Based Off of True Events

The other night, I watched the scariest movie I have ever seen. It being Halloween weekend, I figured that it would be a fun idea. The movie I watched was called The House of the Devil. It was a low budget, independent horror movie about a babysitter who finds herself actually sitting for satanic worshippers. At the very beginning of the movie, during the opening credits, five words showed up on the screen. "Based Off of True Events." I immediately became uneasy, I thought, "if this was based off of true events, it could happen to me!" But as the movie went on, I realized that this idea was far fetched. While it definitely was terrifying, the plot was so unrealistic that I began to wonder what true events this movie was based off of. Perhaps it was loosely based off of the accounts of satanic worshippers in the 80's (the movie was based in the 80's), or perhaps the director was simply adding those five words in order to make the viewers of the movie more terrified. Either way, I wondered why the director wanted to make his movie, which was clearly a work of fiction, seem more like non-fiction. Perhaps it is because we are living in an era of reality television. People are suddenly more interested in watching what is real, rather than what is made up. And perhaps that is the reason why the director added those five words. Although there was some historical credibility, it was not to give his viewers a history lesson, but rather to get them more interested in his movie. But it brings up a good question that we discussed in American Studies. "Can there be truth in fiction?"