Read what "wordsatplay" wrote to see why there is no way in hell this can possibly be a true story.
https://www.filmboards.com/board/t/Really.-What-are-the-odds%3F-1349497/

that's what i'm wondering, it's based off of a book, but is the book based off a real story with real people?
also, why did they try to get back at the guy working at the hot dog stand by wanting to break the hot dog stand?
lukejbarnett

There can hardly be any doubt that various forms of institutional abuse have been systematically hushed up, but it's a little more difficult to make court records disappear
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

I agree it is was made up but we know these things do happen I enjoyed it for the storey

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Whether or not this particular story is true, it is true that this kind of stuff happens more often than most people would care to believe.
As a matter of fact, the creepy tunnels where the boys where taken by the guards were filmed in the actual tunnels of the former Fairfield Hills Mental Institution in Newtown, CT (yes, THAT Newtown, CT) where some real-life atrocities were committed through the years.

Th whole story was made up, this is common knowledge now.

why don't we ask the guy who wrote the book what all things that happened in this movie and book happened to him? also, lol, if they only used in this movie the prison part and the hot dog part, then this couldn't even be a movie.
yeah, if someone got shot and killed and people went to court about this shooting, they would have a record of it, so the shooting and the court parts didn't happen because we wouldn't have a problem finding out if these things really happened if they did.
lukejbarnett

If it IS true, then Lorenzo Carcaterra did a really, really good job at changing locations, names, and times, because as far as I know no one has ever found evidence of anything close to this happening.
Of course, as the other poster stated, abuse of children is sadly common (more so in the time portrayed in the film, late 60s, than so today, but it certainly still goes on today).
It's also possible that maybe the part of the story that takes place in the 60s is true and the revenge story is made up - perhaps it's Carcaterra's fantasy that he could have made the guards who abused him when he was younger pay.

The writer of the book claims it's a true story but the details like names,dates and places have changed. Many think it's not a true story but eben if it's not real similar things have occurred in real life.

The writer of the book claims it's a true story but the details like names,dates and places have changed. Many think it's not a true story but eben if it's not real similar things have occurred in real life.