Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in True Detective (2014)

Films about serial killers & famous murder cases

Brian Dennehy in To Catch a Killer (1992)

Bruce Willis, David Morse, and Yasiin Bey in 16 Blocks (2006)

Do you know everything there is to know about the Boston Strangler? Really?!?! The Boston Strangler is an incredibly complicated tapestry of lies, mistruths, deception, greed, murder, and avarice. Using beautiful early 1960s Boston as its backdrop, this story is the pure embodiment of truth always being weirder than fiction. 

Now 60 years on, the Boston Strangler is a story that continues to fascinate generation after generation, and a story that also continues to put some serious fright in even the most hardened Bostonians. 

The basic tenet(s) of the Boston Strangler are fairly simple. From 1962 to 1964 there were 13 women murdered in Boston. Some strangled. Some stabbed. Inconsistent ages. In consistent motives. Weirdly a wide range in age. The Boston Strangler ended up killing women between the ages of 19 and 85. Not your typical serial killer with an obsessive fixation on the order or type of killings. 

Some referred to this terrifying murderer as the “Mad Strangler”, the “Phantom Fiend”, and even the “Phantom Strangler”, but it wasn’t until 1963 when two plucky young female reporters did a four-part series in local paper where they finally landed on the monicker “The Boston Strangler.”

At the heart of this horrifying mystery was one individual — Albert DeSalvo. Bostonians rested all their fears, hatred, and insecurities firmly at his feet. By some accounts he was a brilliant serial-killing machine, but by other accounts he was a simple and philandering creep. Throughout the history of the Boston Strangler films Albert DeSalvo is given these opposing characteristics and many more juxtapositions. 

More weird is the fact that even though DeSalvo confessed to all the murders he actually may only be responsible for a handful of them, and possibly as a few as one. Given the wildly varied styles and motives some have even theorized that the Boston Strangler was two, three, or even more killers!

No matter your take on the Boston Strangler or how deeply you’ve crawled down in the Boston Strangler rabbit hole, it’s safe to say that people are still raptured by this story lo these many years. The fear is real. The uncertainties are real. The Boston Strangler is real. 

To celebrate this year’s most recent take on the Boston Strangler, aptly titled the Boston Strangler, the Scariest Things went back and looked at each and every film adaptation of the Boston Strangler story and ranked ‘em all!

Peep the full list at www.scariesthings.com

Movies, TV Shows & Documentaries Based on Real Serial Killers

Anne Heche, Vincent Kartheiser, Dallas Roberts, Marc Meyers, Alex Wolff, and Ross Lynch in My Friend Dahmer (2017)

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