Top 10 Movies You Won't Believe Are Based On True Stories
10. Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS Isn't Just Nonsense
If you haven't seen Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, then you're in luck, because the whole
thing's on YouTube for some reason. Keep in mind we're not actually recommending it (it's
one of the least safe-for-work things that exist, what with the sex, torture and gratuitous
Being-A-Nazi), but yeah, it's all there. And so are its sequels.
The titular Ilsa is a Nazi "scientist" bent on proving that women can take more punishment
than men. Her methods include a lot of torture and nudity — it's basically the 1970′s
version of Hostel, except even worse. Somehow.
The Real Story
And yet, it's based on fact: Ilsa Koch and Irma Grese were female concentration camp
guards, going down in history as committing the most mythically horrifying personal atrocities
of the Third Reich, which we won't list here. Like the fictional Ilsa, both these scientist
women used science as a shoddy excuse to cause people a lot of pain, which makes Ilsa: She
Wolf of the SS the only "based on a true story" sexploitation film we know of to have actually
toned things down.
9. The Hunt for Red October Is Actually Based on a Much Cooler Story
If you're having trouble explaining the 90′s to your kids or younger siblings, this movie
is a great place to start. Nowhere else can you see that, in the 90′s, a Scotsman could
play a Lithuanian, Alec Baldwin could be a badass, and movies about submarines weren't
terrible.
Okay, okay, so Hunt is actually a pretty cool movie: Sean Connery plays the captain of a
Russian submarine in charge of experimental technology who wants to defect to America
to end what he sees as "a war without battles; only casualties." However, the Americans think
that he's preparing to launch an attack, and only Alec Baldwin knows the truth because...he's
Alec Baldwin.
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This one's weird, because as far as we can tell the true story would make a way better
movie. In 1975, Valery Sablin (the third ranking officer in the entire Soviet Naval Hierarchy)
decided that the Soviet Union was failing but, instead of defecting like that cowardly
Scotsman, he decided to sail his Frigate, the Storozhevoy, directly into the Baltic
and broadcast revolutionary propaganda. That's right: instead of running away, Officer Sablin
was actually trying to start a revolution.
8. Final Destination Based Its Opening Scene on a Real Plane Crash
The Final Destination series of films exists in that weird niche where they make a ton
of money (or at least enough to warrant sequels) but never manage to be any good. The ongoing
premise is that the characters "cheat death" in one manner or another, and then spend the
rest of the movie dealing with the fact that Death doesn't like to be cheated. As far as
"ideas for a good movie" go, this barely seems to qualify as an "idea," but the producers
have struck it rich five times over and we haven't, so they obviously know something
we don't.
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Obviously, the actual premise has never happened, but the opening scene did: As Roger Ebert
pointed out in his review, the plane crash from the first film (where death is initially
cheated) is based on TWA Flight 800, the third-worst airborne disaster in US History.
The movie's version has a different flight number, but is headed to the same location,
and crashes in a way that is almost identical. Ebert said he didn't want to "belabor the
point," but we don't feel like we're "belaboring" anything by saying that if you base your schlocky
murder-p-rn on an incident where real people died, the only thing worse than the "art"
you think you're creating is how the rest of the world has to put up with your inept,
callous stupidity.
7. 50 First Dates Is (Coincidentally) A True Story
The 2004 romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore as "Lucy" and Adam Sandler as "the same boring-ass
schmuck he always plays" tells the story of a lovable, plucky veterinarian who falls in
love with a lovable, quirky woman with a crippling psychiatric disability resulting from massive
head trauma (as a side note, no TopTenz writer has ever been hired to write the blurb on
the back of a DVD box). The head trauma is the gimmick for the film: Lucy's short term
memory is reset every time she goes to sleep, so Sandler has to woo her in a new way every
day. Why doesn't Sandler just woo her the same way each time, since he knows it'll work
and she won't remember it the next day? We'd love to answer that but, unfortunately, this
paragraph is about to end.
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Meet Michelle Philpots, a British woman who suffered two head injuries in 1985 and 1990,
and now has all her memories wiped clean every night while she sleeps. Like Lucy, Michelle
has gotten married since her injuries, and has to be reminded of her marriage every morning
by her husband, most often by being shown pictures of the event.
Her attitude is either a major testament to the human spirit, or the British's stubborn
tendency to "carry on" in spite of pretty much anything: she says she enjoys the soap
opera "Eastenders," despite never having "any idea what's going on." And though she doesn't
remember getting married, she does remember the day she met her husband.
Also, somewhat hilariously, that article about her seems to really badly misunderstood the
plot of Groundhog Day.
6. Men Behind the Sun Will Haunt Your Nightmares
As the first film to be given a "III" rating (the Hong Kong equivalent of NC-17), Men Behind
the Sun (or Black Sun: 731) is one of the earliest examples of what we now call "torture
p-rn." It tells the story of "Unit 731," a Japanese Unit during World War II that conducts
experiments on Chinese and Soviet prisoners, in order to gauge their pain threshold and
find out how enjoyable it is to undergo a vivisection without anesthesia (spoiler alert:
not very).
