He joins forces with an unconventional priest, schooled in the rituals of exorcism, to combat the frightening and demonic possessions that are terrorizing their city.
Before you head to your local theater to be spooked by this summer’s most anticipated horror film, we thought it only fitting that we first prime you up with a look at 10 real-life stories of demonic possession, which prove that the real world is a whole lot more horrifying than anything that we’ve ever been witness to on the big screen.
So proceed with caution because the shit you’re about to read is as nightmare-inducing as it gets!
1 – The only logical place to start with this list is the story of young Anneliese Michel, which was brought to the screen in the form of 2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose – written and directed by none other than Scott Derrickson. Though the name was changed, the story depicted in the movie was pretty damn faithful to the actual events, which took place in the 1970s.
After suffering her third seizure in June of 1970, the 18-year-old German girl reportedly began seeing devilish faces, which eventually transformed into voices that informed her she was going to “rot in hell.” Though the doctors believed that Michel was suffering from some form of psychosis, which she was heavily medicated for, the girl believed otherwise and became convinced that her body was host to a demonic entity.
Michel was unable to come into contact with things like holy water or crosses, and her condition took a turn for the worse when she began to drink her own urine, eat bugs and experience severe bodily convulsions. Over the course of 10 months, beginning in 1975, Michel was subjected to nearly 70 individual exorcisms, which ended with her death on July 1st of 1976. She weighed just 68 pounds at the time of her death, which was blamed on malnutrition and dehydration.
If you really want to disrupt your sleep patterns, watch the videos below of Anneliese Michel talking in demonic voices during her various exorcisms.
Born in 1936 to a German family, Roland Doe was an only child who lived with his parents in Maryland, and his particular tale of horror reportedly began when Roland’s aunt introduced him to the mystical Ouija board. After she died, Roland attempted to use the board to make contact with her, and it wasn’t long before something from the other side reached back.
Objects began levitating and were hurled around the house in the wake of Roland’s aunt’s passing, and some 40 witnesses attested to various strange occurrences that were seemingly connected to Roland. Furniture was said to move on its own, and at one point a container of holy water smashed to the ground in Roland’s presence.
During the young boy’s exorcism, which is not unlike the one depicted in The Exorcist, Roland reportedly ripped out a bedspring from his mattress and used it to slash the arm of the priest, the wound requiring 100 stitches. The priest’s diary, which provides the majority of information about the ordeal, reports that Roland’s bed shook violently and he spoke in a deep, demonic voice, a la the fictional Regan MacNeil. At one point, the words ‘evil’ and ‘hell’ even appeared on his body out of nowhere.
After 30 exorcisms, Roland Doe no longer exhibited signs of being demonically possessed, and he went on to have a happy, normal life, becoming a father and husband. In addition to The Exorcist, the 2000 Showtime original movie Possessed was also based on Doe’s waking nightmare.
According to Knapp, the ordeal began when she was visited by the Devil one night and made a pact with him, selling her soul in exchange for things like money and youth. Willard wrote in his journal that it appeared as if the Devil was literally talking through Knapp’s body, which oftentimes became so contorted that it took several people to hold her down. He also wrote that she spoke in a demonic voice without her lips ever moving, which was accompanied by her throat swelling up “like a balloon.”
In 1672, Willard’s journal entries about Knapp ceased, and still to this day nobody is sure what happened to the possessed young girl. In his last entry about the subject, Willard indicated that he wasn’t sure what was happening to her but that he knew the things she was doing were completely involuntary.
4 – A pact with the Devil was similarly blamed for the apparent demonic possession of 16-year-old South African girl Clara Germana Cele back in 1906. In addition to developing an animalistic voice, the girl exhibited supernatural strength, reportedly tossing nuns around the room and brutally beating them up. It was also noted that she spoke many languages which she previously had no knowledge of, including Polish, German and French.
“No animal had ever made such sounds,” noted an attending nun, regarding the girl’s demonically altered voice. “Neither the lions of East Africa nor the angry bulls. At times, it sounded like a veritable herd of wild beasts orchestrated by Satan had formed a hellish choir.”
Though a two-day exorcism eventually forced the demon out of her body and healed her, the process wasn’t an easy one, as she seemed intent on choking the priest with his own stole. According to witnesses, it wasn’t unusual during the exorcism for Clara to levitate several feet in the air, only being brought down to her bed when sprinkled with holy water.
5 – The strange story of Englishman George Lukins began at a Christmas pageant he was performing in, where he alleged that some sort of supernatural force slapped him and knocked him to the ground. For the next several years, Lukins exhibited a bizarre condition that doctors deemed incurable and which he personally believed was a result of possession by seven different demons.
It was in May of 1778 that a priest was brought in to cure the man that doctors weren’t able to, the exorcism taking place when Lukins was 44 years old. As published at the time in a local newspaper, Lukins claimed during the exorcism that he was the Devil and became very violent, coupled with inhuman barking noises that emitted from his being.
