Random Horror Movies That Got People Jailed, Punished, or Officially Investigated (12 items)

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  (#12) Dudleytown Curse - The 49th Key

  Dudleytown was a Connecticut settlement in the 18th and 19th century, which many now consider haunted or cursed. Bad things seem to befall anyone associated with the town, with legends of ghosts, demons, and vanishings dating back centuries. The hardship that befell the crew of a horror film based on these legends is much more firmly rooted in reality. Police arrested eight filmmakers, in the process of shooting Dudleytown Curse - The 49th Key, for trespassing on the site of the old settlement, which is now private property.

  Is it a case of bad luck or did the Dudleytown curse strike again? Maybe they should've gotten some permits. Or maybe the ghosts cursed their permits? 
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  (#3) Mark Twitchell's House of Cards

  You've heard this one before: a sadistic moviegoer is inspired by his favorite horror film and carries out copycat crimes and violence in the real world. In the case of Canadian filmmaker Mark Twitchell, it wasn't life imitating art. Rather, in Twitchell's sadistic mind, it was the other way around. 

  In 2008, Twitchell wrote and directed low budget horror film House of Cards, which included a scene in which a man is lured into a kill room and murdered. Weeks later, Twitchell recreated the scene from his script in real life, murdering Johnny Altinger in the same room used in the film. Police believe Twitchell wrote the script in an attempt to play out his murderous fantasies.

  Twitchell, now serving a life sentence in jail, maintains he didn't kill Altinger, and continues to fight for control of thousands of hours of footage seized by the police, so that he can someday edit his film and release it to the public.
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  (#8) The Carnage Collection

  No one can pretend to be surprised when a film called The Carnage Collection comes under fire for its collection of carnage. After illegally downloading the film for her kids based on the picture of Santa on the cover (clearly disregarding the word carnage in the title, and the description "features multiple short stories of violence, gore, carnage, and horror"), a woman complained to authorities about the obscene content.

  Specifically, the flabbergasted mother had a problem with the part when a woman gets stabbed in the vagina, and another part when Santa says, "Suck my motherf'ing jingle balls." The movie was investigated as a potential snuff film, portraying actual violence to humans and animals. Once those charges were dropped, police held the filmmakers temporarily based on an old-school law banning the production of obscene material. 
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  (#4) Marla Mae

  For independent horror film Marla Mae, the truth behind the scenes was stranger than the fiction on screen. In 2015, an uneventful filming process in Washington State concluded with an interview with filmmakers and cast in a local paper. This article alerted federal agents that Jason Sange, a man convicted of armed robbery, had nabbed a lead role in the production.

  Stange used his own name during auditions, won the role, and went on to play a major part in the film, all of this after violating parole by abandoning his halfway house. The police re-arrested him after seeing his name and photo in the paper. Sometimes when that acting bug bites you, it sucks out your sense of reason. 
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  (#7) The ABCs of Death

  • Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Harold Torres, Erik Audé, Peter Pedrero, Takashi Nishina, Iván González, Matías Oviedo, Yui Murata, Vanja Lazin, Demo Tanaka, Chems Dahmani, Miguel Insua, Seminosuke Murasugi, Juanita Ringeling, Arisa Nakamura, Arata Yamanaka, Fraser Corbett, Dallas Malloy, Kyra Zagorsky, Joshua Diolosa, Tsuyoshi Kazuno, Darenzia, Eva Llorach, Sarah Bonrepaux, Pablo Guisa Koestinger, Lucy Clements, Hiroko Yashiki, Lee Hardcastle, Yoshio Komatsu, Hiroaki Murakami, Greg De Cuir, Naoko Takahashi, Kurumi Ochiai, Greta Martinez, Honoka Murakami, Je$$ica, Alejandra Urdiaín, Atsushi Hiroki, Hozake Yamada, M@tch, Sadashi Matsubayashi, Kim Richardson, Brenden McVeigh, Manon Beuchot, Martine Årnes Sørensen, Katsuyuki Miyake, Daisuke Sasaki, Xavier Magot, Tomomi Sugai

  When kids go to school to learn their ABCs, The ABCs of Death is probably not the most effective teaching tool. Nevertheless, Ohio substitute teacher Sheila Kearns screened the film for a high school Spanish class in 2013. Student complaints to the administration got Kearns convicted of disseminating materials harmful to juveniles and sentenced to 90 days in jail.

  No word on whether the kids learned anything from the morbidly hilarious lesson plan.
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  (#11) The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

  • Marilyn Burns, Gunnar Hansen, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Teri McMinn, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, John Dugan, Perry Lorenz

  Now more than 40 years old, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is still considered one of the scariest horror films ever made. If current audiences continue to fear the film, imagine how terrifying it was in the 1970s, when minds were yet desensitized by the countless horror films produced in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre's image. In fact, the movie was banned upon release in a number of countries.

  In Ottawa, Canada, in 1976, so-called "morality detectives" from the police department even forced the owners of two local theaters to suspend their screenings of the film, lest charges be brought against them. Oh, Canada.

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