Movies based on the lives of real-life villains.

USA was rocked by the case of Ed Gein who was arrested on November 1957 following the disappearance of store owner Bernice Worden whereupon her decapitated body was found strung up and gutted inside Gein’s home. Investigators also found furniture made from human skin and bones, various body parts from a second victim, and a number of clothing items made from human flesh and other various terrifying artefacts. He was also later discovered to have had issues with his mother which prompted him to murder on her behalf and had a room dedicated to her which he preserved for posterity. The only difference with the movie is that while Bates mummified his mother’s corpse, Gein exhumed corpses to serve as his mom.

Leatherface is based on both Ed Gein and Elmer Wayne Henley who actually lived in Houston, Texas. He, alongside an accomplice, abducted, tortured, assaulted, and murdered at least 28 teenage boys in the Houston, Texas area in the early 1970’s and his killing spree was dubbed the Houston Mass Murders. Henley eventually turned himself in to the authorities and is now presently serving six life sentences for his crimes.

There have been many movies based on the killing spree committed by Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate who were just teenagers when they killed 11 people in the 1950’s. By leaving a witness at each scene, they soon become a media sensation thanks to the press who sensationalised their killings who were fascinated by their young ages. Fugate became the youngest female to have ever been convicted of first degree murder and was only 14 when she was jailed for life in 1978. She was paroled in 1978 and lives a quite life in Michigan and Starkweather was sentenced to death in 1958. Other movies based on the same plot/theme are Badlands, Kalifornia and Natural Born Killers.

Hannibal Lecter was played by Anthony Hopkins to perfection and is named as the No. 1 movie villain in 2003 by the American Film Institute. The author of the book the movie was based on, Thomas Harris, based the character on serial killer Alfredo Balli Trevino, a physician who was referred to as Dr. Salazar, who had been imprisoned for killing his younger lover whom he had chopped into pieces he placed into small boxes. He was also suspected of murdering multiple hitchhikers in the outskirts of Monterrey, Mexico in the 1960′s where Harris had met him in prison during a trip in the 1960′s. He described Salazar as a "small lithe pale man with dark red hair (with a) certain intelligence and elegance about him." Other inspirations for the character may have also come from serial killers Albert Fish and cannibal Andrei Chikatilo.

Keyzer Soze is hardly a name one would forget and coincidentally a befitting one for a criminal who was so meticulous in the planning and execution of the murders of his wife, mother, and three children that the crime went unnoticed for almost a month. He was based on John List, who fled New Jersey and lived out a new identity for 18 years before he was finally caught thanks to a broadcast of his story on America's Most Wanted. He claimed he killed them to ensure their place in heaven where he planned on joining them upon his death, which he did in 2008.

Anne Wilkes was written by Stephen King while he was battling drug addiction but he took inspiration from a real life character who was a seemingly merciful caregiver. She was nurse Genene Jones who was convicted of killing two children by injecting a lethal dosage of drugs into them and was suspected of killing many more. The exact number of victims remains unknown as hospital officials, fearing litigation, allegedly misplaced and then destroyed records of Jones' activities. However, after news came out that she was to be released in 2018 to avoid prison overcrowding, authorities convicted her of another murder which will see her remain behind prison for the rest of her life.

The maniacal murderous clown was based on Stephen King’s novel and was written on a culmination of ideas with its main character fashioned after serial killer John Wayne Gacy who performed at children's parties as Pogo the Clown. He was also responsible for a string of murders of 30 young men and boys in the Chicago area in the 1970′s.

Wuornos murdered seven men by shooting at them at point blank range and was sentenced to death by lethal injection for six of the deaths. Although she claimed self defence in the belief of fearing for her life as a sex worker, she was eventually arrested on an outstanding warrant and confessed to the killings.

Based on Ivan Milat and Bradley Murdoch who murdered tourists in the Australian outback in the 1990’s and 2001 respectively. Murdoch had already had trouble with the law and it finally caught up to him for the murder of Peter Falconio, but Milat went further and killed seven people between 1989 and 1993. Five of his victims were foreign visitors (three German and two British) while the remaining were native Australians. Both are currently serving out life sentences.

About a murderous mutant clan of psychotic killers is led by the patriarch, Papa Jupiter and is inspired by the story of Alexander "Sawney" Bean. Bean lived sometime between the 13th and 16th century Scotland and was believed to be the leader of a clan consisting of about 50 members. The clan consisted mostly of family members due to inbreeding and was led by Bean to capture, rob, and eventually eat people who would travel close to the clan's cave with numbers as high as 1000 victims. His authenticity is still being disputed but his story is told through a crime catalog of Newgate Prison in London called The Newgate Calendar .

Based on Jack Ketcum’s 1989 book of the same name and its main antagonist, Ruth Chandler, was based on Gertrude Baniszewski who was convicted of the brutal murder of Silvia Likens in October 1965. Baniszewski, along with her children and several people in her neighborhood, kidnapped Sylvia Likens and proceeded to beat, rape, and torture her to death. The details of her torture are far more gruesome, prompting the prosecutor to call it ‘the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana.’ Baniszewski was sentenced to life in prison but released on December 1985 and lived the rest of her life in Iowa where she called herself Nadine Van Fossan where she died of lunch cancer on June 1990. They made another movie An American Crime (2007) where more details of the crime were depicted.

Villain Le Chiffre (played by Mads Mikkelsen) is based on Scottish occultist Aleister Crowley. It was said that the James Bond novel, Casino Royale, was author Ian Fleming’s homage to his interest in the occult and to his former working relationship with Aleister Crowley. Fleming based Le Chiffre's character off by describing how ‘the whites of their eyes are fully visible around the iris’. The infamous torture scene seems to allude to the belief of Crowley's interest in sadomasochism.

Lead villain of Abin Cooper, a fanatical preacher and charismatic leader of the Five Points Trinity Church and is based on Fred Phelps. Phelps is of course known as leader and preacher of the Westboro Baptist Church whose claim to fame are the protests they hold at the funerals of fallen U.S. Service members claiming that "God Hates Fags" and "God Loves A Dead Soldier" because he believed that God was punishing USA for its acceptance of homosexuality.

Tom Hardy caused a stir when it was announced he was playing dual roles in this movie based on the life of the Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie. They were legendary notorious gangsters who were involved in a huge range of crimes from arson, to armed robberies, to murder with their gang in East end London in 1950’s and 60’s. Despite their crimes, they were considered celebrities and were even seen mixing with celebrities like Frank Sinatra before finally being arrested in 1968. An earlier movie The Krays (1990) with brothers Martin and Gary Kemp from Spandau Ballet was made in 1990 but the Krays disapproved of it.

Jeffrey Dahmer committed the rape, murder, and dismemberment of 17 men and boys from 1978 to 1991 and his early life was made into this movie based on the book of the same name by John Backderf who went to high school with Dahmer. There was some uproar when Disney star Ross Lynch was cast for the part but when Backderf visited the set, the unnerving accuracy of Lynch’s transformation made it hard for him to talk to the actor when he was in costume. “He just reminded me so much of Jeff. It was spooky.”

After almost 50 years, the identity of the Zodiac Killer remains a mystery but he was believed to have killed numerous victims in Northern California from at least the late 1960s to the early 1970s. This movie explores the efforts of the detectives and journalists assigned to the case who become obsessed with learning the killer's identity and bringing him to justice.