A TEENAGE horror fan stabbed a friend 107 times in a macabre knife attack - before going to see a chilling film.

Lewis Ashdown went to the cinema to watch The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It, which contained similarities to the shocking murder.

A court was told there were three scenes in the Hollywood film resembling the merciless attack on Marc Williams in a wooded area of Fairwarp, near Uckfield.

After his trip to the cinema, Ashdown, now 20, got drunk and told a friend he had done something terrible - laughing as he showed him video clips from the scene.

Ashdown, who forced Marc, 18, to drink alcohol before luring him into woodland, took more than an hour of footage, both before and after the crime.

The Argus: Lewis Ashdown was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 27 years Lewis Ashdown was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 27 years

He gouged out Marc's eyes before dumping him in a river.

Videos from that night were too harrowing to be shown at Lewes Crown Court.

The jury was told there was no explanation for the extreme brutality of the sustained and prolonged attack, which was of a sexual or sadistic nature.

Afterwards, Ashdown told his friend: "I took a knife out with me and it just felt right to do it.

"He was begging for help and I just wanted to shut him up."

Ashdown plunged a knife, taken from his mother's kitchen, into Marc's back.

Then, as Marc pleaded for him to call an ambulance, Ashdown stabbed him more than 100 times.

He later confined in his friend that he felt the urge to kill and did not want to stop.

The friend told the police: "All he wanted to do was kill, he said he felt good about it and Marc deserved it.

"He said 'I felt good about it and he deserved to die'."

Ashdown, of Normansland, Uckfield, met Marc, also from Uckfield, late last year after finding video he posted on YouTube of him doing parkour.

The court heard that on May 29 this year, Ashdown lured Marc, who was with his brother, to the woodland. Marc was drunk. Ashdown got him away from his brother by sending him a map with a link of where to meet.

When Marc phoned his family to say he was drunk and heading home, Ashdown reassured them that he would get him home safely.

Instead he killed him in a "horrific, ghastly and gruesome murder" before dumping his half-naked body in a stream.

In an emotional victim impact statement, Marc's mother Lena Williams described Ashdown as a calculating, vicious and cold killer.

She said: "That night was the worst of my life and will forever haunt me, his life, future and dignity were taken.

"All he wanted was a friend. He was trusting. This vulnerability cost him his life.

"I wonder for myself, can I live the rest of my life knowing I will never see my first born again?

"One thing I know is evil can never be rehabilitated."

Both boys were initially reported missing, with Sussex Police appealing for information on their whereabouts.

When Ashdown returned home after the murder, his mother said she saw nothing wrong or unusual.

The next day he played football and went to the cinema before eventually confessing to the friend.

Ashdown, who worked as a chef, was charged after Marc’s body was found by police in a wooded area of Fairwarp.

Ashdown arrived in the dock with his glasses tucked into the crew neck of a grey prison sweatshirt, showing no emotion as the distressing details of his sadistic attack were described in court.

Ashdown, who admitted murder at a previous hearing, had his eyes down and avoided looking at his victim's family who were sitting in the public gallery.

Judge Christine Laing QC jailed him for life with a minimum sentence of 27 years.

She said: "You killed Marc Williams for some perverted reason of your own which we may never know or understand."