This is part two of true event based scary movies. The following movies are not for the faint of heart, because the events surrounding the movies are real. So real, it could happen to anyone.
Child abuse of the worst kind, barbaric cult leaders, nightmares that kill, demonic possessions, gang rape, and children shunned by society. The stories are more shocking and scary than the movies themselves. Because the monsters are real, and they’re out there.
Get ready to be in shock by the true event
You never know what happens behind closed doors. Unless the neighbors take part in it.
It is always hard to watch when children are the victims. Some suffer in the hands of strangers like Elizabeth Shoaf from the 2018 movie “Girl In The Bunker.” But many others experience unspeakable violence inside their homes by people they are supposed to trust. Like it was the case in the following 2 movies.
#1 The Girl Next Door (2007)
True event based scary movies don’t always include the supernatural as this movie shows. The movie comes close to the real crime committed. It is based on the novel of the same name by Jack Ketchum.
Some of the facts have been changed, but out of all real event based horror movies this one will follow you in your dreams. The prosecutor in the actual trial describes the crime as “the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana”.
The movie
Two teen girls, Meg and Susan, end up in the care of their aunt after the sudden death of their parents. Susan still suffers from the injury she sustained during a car accident and has to wear leg braces. Ruth, their aunt, is mentally unstable, and with two more kids to take care of, goes over the edge. A systematic and escalating abuse of both sisters begins by the hands of Ruth, her children and friends of the children. Meg in particular suffers the worst of it.
The true event
The abuse and murder of Sylvia Likens takes place in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1965. She is 16-years old at the time. She and her sister Jenny, who is one year younger, are the daughters of two carnival workers. Jenny is disabled by polio and has to wear leg braces. They are often boarded out to relatives so they don’t fall behind on their school work while their parents are on the road.
When the girl’s parents separate they go to live with their mother, Betty, in Indianapolis. Not long after, Betty is getting arrested for shoplifting. Their father, Lester, arranges for the girls to stay with Gertrude Baniszewski. Gertrude is the mother of the girls’ new friend Paula Baniszewski (age 17) and Paula’s six siblings Stephanie (15), John (12), Marie (11), Shirley (10), James (8), and few-months-old Dennis Lee Wright Jr.
The Baniszewski’s are poor and Lester Liken agrees to pay Gertrude $20 per week to take care of the girls. He also encourages Gertrude to “straighten his daughters out.”
Gertrude is a haggard, underweight asthmatic who suffers from depression and the stress of several failed marriages. So one day, when Lester’s payment arrives late, she lets out her anger on the two girls. She makes them pull down their underwear and beats them with a paddle on their bare buttocks. This is the beginning of a series of a horrible abuse. Gertrude starts to focus mainly on Sylvia.
The horror begins
The next week, Sylvia and Jenny go through the neighborhood to collect coke bottles. They cash them in and buy some candy. Back at the house Gertrude accuses them of stealing and Sylvia of lying. Like the week before, Sylvia receives a beating with the paddle. A little after, Gertrude’s children supply her with another reason to let out her anger on Sylvia. They tell her how disgusted they are by the mount of food, they claim, Sylvia was eating at a church social. Gertrude forces Sylvia to eat a hot dog soaked with hot sauces. When Sylvia vomits, she makes her scoop it up and eat that too.
During this time, Gertrude takes on 14-year-old Ricky Hobbs as her personal assistant. He lives in the neighborhood and follows blindly every one of Gertrude’s orders. Reporters later suspect that Gertrude seduced the boy, turning him into her lover.
In August of 1965 Gertrude hears that Sylvia was once “felt up” by a boy. She flies into a raging fit, accuses Sylvia of being a prostitute, and goes on lying to her children saying that “Sylvia is pregnant because she let a boy touch her vagina.” She continuously kicks Sylvia in the crotch and when Sylvia tries to sit down afterwards, she kicks her off the chair and yells “You ain’t fit to sit in chairs.” From that moment on, Sylvia is not allowed to sit anymore without permission. Furthermore she invites her older children to “play a game” of beating Sylvia and pushing her down the stairs. Gertrude also invites Coy Hubbard, the 15-year old boyfriend of Gertrude’s second oldest daughter, to practice his Judo on Sylvia.
