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When life imitates art - with some very dark consequences.
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00:00Movies, generally, have a positive influence on people.
00:04Sometimes, however, they can inspire dangerous or even criminal acts,
00:09and that's what we're looking at today.
00:10Now, it's not the fault of the movies that these things happened,
00:13but it does add a chilling or tragic element to the story of a film's impact,
00:18and a stark reminder of the power popular films have in our lives.
00:23I'm Will for WhatCulture, and here are 10 people who copied movies in disturbing ways.
00:2810. Wedding Crashers Inspired a Woman to Poison Her Fiance
00:33A raucous comedy like Wedding Crashers isn't exactly the kind of movie
00:37you'd think would inspire an attempted murder,
00:40and yes, that's exactly what happened in a 2019 incident.
00:44In June of that year, a North Carolina woman was arrested after spiking her fiancé's soda with eye drops,
00:50all in an effort to gain custody of their daughter.
00:53The woman told the authorities that she got the idea directly from Wedding Crashers,
00:57which contains a scene where Owen Wilson's character pulls off a similar stunt.
01:01The movie obviously plays this sequence for laughs, with the victim merely falling ill,
01:06but in reality, the consequences would have been far more severe, even fatal,
01:10if the woman's fiancé had actually downed the deadly concoction.
01:14Luckily though, he caught her in the act and immediately dialed 911
01:18after locking himself and his daughter in a bathroom.
01:219. A trio of bank robbers modeled their crimes on The Town's Central Crux
01:27Ben Affleck's 2010 crime epic The Town is one of the smartest thrillers of modern times,
01:32and in fact, its bank heist sequences are so engaging that a trio of thugs
01:38was actually inspired to copy them in real life.
01:40The three young men devised a plan to rob a check-cashing store in Queens,
01:45taking inspiration from the Hollywood hit while mapping out their scheme.
01:48They committed the crime by hiding their faces under expensive white masks,
01:52which cost around $1,000 each, which reportedly were not too dissimilar to the creepy,
01:57somewhat ghostly ones worn by the lawbreakers in Affleck's movie.
02:00The men went on a shopping spree after making off with around $200,000,
02:05but in a strange twist, it turned out that one of them had actually emailed the mask maker
02:09to say thank you, which led to all three of them being caught.
02:138. A teenager died after copying Into the Wild's lead character
02:18Cult hit Into the Wild follows a disillusioned man who escapes modern society by venturing into
02:23the wilderness where he lives for several months. At first, it seems to be a story about hope,
02:29about finding yourself by removing all the hustle and bustle of 20th century life.
02:33Unfortunately though, main character Christopher realizes how unforgiving nature can be,
02:39and he ultimately dies after eating a poisonous plant. In 2013, the real-life story of an Arizona
02:45teenager called Jonathan Croom also had a tragic ending after he took inspiration from the film
02:51and headed out into the forest. A month later, he was found dead just 1,000 feet from his abandoned car.
02:58Croom's father said he watched Into the Wild a lot and attributed his desire to live in the wilderness
03:03to his broken heart, which was caused by the end of a relationship.
03:077. A man died in a high-speed car crash after watching Too Fast, Too Furious.
03:13Back when the Fast and the Furious movies were actually about street racing,
03:17there were lots of stories about people attempting to copy the reckless driving scene in the films.
03:21One such case revolved around a 17-year-old kid called William Lacasse Jr., who was heading home
03:27after watching Too Fast, Too Furious, when a pair of cars flashed their lights at him and challenged him
03:33to a street race. William obliged, pushing pedal to metal and reaching a dangerously high speed.
03:39Moments later, he slammed into a concrete light pole and died. Because so many cases of unsafe driving
03:45were blamed on the Fast and Furious movies around this time, Universal actually came out and commented
03:50on the matter, stating that the link between real-life accidents and fictional movies was unjustifiable.
03:57Ultimately, this is the truth, and a film is not responsible for causing someone to speed while
04:02driving, but it does not take away from the tragedy of William's untimely death.
04:076. Blue Crush's underwater training scene was fatally imitated by a young boy.
