- Don't worry, despite the title,
this is not a creepy video or is it?
(creepy music)
Most of us like a good fictional monster movie,
probably for the most part
because they are in fact, fictional.
I mean, no one wants a creepy,
possessed doll like Chucky in the real world
but what if I told you that many monsters
including Chucky were actually based on real people?
(bats squeaking)
Here are 10 famous monsters based on real people.
(light music)
Number 10 is Chucky.
And the nightmares begin.
Featured in the 1988 film, Child's Play,
the twisted story of Chucky the doll
seems to have been influenced
by a legitimate case of doll possession.
In the film, a six-year old boy named Andy Barclay
discovers that his favorite doll
has been possessed by the ghost of a serial killer.
Throughout the film, Andy is blamed for several deaths
which really happened at the hands of the toy doll.
But this has several parallels
with the true story of Robert the doll.
Given to a young boy called Eugene
who lived in Florida in 1906, the doll supposedly ran riot,
throwing objects around and having malevolent intent.
It was discovered that the doll
had been given to the boy by a servant
who had allegedly been abused by the boy's family
and the possessed doll was the servant's revenge.
Think about that next time you look
at your stuffed animals in your house.
(laughs creepily)
Number nine is Sauron.
(bats squeaking)
I see you!
Sauron in Lord of the Rings is one of the most
famous monstrous villains in literary history.
However, there's a good argument to be made
that he was based, believe it or not, on Adolf Hitler.
In the book, Sauron is a fallen angel
who rises up as a tyrant to control
the people of Middle-earth.
While Tolkien has stated that he doesn't like people
relating the book to real events,
it's difficult not to draw parallels with Hitler.
Sauron rises up twice in an attempt to dominate,
so did Germany in the first and second World Wars.
Hitler himself was a soldier in the first World War
and many say that he could almost hypnotize with his voice.
Sauron is also known as a great persuader.
Middle-earth later goes on to become Europe itself
where Hitler rose to power.
Now Tolkien purists might disagree
but then there are others who might look
at Sauron as a uber nazi.
(bats squeaking)
Number eight is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Written in 1886 and adapted into many films,
the shape-shifting figure of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
was based on a real person.
In the story, Dr. Jekyll is a moral upstanding citizen
but when he drinks a potion he has developed,
he contorts into the sinister Mr. Hyde
who has no guilt to stop him from committing evil acts.
Mr. Hyde then lives a notorious debauched life at night
but this sounds eerily like the story
of William Deacon Brodie.
Brodie was a well-respected gentlemen
in Edinburgh in the 18th century.
But at night, he was obsessed with sex, gambling, and crime.
Despite becoming the leader of a trade guild
and a member of the local town council,
Brodie was arrested and hung in 1788 for his behavior.
It was reported that he walked to the gallows
dressed in the finest of clothing.
Well, at least the guy knew how to go out in style.
I do identify with this though,
because you've got Matthew Santoro
and then you've got The Knowledge Whale.
(laughs)
Oh oh.
Number seven are The Hounds of the Baskervilles.
(bats squeaking)
Outside of his tussle with his arch nemesis,
Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes' greatest fictional case
was The Hound of Baskervilles.
But what's fascinating about this case
is that it may have been based on a real life event.
In the story, a huge dog hunts people down
on an English Moor.
The writer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
most probably based some of the events
on the life of Richard Cabell.
He owned the largest state in the English countryside
in the latter half of the 17th century.
Legend has it that Cabell used his hounds
in an attempt to kill his wife.
But he supposedly died at the jaws of his own dogs
who turned on him.
Stories persist that phantom ghost hounds
roam the moors where it happened urged on
by Richard Cabell himself who many described
at the time as monstrous and evil man.
Not something you'd wanna watch
if you already have a fear of dogs
but I would recommend the movie Cujo.
(laughs creepily)
Family friendly.
(bats squeaking)
Number six is Dr. Frankenstein.
Frankenstein is one of the most
famous horror stories of all time
but what's really scary about it
is that Dr. Frankenstein's life was inspired by true events.
The good doctor appears to be an amalgamation of two people.
The first is Johann Conrad Dippel
who lived in Castle Frankenstein in Germany.
Dippel was an alchemist who was obsessed
with life and death.
Rumors still persist that he experimented on human cadavers
but we know for a fact that he did experiment on animals
and even claimed to find the elixir of life.
