Movies That Inspired Copycat Crimes In Real Life

It's no secret that movies and video games have been blamed for making people — particularly young people — more prone to commit violent acts. (But no one ever blames the books, do they?)

This blame-game sort of finger-pointing has been happening for a surprisingly long time, as, according to research from the University of Michigan, psychologists have been looking at the influence of fictional violence on the real world since at least the 1960s. Today, with more realistic films widely available, politicians on both sides of the party line are hopping on board with the idea that violent "entertainment" makes for violent people (via CNN). Taking a deep dive into all that research is way too much to even begin to talk about, and in the end, no one's quite sure how much movies really should be blamed. Still, it's undeniable that there are some movies out there that inspired some viewers to reenact some scenes of terrible violence, taking the crimes they saw on screen and committing them in real life.

And here's the surprising thing: They're not all horror movies, and they're not even all movies that are typically thought of as being violent or harmful in any way. And that? That's food for thought.

"The Basketball Diaries" starred a very young Leonardo DiCaprio, and it took a hard look at some difficult topics. DiCaprio starred as Jim Carroll, a basketball star who found his life spiraling into little more than a craving for heroin and everything it took to get his fix (via Rotten Tomatoes). But the copycat crime it inspired had nothing to do with drugs.

Included in the film is a dream sequence that involves a school shooting, and according to the Associated Press, that's the part that 14-year-old Michael Carneal reenacted in 1997.

By the time Carneal acquired guns — which History says he had stolen from a neighbor — and opened fire after a morning school prayer meeting, officials surmised that he had been planning the shooting for somewhere around a year. He later confessed that he had been inspired by the school shooting in "The Basketball Diaries," only this very real incident took the lives of three students and wounded five others, including a girl who was paralyzed by the attack. Carneal was put on trial as an adult, and was given a life sentence. The families of the students filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit that attempted to hold both the makers of "The Basketball Diaries" and Carneal's favorite video games — "Quake" and "Doom" — liable, but according to The New York Times, the lawsuit was dismissed when the courts ruled there was no way to predict the copycat shooting was going to happen.

When Nathaniel White was arrested in 1992 for the murders of six women, it was just days after he had met with the family of his girlfriend's niece, trying to reassure them that he was positive she was going to turn up safe and sound. The 14-year-old Christine Klebbe was already dead, the youngest of his victims.

The New York Times reported that White later admitted to the murders, saying that he'd heard a voice in his head that had told him that he needed to kill. As for the "how," that came from the "Robocop" movies. According to the Associated Press, White killed his victims in methods that he copied straight out of the movies, saying, "I would ... see something violent happen, and it seems to just sink in." In another interview, he explained, "I couldn't help myself. That's why I decided to tell everything. I don't want to do it anymore. I did exactly what I saw in the movie."

It's also worth mentioning that the case has led to a bizarre instance of mistaken identity. In 2020, the Tallahassee Democrat reported that another man named Nathaniel White — living in Florida instead of New York — had been misidentified as the serial killer when his photo was used in a Discovery Channel documentary and subsequently showed up on the serial killer's Wikipedia page.

There's nothing super deep about Freddy Krueger and the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies. He existed, he hacked and slashed his way through a lot of people, and that pretty much sums it up. It's a strange thing to think about anyone wanting to be like him, but according to The Guardian, Daniel Gonzalez wanted to be like him so much that he went on a three-day stabbing spree in 2004. He stabbed four people (and attacked two others), and afterwards, he and his family said they had previously begged for medical and psychiatric help only to be told "we would have to wait for a crisis to occur."

That brings up some serious questions about the state of mental health resources, but what about the crime? Surrey Live says that Gonzalez had wanted to kill 10 people, but was arrested before he could get to his desired number. He later explained, "I wished life was just fantasy because I thought about doing it. I wondered what it would be like to be Freddy Krueger for the day."

So, he started stabbing, while he said he was being guided by a series of voices he named Misha, Melinda, Katrina, and Jenny Bean. The extent of his illness was argued throughout the trial, and he was ultimately sent to the maximum-security psychiatric facility Broadmoor, where he reportedly tried to commit suicide by biting himself to death.

If anyone knows anything about "Basic Instinct," it's that iconic scene where Sharon Stone crosses her legs. 'Nuff said. But it's the scene where her character, Catherine Tramell, stabs a man to death that was reenacted then posted online, with the title "One Lunatic, One Ice Pick."

The video showed the murder of 33-year-old Jun Lin, who was killed and dismembered by Luka Magnotta. According to the CBC, Magnotta confirmed that yes, he had been responsible for the murder, but insisted that mental illness made him not culpable.

More and more similarities were pointed out, including the fact that the killing itself had been staged to look like the scene from the film. The murder weapon Magnotta used — a screwdriver — was painted the same color as Tramell's ice pick. When he needed a name for the mysterious man he claimed had pushed him to kill, Magnotta chose the name of a never-seen-on-screen character named Manny Vasquez. Magnotta went on the run after the murder, using the alias Kirk Tramell — a shout-out to Stone's character. One of the differences in the crime scene was Magnotta's replacing of the stained glass window of the film with a movie poster for "Casablanca" — but that made sense, considering he was finally caught after fleeing to Berlin (via The Globe and Mail). The connections between the film and the crime were presented at trial, and Magnotta's mother later said (via Oxygen) that she still carried one of her son's treasured possessions: a "Basic Instinct" keychain.

