Help, The Whisper Man was inspired by an eerie true story involving the writer’s own son

The Whisper Man is a hit new Netflix movie about a horrifying serial killer case. Thankfully, the murders themselves are fictional, but one of the creepiest parts of the story is inspired by a real life event. 

Directed by James Ashcroft, the film follows author Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott) and his young son Jake (Acston Luca Porto), who move to the town of Garretton following the death of Tom’s wife and Jake’s mother Rebecca. 

Running alongside this is an investigation into a child abduction seemingly connected to an infamous serial killer known as the Whisper Man. When Jake goes missing, Tom is sucked into the case, alongside his estranged father and former detective, Peter Willis (Robert De Niro).

If you didn’t already know, the Netflix film is, in fact, based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Alex North. The killer, Frank Carter (Michael Keaton), and his horrific crimes are a figment of North’s imagination, but the same can’t be said about one creepy detail. 

The creepy true story behind ‘the boy in the floor’

Upon the release of the novel, North spoke with Celadon Books about the origins of the story, saying that when he moved into a new home with his then-four-year-old son, he inexplicably started speaking with “the boy in the floor”… *shudders*

If you recall, in the film as in the book, Jake has an imaginary friend – the girl in the blue sweater – but he also speaks with someone he refers to as the boy in the floor. 

It comes up around a third of the way through the book, when Jake grows frustrated with his dad after he says, “You were pretending to be with someone else.” After he storms off, Tom reassures him and mentions the girl, but Jake replies, “It wasn’t her… it was the boy in the floor.”

Later on, Tom finally realises what Jake meant when the remains of Tony Smith, the Whisper Man’s fifth victim, are discovered buried beneath the house.

North never found a body in the basement, but his son did spark this part of the story. When asked about his initial idea for The Whisper Man, the author replied, “I wanted to write about fathers and sons. 

“Very specifically, I wanted to write about a widowed father struggling to connect with his grieving son. But I knew that I wanted it to be a crime novel with spooky elements, and I’ve long been a fan of the forums and threads you find online where people list creepy things little kids have come out with. 

“Like saying ‘that’s where I used to live’ when the family is driving past a graveyard, or talking about the man with the long neck in the closet and then the parents discover someone hung themselves in the house years earlier.”

North continued, “When we moved into our new house, there was a day when my son, who was about four at the time, talked about playing with ‘the boy in the floor.’

“That stuck with me, and I eventually decided that Jake in the book would have imaginary friends and some of them would be quite frightening. The story developed from there.”

He went on to explain that as a writer, you can’t help but draw from your own experiences. “Even if you’re using your imagination, you’re still going to be influenced by everything you’ve seen and read and done,” he said. 

“The book’s entirely fictional, in that nothing in it really happened – or at least not the way it does in the story – but it’s inevitable that real life creeps in a little, because I wanted the book to feel honest.”

The Whisper Man killer has one disturbing real life connection

That’s where the real-life inspiration behind North’s original story ends, with the author previously confirming that Frank Carter wasn’t based on any particular real-life serial killer. That said, the Netflix adaptation does have one disturbing connection to a real murder case.

Director James Ashcroft told Entertainment Weekly that Frank’s habit of recording conversations with his young victims reminded him of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who murdered five children and teenagers in the infamous Moors murders.

Police investigating the pair discovered a recording they had made of 10-year-old victim Lesley Ann Downey, which Ashcroft recalled hearing an excerpt from.

“It was just voices, them talking to this child and recording it for whatever their own purposes are. And there was something so banal and uneventful about it that made it even more horrifying,” the filmmaker explained. 

“And at the end of the day, you are dealing with a grown adult having power over an innocent child. And I don’t think it can get any worse than that.”

Unlike Frank, Brady and Hindley didn’t send the tape to police, so the Whisper Man’s crimes certainly aren’t a recreation of the real case. But it’s a chilling real-life parallel to one of the most disturbing parts of the fictional killer’s MO.

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Featured image credit: Netflix