The Real Story
Unit 731 was real. Their purpose was to develop a highly contagious version of the Bubonic
Plague to use against the Chinese, because Japan really wanted to outdo the Nazis, we
guess. In addition to the "cutting people open while they're still alive" thing, Unit
731 tested weapons on living people, infected them with various diseases and... yeah, you
can read about the rest here, if you want. Though again, we don't actually recommend
it.
5 AND 4: Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho Are Both Based on the Same Serial Killer
Though having little in commons stylistically, both Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho have
become hugely influential horror films. While the latter introduced the world to the twist
ending, and what is almost universally regarded as the finest horror film score in history,
the former proved that you don't need to have plot and acting if you show women getting
chased a lot by big dudes holding scary things.
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Both killers (and, to a lesser extent, Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs) were based
on the Wisconsin murder Ed Gein. What'd Ed do to get a following in Hollywood? It's hard
to nail it down to any one thing, but we're betting it was a combination of the fact that
he was creepy-looking, had a weird obsession with his mentally imbalanced mother, and made
a belt out of human nipples. There was also the mask made of human skin, the suit made
of human skin, the lamp made of human skin...
Hey, leather's expensive.
3. Rocky's Real Name is Way More Badass
It's tragic how often it's forgotten that Sylvester Stallone's career — which is made
up almost entirely of crap — started off with a psychologically complex and engaging
story about a guy who, at the end of the day, just wants to have his efforts and hard work
noticed. Rocky's the story of an underdog who stays the underdog. It taught us that
sometimes just getting a shot is enough, even if you don't make it.
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In the 1970′s, there was a little-known boxer named Chuck "The Bayonne Bleeder" Wepner
and, if Rocky isn't based on this guy, it's one hell of a coincidence.
Okay, fine, not everything's the same: Bleeder* is from New Jersey instead of Philly, worked
as a security guard instead of a butcher shop and, by his own account, never ice skated
or wore turtlenecks.
So what are the similarities? Everything else. Bleeder boxed a wrestler (like Rocky did in
Rocky III), maintained a winning record, and even faced off against a black heavyweight
champion: Muhammad Frickin' Ali.
Luckily, the Bleeder got his due: he sued Stallone in 1976, and they settled for an
undisclosed amount.
*Like hell we're gonna call him "Wepner."
2. Jaws is a True Story, But Not The Way You Think
Most people know that the original "summer blockbuster" doesn't try too hard to be realistic.
No shark — not even the hyper-aggressive Bull Shark — will attack that frequently,
or that mercilessly, or even get that big.
Still, who cares about realism? WE DO. Jaws is a badass movie with a fantastic soundtrack
but, at the end of the day, this article is all about realism.
The Real Story
Jaws is openly based on the 1916 Jersey Shore Shark Attacks and, though the behavior of
the shark has been exaggerated for effect, the reactions of the victims isn't. After
four people were killed by an unidentified shark, the people of New Jersey panicked and
launched massive shark hunts in an attempt to eradicate the "man eater" and protect the
tourism industry — an act the perfectly mirrors the plot of the film.
Keep in mind, ichthyologists at the time thought that sharks in temperate climates were relatively
harmless. One even claimed that it was "beyond the power of even the largest Carcharadon
(Great White) to sever the leg of an adult man."
When this was proven untrue, the shock would've been similar to the appearance of the massive
predator seen in the classic film.
1. To Hell and Back Just Straight Up Happened
We're going to skip the plot synopsis this time, because the plot synopsis is what happened
for real. The story of Audie Murphy, an American soldier of World War I, To Hell and Back stars...Audie
Murphy, an American Veteran of World War II, playing himself.
Murphy's story is basically the story of Captain America minus the injection of super serum.
Like Steve Rogers, Murphy was 5'5″, 110 pounds and, again like Rogers, applied to
every branch of the military before finally being accepted into the Army. Then he got
malaria, because everyone knows war is boring if you don't have a debilitating illness.
There's actually no shortage of crazy stories about this guy, but the most amazing has got
to be the one that got him the Medal of Honor (those stories tend to be pretty badass).
At the battle of Holtzwihr, Murphy's unit was reduced down to 19 men (from 128) by the
advancing German line, so he did what any reasonable soldier would do: sent the remaining
men back so he could hold the line by himself. After his M1 Carbine was empty, he climbed
into a burning tank and held off an entire squad of German Infantry with a .50 caliber
machine gun while calling in artillery shots.
Then he got shot in the leg.
Then his phone line to the artillery was cut.
Then he organized a counter attack. Somehow.
So, why did he decide to take on an entire company of German infantry by himself, when
almost anyone else would've wet themselves and run away crying? In his words: "They were
killing my friends."
So it turns out that, by "reasonable soldier" we actually meant "crazy badass." Cheers,
dude.
J. F. Sargent Blogs and Tweets like, all the time. He seriously has no shame.