04:12Blue Crush is a fairly by-the-numbers sports movie, centered on Anne-Marie, a young woman who
04:17strives to become a professional surfer. As is the case with the vast majority of sports movies out there,
04:23it also features numerous training scenes where Anne-Marie and her friends catch some waves
04:28to hone their surfing skills. In one of these scenes, Anne-Marie takes things up a notch by
04:33carrying a heavy rock across the ocean floor in an effort to improve her endurance. It's a great moment
04:39in the story, but sadly, a young boy who attempted to mimic this feat in real life ended up paying with
04:45his life. In 2003, 13-year-old Anthony Alfonson tried to copy the scene from Blue Crush, but in a
04:52slightly different way. While playing with his friends, he attempted to swim across a 15-foot deep
04:58pond with a heavy chain wrapped around his waist, which soon caused him to be dragged underneath the
05:03water, where he sadly drowned. Nearby parents and rescue workers did try to save Anthony, but it all
05:08happened so fast that they simply could not get there in time. Five, a child fell 19 stories while
05:16pretending to be the Amazing Spider-Man 2's titular hero. We've all had those moments in life where we
05:22dream about being a superhero. Of course, for children, they can struggle to find the difference between
05:26fictional excitement and real danger. In 2014, Valentino was excited about seeing the newly released
05:33The Amazing Spider-Man 2 at his local cinema, so he asked his mother to take him. When she refused,
05:39Valentino ran inside his 19th floor bedroom and locked the door, and shortly after, his mother was
05:45told that a body had been found on the street below. Valentino was rushed to the hospital, but he was
05:50pronounced dead on arrival. The predominant speculation by police was that the boy fell while trying to
05:56imitate the wall-calling superhero he was desperate to see. Reportedly, Valentino enjoyed role-playing as
06:02characters like Iron Man and Captain America whenever he saw those movies. And like a lot of youngsters,
06:08he was also a huge fan of Spidey. Four, the deer hunter's Russian roulette scenes led to a double
06:14suicide. The Russian roulette scenes in 1978's The Deer Hunter are easily the most famous moments in the
06:21movie, with Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken acting their hearts out, leading the film to a Best
06:26Picture win at the Academy Awards. Unfortunately, however, the film's legacy hasn't been entirely
06:32positive. A couple of years after its release, it was reported that over two dozen people had died
06:38while mimicking the Russian roulette scenes peppered throughout the story, prompting for calls for
06:42these moments to be edited out of the film's TV reruns. One of the most widely reported incidents
06:48that led to these censorship calls involved two men in their late 20s, who shot themselves in the head
06:54while sat at their kitchen table. The men, who had recently watched The Deer Hunter, used partially
06:59loaded revolvers to play their deadly game. And while they both survived the first trigger pull,
07:04they weren't so lucky on the second. Three, a young boy hanged himself after imitating Captain Jack
07:10Sparrow's noose escape. In the closing scenes of 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean, The Curse of the
07:16Black Pearl, Captain Jack Sparrow successfully evades death when his hanging is interrupted by
07:22blacksmith turned sea dog, Will Turner. Will uses his support to support Jack's legs, and the legendary
07:28pirate is freed when the hangman accidentally cuts his noose. It's another unlikely escape that's
07:33befitting of the famous character. But tragically, the scene was copied by a 12-year-old boy in 2005.
07:40After watching the movie with his mother, young Scott Buckle took inspiration from Jack's escape
07:45by hanging a noose around his own neck and attempting a similar feat. Tragically,
07:49he did not survive. Reportedly, the youngster was prone to imitating the things he saw,
07:54with his mother explaining that he felt invincible and was not aware of the risks.
07:59Because of this, it was assumed the child genuinely believed he could survive,
08:03as was depicted in the film. Two, Money Train's fire attacks were replicated
08:08by two real-life criminals. 1995's Money Train stars Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson as two cops
08:15attempting to hunt down and apprehend a serial killer known as The Torch. One of The Torch's
08:20horrible methods is to approach a subway token booth, spray some gasoline inside,
08:25and threaten to set the attendant on fire unless they hand over the cash.
08:29We see The Torch do this a couple of times throughout the story, and these scenes inspired
08:33a pair of real-life criminals to enact a similar plot not too long after the movie's release.
08:38In November of 1995, two men took some flammable liquid and a match and set a subway token booth
08:44ablaze with the attendant trapped inside. This attendant, 50-year-old Harry Kaufman,
08:50suffered second and third-degree burns over most of his body and died of his injuries two weeks later.
08:56Understandably, the authorities identified the inspiration for this from the sequences in Money Train,
09:02due to the fact that the movie was playing in cinemas at the time. There were also a couple of
09:06similar token booth attacks surrounding the movie's release, but thankfully, none of these resulted in
09:12any more deaths. One, a man drank his girlfriend's blood after watching Interview with the Vampire.
09:18On the 17th of November 1994, Daniel Sterling took his girlfriend Lisa to see the Tom Cruise starring
09:24Interview with the Vampire, a film in which the titular creatures drink plenty of human and animal
09:30blood, a necessity for them to survive. The next morning, Lisa woke up to find Sterling in bed,
09:36staring at her. She asked him what was wrong, and he replied,
09:39I'm going to kill you and drink your blood. It sounds like a ludicrous threat, but it wasn't a joke.
09:45The very next evening, Sterling stabbed his partner seven times in the chest and back
09:50before consuming her blood for several minutes. Incredibly though, Lisa survived,
09:55while Sterling was locked up in jail on an attempted murder charge. Strangely, Sterling,
10:01who claims to believe in vampires, stated he did not blame the film for his actions,
10:06perhaps indicating that his desire to feast on blood actually predated the movie. And there you have
10:1110 people who copied movies in disturbing and often tragic ways. Please remember to like this video
10:17and subscribe, and I'll see you next time with some hopefully more cheerful movie trivia.
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