After clergyman demanded that the demons inhabiting Lukins’ body return to Hell where they came from, the man underwent a complete 360-degree change, praising God and exclaiming, “Blessed Jesus.” From that point forward, Lukins was cured, though many at the time believed he had faked the whole ordeal. Skeptics blamed epilepsy for the man’s violent convulsions.
6 – Residing in Iowa, Anna Ecklund began showing signs of demonic possession when she was 14 years old in the early 1900s. A devout Catholic, it is believed that her witchcraft-practicing father and aunt were to blame for her possession, tainting her food and placing a curse upon her soul. In the wake of their devious tactics, Ecklund found herself unable to enter churches and became sexually depraved, resulting in her exorcism in 1912.
After being cured, the girl’s father and aunt allegedly begged Satan to return and continue his torment, which is where this story gets all the more terrifying. After being placed in a convent, witnesses claimed that Ecklund levitated high above her bed and even clung to the walls of her room, speaking in languages she did not know. She also vomited and spit at priests who were trying to help, and it was said that her body became so bloated that the bed she was laying on could barely support her weight.
Three different exorcism rituals, over the course of nearly a month, rid the demonic entities from the girl’s body once more. Many believed that the entities that inhabited her were the same ones that attached themselves to Anneliese Michel many decades later.
7 – Well over 40 demons were said to have a hold on married man Michael Taylor back in 1974 in his British hometown of Ossett, Yorkshire. Taylor’s story began when he cheated on his wife, Christine, with a fellow member of the Christian Fellowship Group he was a part of, claiming that he felt a sense of evil brewing inside of him. After lashing out at the woman with a violent outburst, Taylor’s behavior became even more unusual, which resulted in a group of priests converging on his home in October of 1974.
After a 24-hour exorcism, the priests invoked and cast out 40 demons, eventually becoming so exhausted that they had to call it quits. The priests noted that several demons still called the man’s body home, even after the extended exorcism, and worried that he had still had a whole lot of evil inside of him.
Their fears were fully realized shortly after the exorcism, when the once completely normal Michael Taylor was found outside of his home by police, fully naked and covered from head to toe in blood. Taylor brutally murdered his wife and strangled their pet poodle, tearing his wife’s eyes and tongue out and ripping most of her face off. Amazingly, the man was acquitted of all charges for reasons of insanity.
In more recent years, Taylor has found himself in the news several more times, exhibiting similarly diabolical characteristics. He has attempted suicide on a couple occasions and was on trial in 2005 for molesting a young girl.
11-Year-old David Glatzel was the first host of the demonic entity, which wreaked havoc on life in the Glatzel family home. The boy experienced strange rashes and bruises on his body and alleged that he saw a strange old man on the property, who sometimes took the form of a beast-like creature. Deep gashes began to appear on the front door of the house, seemingly confirming David’s claims of paranormal activity.
Eventually, renowned demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren (seen in The Conjuring) were brought in to expel the demon, working with a Catholic priest who used the power of Christ to cast the evil out of the young boy.
But that was only the beginning of this tale as the entity apparently jumped from David’s body to Arne Johnson’s in the wake of the exorcism. On February 16th of 1981, Johnson brutally murdered the Glatzel family’s landlord, stabbing him repeatedly with a pocket knife while growling like an animal. Johnson was convicted of the murder, though he only served a mere five years in prison.
The story was turned into the made-for-TV movie The Demon Murder Case, and a major motion picture has been in the works for some time now.
Strange voices, mysterious wet footprints and levitation were among the symptoms of this particular possession, and the story gained a whole lot of credibility when both nurses and police officers confirmed the claims Latoya was making. Medical staff at the local hospital reported that one of the boys had been lifted off the ground and tossed into a wall by an unseen force, proceeding to walk backwards up the wall in a way that was described as being very inhuman.
“Ghost Adventures” star Zak Bagans purchased the home shortly after the news broke and is planning on living there and documenting his experience. The story is also being turned into a feature film by one of the producers of The Conjuring.
According to a doctor’s report released to the public in 2012, the mysterious Julia – identified only as a middle-aged Caucasian woman from the United States – speaks in voices that are quite different than her own and even displays psychic abilities, exhibiting a knowledge of events that she by all means should have no knowledge of. “So those cats really went berserk last night, didn’t they?” she chillingly asked mere hours after a violent cat fight in the private home of a member of her psychiatry team.
An exorcism was eventually performed on Julia with the priests noting that the room grew very hot as soon as they began. During the exorcism Julia levitated off the bed for a full 30 minutes and again spoke in languages she had never learned, recoiling in agony any time holy water was sprinkled onto her body.
The possession began back in 2008, and though the exorcism was helpful, Julia is reportedly still to this day battling the malevolent force that resides within her.