American Horror Story
Every time of year ofAmerican Horror Storytakes inspiration from real characters and events , though pull in important changes to them to fit the show ’s way and pure tone , andAmerican Horror Story : Asylumhas many characters based on material - sprightliness people . After explore the story of the ghosts living in a haunted sign inAmerican Horror Story : Murder House , the serial publication took the hearing back to the 1960s inAHS : Asylumto see the horrific events that took place at the fictional mental foundation Briarcliff Manor . Asylummixed the horrors of social experiments , racism , and a consecutive killer with a supernatural element that might seem out of place : outlander .
American Horror Story : Asylumfollowed the stories of Kit Walker ( Evan Peters ) , an barren piece get under suspicion of being the Bloody Face killer;Lana Winters ( Sarah Paulson ) , a journalist whose investigation of Briarcliff lead her to be committed to it ; and Sister Jude Martin ( Jessica Lange ) , head nun at Briarcliff whose belief were put to the ultimate test . American Horror Story : Asylumis widely considered the good season of the show , and it might make it more terrifying to cognise that some of its main characters were base on real - life people .
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1Kit & Alma Walker - Barney & Betty Hill
Kit and Alma Walker ( Britne Oldford ) were a immature duet who had to keep their marriage mystery as it was an mixed relationship , which was brand and illegal in the 1960s . One night , while at their home , Kit discover strange noises outside but when he went outdoors to enquire , he was startle by a blind trice of brightness and a thunderous sound . Kit ran back into the house , only to find the objects in the support way levitating , after which he was pinned against the roof by an unseen force . Kit had a series of unusual visions of green android abide around him , but as Alma went miss after this event and his story was too strange , nobody believed him and he was , instead , consider to bethe Bloody Face killer .
Kit and Alma ’s story inAHS : Asylumwas breathe in by that of Barney and Betty Hill , an interracial American twosome who claimed to have been abducted by unknown in 1961 . According to the Hills , they encountered a UFO on September 19 , 1961 , while driving back home from a holiday . After observing a strange aim in the sky , the Hills explain it quickly fall toward their railroad car , and Barney , using binoculars , claimed to have seen eight to eleven humanoid figures peering out of the craft ’s windowpane . The Hills then drove away as fast as they could , but they heard a rhythmical series of beeping sound , the car vibrate , and a tingle sensation passed through their trunk , after which they go through the onset of altered awareness . Another serial of claxon sounds brought them back to full consciousness , and they realise they had traveled about 35 miles south and had patched memories of the road . Their chronicle have been analyzed countless clock time and expose as well .
2Grace Bertrand – Lizzie Borden
Grace Bertrand ( Lizzie Brocheré ) was a patient at Briarcliffwho later became Kit ’s second married woman and female parent of his boy . Grace moved to America from France with her family when she was nine age old , but she was constantly plunder by her Church Father at night . When Grace told her stepmother about it , she told her to not say anything to anyone and bribed her with candy . One twenty-four hours , banal of the abuse , Grace mutilate her father and stepmother with an axe , and as her stepsister , who witnessed the murder , refused to conceive her father did so much harm to Grace , she attest that she wipe out them without a lawsuit , so Grace was beam to Briarcliff .
Grace ’s tale inAHS : Asylumtakes many elements from that of Lizzie Borden . The story of Lizzie Borden has cheer a number of movies , goggle box shows , and Book , as her display case receive widespread publicity back in the late 1890s . On August 4 , 1892 , the body of Lizzie ’s father , Andrew , and her stepmother , Abby , were found at their family , and Lizzie ’s contradicting answers to police policeman made her a defendant . After a long process and lots of hypothesis on Lizzie ’s motives and more , she was acquitted of the execution , but all these events trace her for the rest of her life . It has been chew over that Lizzie was physically and sexually abused by her father , that she and her maid had an involvement and Abby had encounter them together ( and that her maidservant confess on her deathbed to have changed her testimonial to protect Lizzie ) , and that the amah was the real liquidator .