The abuse escalates
Gertrude’s lies and accusations of theft, slander, and prostitution involving Sylvia continue. She burns Sylvia’s fingertips with a cigarette to “cure” her of “sticky fingers” and invites all smokers inside her home to do the same on Sylvia’s body.
Another time she forces Sylvia to strip naked in front of her sons and several of their friends. Then Gertrude makes her masturbate with a coke bottle for the boys to watch. Sylvia becomes incontinent, so Gertrude decides to keep her locked in the basement. Without access to a toilet, Sylvia has no choice but to urinate and defecate on the floor which prompts Gertrude to call her “dirty girl” and to start a “bathing ritual” to “cleanse” the girl.
Gertrude binds Sylvia’s wrists and ankles, fills up a claw-footed bathtub with scalding water, and dunks the girl into the tub. She does not follow a strict routine for these “rituals.” Some days she skips, other days she repeats them several times throughout the day. After each bath, she rubs salt all over Sylvia’s body.
Meanwhile, Gertrude’s kids earn money by charging neighborhood kids one nickel each to either look at Sylvia’s nude body, watch her abuse, or participate in it. The girl is kept nude and rarely fed. When they do feed her it is not without making a spectacle out of it. For instance, making her eat soup with her fingers, making Sylvia “clean” the basement by “allowing” her to eat her own feces. They give her a container to use for urinating which they then force her to empty by drinking the urine.
The final moments of Sylvia Likens
One day Gertrude instructs John Jr., Coy, and Stephanie to bring Sylvia upstairs and tie her on the bed. She tells Sylvia that she will allow her to sleep upstairs again if she can hold her bladder through the night. But on the next morning she discovers that Sylvia had wet the bed. She makes her dress just to, once again, force her to strip and masturbate with a coke bottle in front of her sons and neighborhood boys.
When she is done, they tie her again and Gertrude says, “You have branded my daughters so I will brand you!” The children heat up a needle and Gertrude takes turns with them to carve “I’M A PROSTITUTE AND PROUD OF IT.” into Sylvia’s stomach. After Gertrude leaves, the children add an “S” for slave into the middle of Sylvia’s chest. They then take her back to the basement where Coy again uses her for Judo practice. That same night Jenny sneaks into the basement to visit her sister. Sylvia tells her, “I’m going to die. I can tell.”
On October 26th Stephanie and Ricky discover that Sylvia is not breathing. Stephanie attempts to give CPR but Sylvia is already dead. Following Gertrude;s instruction, Ricky goes to a pay phone to call the police. When the police arrive Gertrude tries to convince them that Sylvia had run away and shows them a fake letter. Jenny whispers, “Get me out of here and I’ll tell you everything” to one of the police officers. This is when they discover Sylvia’s dead body in the basement.
#2 An American Crime (2007)
The true event based scary movies don’t come any closer to the truth than this one. Just like the 200 movie “The Girl Next Door” it is based on the murder of Sylvia Likens.
The movie
Sylvia tells her story, recounting one of the most shocking crimes ever committed against a single person within an American neighborhood.
Sylvia and Jennie Fae Likens, the two daughters of traveling carnival workers, are forced to stay at the Indianapolis home of single mother Gertrude Baniszewski and her six children. For the time of 3 months, Sylvia suffers unimaginable torture leading to her death.
The movie also covers the trial, witness testimonies and convictions.
The true event
Read the true event story of “The Girl Next Door (2007) above.
Left: Rarely do actors in true event based scary movies resemble the real-life victim and perpetrators as closely as in the 2007 movie “An American Crime”. Right: Memorial for Sylvia Liken
Dive into the true event of drugs, human sacrifice, and brainwashed murder spree by clicking number 2 below/