Plot Synopsis

Using found footage, re-enactments, and first-person interviews, BEHIND THE SCREAMS pulls back the curtain to reveal the real stories behind actual events that inspired some of the most terrifying horror movies ever put on screen -- from serial killers to documented paranormal encounters. Each one-hour episode features a different person, including: serial killer Ed Gein, who left behind two bloody crime scenes, dozens of empty graves, a sick obsession with mother and a suit of human skin; serial killer Ted Bundy, whose act was so effective that it gave rise to the technique of a famed fictional serial killer, Buffalo Bill, in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS; serial killer John Wayne Gacy, the original killer clown from the 1970s, who inspired so many evil, clown-faced villains in movies; a teenage boy in Baltimore, whose behavior gets more disturbing as he becomes consumed by evil, providing a backstory for THE EXORCIST; the Perron family, whose old rural farmhouse was full of angry apparitions, tragic suicides and sinister witchcraft, as shown on screen in THE CONJURING; and Travis Walton, who was one of a group of young men to disappear into a mysterious bright light -- but the only one to reappear five days later -- providing the alien abduction story for FIRE IN THE SKY.