Of all the films that people should emulate, "Saw" might be last on the list ... yet, here we are.

Fortunately, two teens' plans to kidnap their intended victims and reenact the torture scenes they'd seen in "Saw" was foiled when one of their mothers called police after overhearing them discussing their plans. They'd already selected their targets, staked out their locations, and had moved on to hashing out how to best lure them to said locations — and get the cameras and recording devices to document the entire thing, guaranteeing their lifelong notoriety — when the mother of a 15-year-old only identified as John turned them in to law enforcement in 2009. Also involved was his 14-year-old friend — only identified as Noor — and according to ABC News, the parents declined a request for comments.

Thankfully, that plot to turn "Saw" into a very real horror movie stopped before anyone got hurt, but two years prior, someone did get hurt when a pair of 13-year-old girls played a prank phone call on a Nashville woman. According to NBC News, they left a message on the voicemail of Beverly Dickson, with dialogue lifted right out of the film. After being told that a friend was trapped inside her home and had 10 minutes before she was gassed and killed, she suffered a massive stroke. The phone call was traced, and the girls found themselves in juvenile court.

Here's a surprise entry: "Wedding Crashers," the 2005 romantic comedy starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn as the title ne'er-do-wells, who spend their down time scoring free food and drink from wedding receptions ... and taking advantage of the women they meet there — that happens, too. But crimes?

It turns out that yes, "Wedding Crashers" has spawned a rash of incidents inspired by one scene in particular, where a drink gets spiked with Visine. It's played for laughs — of the "poop jokes" variety — in the film, but in real life, it's potentially deadly. Forbes explains that the eye drops work because they constrict blood vessels, and when they're ingested, they can be absorbed into the circulatory system and lead to all kinds of problems — up to and including a coma and death.

And copycat crimes have happened a lot — Lana Sue Clayton got 25 years in jail for the murder of her husband via Visine, and Joshua Lee Hunsucker was charged with using the drops to kill his wife for the insurance money. It's unclear whether or not "Wedding Crashers" served as the inspiration there, but according to the New Haven Register, the movie was definitely the blueprint for Olga Louniakova's poisoning of one of her teachers at the Oxford Academy of Hair Design. She'd apparently meant to poison another student and was charged with reckless endangerment and threatening. She was given two years' probation, and was killed two years later in a bizarre murder-suicide.

It was Sarah Edmonson's father, Jim, who held his daughter and kept her from running as the FBI approached, saying (via The Washington Post): "You should be brave. No one is going to hurt you. And you should never forget that you have the right to remain silent. You have the right ..."

Law enforcement had shown up on her doorstep after an ex-boyfriend dropped her name in connection with a brutal shooting that had happened 6 months prior. A young woman was caught on the security camera of a convenience store, shooting a clerk — who would survive, but be paralyzed from the neck down — and breaking into a cash register. If it sounds like something right out of "Natural Born Killers," that's because it was.

It was their second murder: According to The Guardian, Edmonson and boyfriend Ben Darras kicked off their crime spree with acid, "Natural Born Killers" playing on repeat, and ultimately, shooting and killing a businessman named Bill Savage. The movie was so definitively linked to inspiring their killing spree that a lawsuit was filed against the film. It was later dismissed, says ABC, and at the time, Edmondson and Darras were both already serving their sentences: Edmondson, her 35 years, and Darras, his life term. In 2010, the Oklahoman reported that Edmondson would be serving her parole time in Oklahoma, while Darras was still appealing his release.

In 1981, an assassination attempt was made on the life of then-President Ronald Reagan. Assassinations are certainly nothing new, but what made this story so strange was that it had been plucked from the movie "Taxi Driver." The entire saga started when John Hinckley Jr. — after watching the film countless times — famously became obsessed with Jodie Foster. There's more to it, though: He also started to seriously identify with Robert DeNiro's character, dressing like him and even drinking his drink of choice (peach brandy).

Just like DeNiro's Travis Bickle, Hinckley fully came to believe that the way to win — and protect — Foster was by assassinating a high-profile figure. According to History, Reagan wasn't even the original target. Hinckley had started out by stalking President Jimmy Carter, but assassination attempts were foiled when he was arrested for carrying guns through Nashville's airport.That was shortly before Reagan was elected, and Hinckley's target changed. Just as "Taxi Driver" descended into the chaos of Bickle trying to protect Foster's character by cleaning up the streets, Hinckley was determined to do the same. Reagan, of course, survived the assassination attempt, and Hinckley used the insanity defense for a not guilty verdict.

In 2021, it was announced that Hinckley had been granted an unconditional release for the following year. He had already been sort of free for the past five years — living with his mother before her death — and along with the announcement came an apology and a hope that Rolling Stone would take an interest in his new music career.