The True Story Behind Girl In The Basement Explained

This article contains discussions of child abuse and sexual assault.

True crime has been a very popular genre for a while now, so it’s not surprising that a genuinely horrifying real-life case — which occurred in Austria and came to light in 2008 — served as inspiration for two (admittedly different) movies. So, if you’ve seen the 2021 Lifetime original film “Girl in the Basement,” what is it about … and how does it connect to real-life events?

Released in 2021, “Girl in the Basement” stars Stefanie Scott as Sarah Cody, a rebellious teenager who’s seeing a boy named Chris (Jake Etheridge) and sneaks out to meet up with him against the wishes of her extraordinarily strict father Don (Judd Nelson, likely best known for playing John Bender in the classic teen film “The Breakfast Club”). After she returns home, having been out all night, Don does something horrific; he imprisons his own daughter in the soundproofed basement of the Cody family home, unbeknownst to her mother Irene (Joely Fisher) and sister Amy (Emily Topper). Don then keeps his daughter there for decades, repeatedly sexually assaulting her for years, which results in Sara giving birth to three children. When those children grow up, one needs medical attention … and Sara is freed at last.

This is, obviously, deeply horrifying — and tragically, it is based on a true story. Here’s what you need to know about Elisabeth Fritzl, her real imprisonment, and the award-winning film that also took inspiration from her lived experience.

Let’s now turn our attention to the Fritzl case, which was first reported on in 2008 when a truly despicable situation was discovered at the family’s home in Amstetten, Austria. In an article from The New York Times, the paper explains that Josef Fritzl, the family’s patriarch, imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth for 24 full years in his basement without anyone knowing. During that time, Josef repeatedly assaulted his daughter, who gave birth to seven children in captivity. In 2008, Elisabeth’s oldest daughter Kerstin, who grew up in the Fritzl family’s secret bunker until the age of 19, needed emergency medical attention; when Josef took her to a hospital, his entire secret was revealed. (Elisabeth was 42 years old when she ultimately left the basement.)

DNA testing then conclusively proved that Josef Fritzl fathered his own grandchildren and provided a litany of reasons as to why he held his daughter in the basement, including a difficult relationship with his own mother and claims that he simply wanted to protect Elisabeth and her children from the dangerous outside world. Ultimately, Josef pled guilty to all charges, including enslavement, murder, rape, imprisonment, and incest; the murder charge was defined as negligent homicide due to the fact that he refused to seek medical treatment for one of Elisabeth’s children, a son, who ultimately died as a result. He received a life sentence for his crimes.

Irish author Emma Donoghue took inspiration from Josef Fritzl’s horrifying crimes — and, more importantly, Elisabeth’s unbelievable resilience — while writing her 2010 novel “Room.” According to Donoghue herself, who spoke to The Guardian the same year that the book was released, she did feel that she needed to put some distance between the Fritzl case and her book, lest people think she was taking advantage of the very real trauma suffered by Elisabeth and her children. “To say ‘Room’ is based on the Fritzl case is too strong,” Donoghue told the outlet. “I’d say it was triggered by it. The newspaper reports of Felix Fritzl [Elisabeth’s son], aged five, emerging into a world he didn’t know about, put the idea into my head. That notion of the wide-eyed child emerging into the world like a Martian coming to Earth: it seized me.”

“Room” is told primarily from the viewpoint of Jack, a stand-in for the real Felix Fritzl — who left the basement with his mother, as Donoghue correctly said, at the age of 5 — whose entire world is contained within one subterranean room. Because of this, Jack believes that what he sees in “Room,” including his “Ma” and a man he calls “Old Nick” (who sometimes brings him treats and makes the bedsprings squeak), is everything that exists; while Ma and Jack do have a small TV, she tells him everything inside is fictional. At a certain point, Ma finds out that Old Nick has lost his job and may lose the house, so she comes up with a dangerous escape plan. She rolls a frightened Jack up in a rug and tells Old Nick that he died, firmly instructing Jack to leave the truck as soon as possible and find help; he manages to do so and police rescue Ma, leaving the two to adjust to the real world that Jack didn’t even know existed.

While “Girl in the Basement” was also inspired by the Fritzl case, there’s no question that, in terms of sheer quality, the 2015 film adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s “Room” is the superior version of this tale (and, frankly, it’s far less exploitative). Drawing from a screenplay penned by Donoghue herself, Lenny Abrahamson helmed the film, with Brie Larson starring as “Ma” — whose name is eventually revealed to be Joy — and Jacob Tremblay making his live-action, feature film debut as Jack.

“Room,” if you haven’t seen it, is a harrowing and impeccably made film, giving more of the story to Ma’s struggles and following the plot of the book quite faithfully. (It does, however, cut a moment where Joy and Jack go to see “Room” after it’s dismantled by the police and she tells him about a stillborn child buried on the property.) Ultimately, the movie earned a nomination for Best Picture at the 88th Academy Awards in 2016, a Director nod for Abrahamson, and a Best Actress nod for Larson, which she won for her amazing, deeply powerful performance as Joy. Perhaps the most successful thing about “Room,” particularly the film version, is the way that it shows that amidst horrors that seem beyond the realm of possibility, children remain resilient — and Jack’s glee at discovering the real world is what helps his mother begin to work through her own trauma. You can rent “Girl in the Basement” on major platforms now, which is also true of “Room.”

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).