Dippel's life was mixed with experiments
of Italian Giovanni Aldini.
Aldini believed that he could reanimate a human body
by using electricity.
After experimenting on a man who had been recently executed,
it was reported he managed to make the body move and contort
but nothing more, thankfully.
(bats squeaking)
Number five is Dorian Gray.
Published in 1890, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
was influenced by one of his lovers.
In the book, Dorian Gray sells his soul
so that a painting of him will age and wither but he won't.
He can then live his life to excess
and never fear the consequences.
As his immoral acts mount up,
the picture ages and takes on a horrific form
representing how Dorian really looks on the inside.
Oscar Wilde met John Gray not long after starting the novel
and John was a poet but like Wilde,
he was fascinated by the decadent movement.
The decadents, like John Gray,
believed that all desires should be pursued
without worrying about morality of such actions.
While John Gray eventually left the decadent movement,
his influence on Wilde was preserved forever
in the character Dorian Gray.
I'm starting to get some wrinkles,
I might have to get me one of them pictures.
(bats squeaking)
Number four is the Headless Horseman.
The Headless Horseman in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow
is terrifying but just as the story
blurs the line between fact and fiction,
the horseman himself was based on a real person.
Just nine miles from the real town of Sleepy Hollow,
there was a skirmish during the Revolutionary War of 1776.
British artillery and horses moved against the Americans.
The American army fired a cannon at the British
and a German mercenary who was fighting
on the British side was reportedly decapitated
by a direct hit from a cannon ball.
He was then buried in an unmarked grave
in a nearby cemetery.
These events were recorded in the journal
of General William Heath who was there
and it was likely that Irving Washington
read this journal and used the account
as inspiration for one of Folklore's most enduring monsters.
(bats squeaking)
Number three is the werewolf.
The werewolf appears in almost every culture
in either shape or form.
But a number of real life people have influenced
the creation of this mythic creature.
Many tribes throughout the world adorned themselves
with animal pelts to appear more fearsome in battle.
The Pawnee people for example dressed themselves
in wolf hides to blend in with their environment
while spying on enemies.
It's also possible that genetic disorders
such as lycanthropy which makes hair grow on the face
and porphyria which can turn teeth red,
erode facial features and cause delirious behavior
all added to these myths.
That while accounts of wolves raising human orphans
such as Romulus and Remus, who founded Rome
were added to the stories,
slowly shaping the story of the werewolf
to match our deepest, darkest fears.
But don't worry, werewolves aren't real.
Woo!
(clears throat)
Sorry about that.
(bats squeaking)
Number two is the Boogeyman.
The Boogeyman is another monster which appears
throughout many cultures from the Sack Man in Brazil
to the Babau of the Mediterranean.
Like the werewolf, these old legends
of a malevolent creature who comes to children,
has been shaped by real individuals along the way.
One such person was Albert Fish, a serial killer
who focused his abhorrent crimes on children.
In the 1920s, he began preying on the young,
snatching them away whenever he could
and subjecting them to bad, bad acts
before murdering and eating them.
Referred to as the Boogeyman, in the press during his trial
and after his execution in 1936,
Fish's crimes live on in infamy and his lack of remorse
at the pain that he caused only added to the myth
that there's a creeping figure out there in the darkness
ready to snatch away children if they're not careful.
(beats squeaking)
And number one is Dracula.
You knew this was going to be on the list.
(laughs wickedly)
Dracula is the most famous monster of all time.
Countless books, films, video games, and even TV shows
have been made about him.
But one of the most captivating facts about Dracula
is that he may be based on someone who actually lived.
Vlad Tepes was his name and he ruled an area
of modern day Romania between 1456 and 1462.
He was notorious for his ferocity in battle,
his unyielding will and his brutality.
Often referred to as Vlad the Impaler,
he enjoyed impaling those he defeated on large spikes.
Massacring tens of thousands in his lifetime,
he finally fell in battle.
His enemies despised his cruelty but after his death,
rumors persisted that his evil
could overcome even death itself.
Much of this was then used by Bram Stoker to create Dracula,
the most enduring monster of horror fiction.
(beats squeaking)
So that's it, creepy monsters based on real people.
(laughs creepily)
Kinda like I was based off The Knowledge Whale
or is The Knowledge Whale based off me, you'll never know.
Anyway, hope you guys have a fantastic day,
let me know what you thought of the video in the comments.
I'll see you next time, bye now.