his house and into his room for butchering, collecting parts for use in his family’s famous cannibal soup.

From Ed Gein to…???

leatherface ed with cleaver illustration

The funny thing about people like Ed Gein (only a grave robber and corpse mutilator) and serial killers is that normally they are discovered after the fact.  This means, unfortunately, if there could be a real life Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that it could be happening already.  So be careful out there on those Texas highways…and never take any unfamiliar detours not on your GPS!!  As one simply never knows when a real life Texas Chainsaw Massacre could be taking place off the beaten path, on some dirt road somewhere!

Check out Surprising Facts About Leatherface and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Movies to learn more!

Sources

Wikipedia

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