6 Flicks That Drove Crazies to Kill
Ransom Riggs writes on mental_floss:
Just as the literature-inspired shooters of the 70s and 80s were probably crazy long before they picked up a copy of Catcher on the Rye, the psychos who claim a movie drove them to kill were probably psycho long before screening Psycho. These are six films that supposedly pushed people over the edge:
1. William Friedkin’s BUG
This creepy 2006 psycho-thriller about paranoia and insect infestations was directed by William Friedkin, most famous for The Exorcist. Despite dealing with a few murders and plenty of craziness in its own plot, the crime it inspired was considerably more horrific and strange. In January, blaring headlines like “Millionaire executive unhinged by horror film killed daughter” announced the tragedy, apparently trigged as stressed-out insurance executive Alberto Izaga watched Bug in a theater with his wife. Soon after, his wife would find him babbling incoherently in the middle of the night, shouting about the film, the Devil and death. Experiencing what his wife would call an “extreme and sudden” breakdown, he bludgeoned his two-year-old daughter to death while yelling “God doesn’t exist! The universe doesn’t exist! Humanity doesn’t exist!”
