Scary Movies Based On True Stories: Scream
Public record via Jacksonville.comDanny Rolling on trial for murder.
As far as horror movies based on true stories go, few are more stomach-churning than this real, grim tale.
The 1996 film Scream redefined the horror movie genre. Its tongue-in-cheek comedy combined with the “whodunit” mystery made it an instant classic slasher film. For the concept of the film, screenwriter Kevin Williamson drew from an all too real story of a small Florida college town and a man who terrorized its campus: the Gainesville Ripper.
Danny Rolling was a drifter who had been abused by his father his whole life. He displayed aggressive tendencies and poor impulse control throughout his whole life. But these behaviors were on full display when he rolled into Gainesville, Florida in 1990.
On August 24, 1990, Rolling broke into the home of 18-year-old Sonja Larson and 17-year-old Christina Powell, both freshmen at the University of Florida. The 6’2″ Rolling broke into their apartment and overwhelmed the young women.
Rolling raped both of the women, stabbed them to death, and then posed the bodies in sexually suggestive positions for police to find. He removed one of their nipples for a trophy. The very next day, Rolling struck again.
This time his victim was 18-year-old Christa Hoyt and the murder was the most macabre of them all. He broke in, raped her, killed her and then decapitated her. He left Hoyt sitting upright on her bed, her severed head was placed on a shelf across from her. Then Rolling again sliced off her nipples.
His last two victims were roommates, Tracy Paules, and Manuel Taboada. He killed Taboada first, stabbing him 30 times in his sleep, and then dealt Paules the same fate.
The brutal student slayings caused a media frenzy, and when screenwriter Williamson saw the story on the news one night he got the idea for the film. He said that the story of a crazed killer stalking students in a college town freaked him out so badly that he began to have nightmares. Those nightmares are what inspired him to write Scream.
