Movies That Led To Real-Life Violence

The 2012 mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, was absolutely catastrophic. The tragedy occurred at the Century 16 movie theater, where 12 people were killed and 70 were injured in just a matter of minutes. At the time, that was the most casualties in a shooting in America history, a dark record that wasn't broken until 2016. (It should be noted that "casualty-filled" and "deadliest" aren't the same thing.)

The attack went down on July 20, when a gunman named James Holmes burst into a screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opened fire on the audience. As a result, many speculated Holmes was inspired by the film's predecessor, The Dark Knight. After all, when authorities took him into custody, Holmes reportedly said, "I am the Joker." Things got even crazier when police discovered his apartment was booby-trapped with explosives, which is a movie taken straight from the Joker playbook.

In the wake of the attack, Christian Bale visited with the victims, and director Christopher Nolan publicly condemned the massacre. As the director put it, "The movie theater is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me. Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them and their families."

David Fincher's adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club has spawned countless hush-hush groups that use their fists to do all their talking. Perhaps the most stunning example happened in 2015, when two daycare workers in New Jersey were charged with pitting toddlers against each other in a Fight Club-inspired brawl. The two reportedly shared their staged bouts of several children, aged four to six years old, on Snapchat and were overheard referencing both the movie and book in the videos.

Meanwhile, the "Project Mayhem" aspect of the movie has also been known to inspire some untoward activities in real life. In 2009, a Manhattan Starbucks was the site of an explosion of a homemade bomb, and police revealed the teen who planted the device was inspired by Fight Club. According to the police commissioner involved in the case, "[The teen's] statements indicated he was launching his own 'Project Mayhem.'" If you'll recall, this particular project is the name for Tyler Durden's anarchic group that plans on destroying America's financial institutions. And as it turns out, the suspect supposedly orchestrated his own at-home fight club before setting off the explosion. Talk about missing the point of a movie.

In addition to giving us all nightmares, the Saw films have encouraged a whole bunch of copycat crimes. For example, there were two teens from Tennessee who tormented a 52-year-old woman with prank calls, threatening her life with toxic gas if she didn't win their "game." The messages sent the woman into a panic that resulted in a stroke. However, a far ghastlier crime occurred in 2013, when a 25-year-old man tried to imitate a scene from Saw VI by stabbing a former soldier 17 times, hoping to sever his spinal cord. Ultimately, he wanted the PIN number to the man's bank account so he could withdraw cash for crack cocaine. However, according to Judge Timothy Pontius, it seems the murderer was directly inspired by the slasher flick...which was found in his bedroom after the crime.

But believe it or not, there's yet another Saw-inspired crime, one that could've made serial killer history. In 2009, two teens decided to take up the Jigsaw mantle and plan a series of torture killings. The duo wanted to abduct two students and a school police officer, take them to various locations, and torture them to do death on camera. Fortunately, the wannabe bad guys were thwarted when one of their moms overheard their conversation and contacted the police. Looks like these guys won't be playing games anytime soon.

When it comes to special effects, The Matrix is one of the most influential films ever made. Unfortunately, this sci-fi flick has also inspired quite a few criminals. Take Lee Boyd Malvo, for instance. Known as the D.C. Sniper, this guy committed a series of terrifying murders in 2002, and he was supposedly so obsessed with the Wachowski film that his defense attorneys incorporated the movie into Malvo's insanity plea. He reportedly identified with Neo and instructed FBI agents to watch The Matrix if they wanted to understand his motives. He even scribbled lines referencing the film in his prison cell, including, "Free yourself from the Matrix."

It wasn't the only time the so-called "Matrix defense" would come up in court. In 2003, a 19-year-old dressed in Neo-like gear proceeded to murder his parents as a sort of grisly homage to the movie. As the killer himself put it, "I just kinda looked over at my Matrix poster, and then I looked over at my gun. I guess you know the rest." And in 2000, a Swiss exchange student believed his neighbor was putting off evil vibes and might suck him into the Matrix, so he slaughtered and dismembered the poor woman.

But while the Matrix defense sounds pretty ridiculous, it actually worked in 2002, when a woman shot her landlady at point-blank range. So why did she pull the trigger? Well, the killer claimed her dreams had been infected by her victim, and oh yeah, that "they commit a lot of crimes in the Matrix." As she further elaborated, the Matrix is "where you go to sleep at night, and they drug you and take you somewhere else." Yeah, that sounds pretty crazy, and evidently, the court agreed because it accepted her insanity plea. But as for Warner Bros., the studio issued a statement separating its fictional series from reality, saying, "Any attempt to link these crimes with a motion picture . . . is disturbing and irresponsible."

In 2003, a British man who'd seen Queen of the Damned over 100 times killed his best friend for disparaging the film's central vampire, Akasha. In fact, this guy even claimed Akasha told him to commit the murder. As a justification for his crime, he testified the undead queen had promised him immortality because "if you did not murder somebody you could not become a vampire." So naturally, he bludgeoned his friend with a hammer before stabbing him 42 times, drinking his blood, and eating parts of his skull. After being convicted of the savage murder, the man killed himself in his jail cell a year later, which just proves you should never ever trust a vampire.