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3Pepper – Schlitze Surtees
Pepper ( Naomi Grossman ) was a char with microcephaly who performed at Fräulein Elsa ’s Cabinet of Curiosities inAmerican Horror Story : Freak Show , after which she was committed to Briarcliff Manor . Afterthe end of her “ husband ” and carrying out partner , Salty , Pepper refused to keep performing and Elsa took her to live with her sister , Rita Gayheart , who along with her husband , abuse Pepper . Rita and her husband killed their disfigured baby nephew and frame Pepper for it , after which she was convicted of murder and sent to Briarcliff .
Pepper was revolutionise by Schlitzie Surtees , an American sideshow performer who also appeared in a duo of flick , most notablythe 1932 classic repugnance movieFreaks . Like Pepper , Schlitzie was bear with microcephaly and cerebral disability , and was often presented in shows as distaff or androgynous to add to the mystique of his alone coming into court . Schlitzie died in 1971 at the age of 70 .
4Oliver Thredson/Bloody Face – Ed Gein
Dr. Oliver Thredson ( Zachary Quinto ) was a head-shrinker fetch to Briarcliff to assess Kit ’s competency to abide tryout , but he end up manipulate Kit into admitting to the murder Thredson committed , as he was the real Bloody Face killer . Among Thredson ’s many offence were the slaying of Lana Winters ’ girlfriend , Wendy , and rap Lana , who gave their Logos up for adoption . When Lana generate out of Briarcliff , she used her pregnancy to trick Thredson into confessing his crimes , after which she killed him at his home plate .
Thredson has become one of the scarey part ofAmerican Horror Story , so it should n’t come as a surprise that he wasbased on one of the cruelest liquidator in American account : Ed Gein . Gein disinter corpses from local graveyards and confess to shoot down two women ( Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden ) , and when the law raid his house after the fade of Worden , they found a truly horrific aspect . Gein used the body of his dupe and all the clay he exhume to make trophy , including a corset , bowling ball , leggings , masks , and a lampshade . Gein was chance hangdog of Worden ’s execution but also legally insane , and he spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric mental home .
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5Lana Winters – Nellie Bly
Lana Winters was a journalist who after sneaking into Briarcliff to investigate what happened there , was committed to it as Sister Jude threatened her girl , Wendy , to divulge their family relationship as it was regard taboo and illegal at the time , so she sign a statement claiming Lana was mentally ill . Thredson earned Lana ’s trustfulness and helped her escape , only to take her to his home , where he outrage her . Lana finally left Briarcliff for well and she not only got a confession from Thredson but also killed him , proved Kit ’s whiteness , and expose Briarcliff and its staff ’s cruelties . Lana also killed her and Thredson ’s Word , John , who confronted her about his yesteryear , as she knew he was follow his father ’s steps .
Lana Winters was based on Nellie Bly(real name : Elizabeth Cochran Seaman ) , an American journalist known for her record - infract trip around the humankind in 72 sidereal day and an exposé on a mental institution , in which he act undercover . In 1887 , she took an hush-hush designation for theNew York Worldfor which she correspond to fake insanity so as to investigate paper of brutality and neglect at the Women ’s Lunatic Asylum . After some obstacles while trying to get into the refuge , she pass 10 days there before being released atThe World ’s behest , and her exposé not only brought her celebrity but also led to the founding implementing reforms . Nellie Bly died of pneumonia in 1922 at the old age of 57 .
6Dr. Arden – Josef Mengele
Oliver Thredson was n’t the only monster inAmerican Horror Story : Asylum , as there was alsoDr . Arthur Arden ( James Cromwell ) , the MD and decision maker at Briarcliff . Arden was a Nazi war criminal who experimented on various patients at Briarcliff , and was the one creditworthy for the altered homo in the surrounding forest . Arden had feelings for Sister Mary Eunice ( Lily Rabe ) , who was possessed and thus convinced him of torturing Sister Jude and other patient , though that does n’t excuse all the experiments , decease , and overrefinement he was responsible for for .
Dr. Arden was ground on Josef Mengele , an SS officer and medico during World War II hump for the baneful experimentation he perform on captive at the Auschwitz II compactness camp , earning the moniker “ Angel of Death ” . His well - known experiments were those on identical twin , with Mengele wanting to prove the superiority of the Aryan race through them . Mengele fled to Argentina after the war , and he eluded capture despite many external elbow grease to fetch him to test .
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