The Hills Have Eyes
Wikimedia CommonsA piece of art depicting Sawney Bean outside of his cave.
Wes Craven, the mastermind behind The Hills Have Eyes and countless other horror movie classics, admitted that even he couldn’t completely make up the demented storylines for some of his movies. It doesn’t get much grislier than horror movies based on true stories of cannibalism— something Craven recognized.
For the inspiration of 2006’s The Hills Have Eyes, Craven admitted that he drew inspiration from the legend of Sawney Bean, the mythical leader of a cannibalistic cult.
Truly, few horror movies based on true stories are as gruesome as this.
Sawney Bean was believed to have lived in a cave in remote Scotland with close to 50 family members including over a dozen children from his union with Agnes Douglas, and dozens of grandchildren mostly born of incest.
The family survived on murder and cannibalism. The legends say that they would target and ambush lone travelers, killing them and feasting on their flesh. When they had more human meat than they could eat before it went bad, they would pickle and salt the remains to preserve them for later.
Bean and his legendary cannibal army lived isolated in their cave until a failed ambush led local authorities to discover their hideaway and capture the whole family.
William De Falco/YouTubeA depiction of Bean mid-cannibalism.
By the end of their decades-long murder spree, the number of victims was said to be in the hundreds.
Each member of the Bean family was eventually sentenced to a slow, grisly death. However, the legend of Sawney Bean lives on through the power of horror movies.
