Top 20 Creepiest True Stories Behind Movie Scenes
#20: Sissy Spacek Slept in Blood
“Carrie” (1976)
Continuity is a hugely important aspect of the movie-making process. However, it’s not necessarily an actor’s job to keep tabs upon their wardrobe to this end. Sissy Spacek, however, went the extra mile when she was filming “Carrie” back in 1976. The actor, determined to retain continuity for the scene, slept in Carrie’s bloodied prom dress until the scene was finished. This wasn’t done in a single day, mind you, meaning that Spacek slept for multiple nights in her dirtied and sticky dress. Spacek, to her credit, actually told Yahoo in 2014 that the warmed corn syrup felt like “a warm blanket.”
#19: Sliced Open
“The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974)
The filming of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” in 1973 is notorious at this point for the hellish conditions endured by the entire production. Marilyn Burns’s character may have made it to the end of the film alive, but the actor didn’t escape unharmed. Diehard fans of the film may know that Burns actually cut her finger during the scene where her character Sally Hardesty is being tortured by the Sawyer clan. This wasn’t the only time Burns suffered for her art, either, as the actor can be seen suffering cuts and bruises while frantically fleeing from Leatherface.
#18: Real Tears
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“Skippy” (1931)
Not every actor can cry on cue. It’s even more challenging when a production is working with a child actor, but this doesn’t mean that any director should go to the lengths Norman Taurog did on 1931’s “Skippy.” One scene in the film required lead Jackie Cooper to cry over the loss of his character’s dog, and the young boy was having some difficulty. So Taurog actually had Cooper’s own dog led away, and ordered a production assistant to fire a gun. The director told Cooper his dog had been shot in order to get… well, the shot. To make things worse, Cooper was so inconsolable that he kept on crying after Taurog brought the unharmed dog back on set.
#17: Injuries & a Real Murderer
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“The Exorcist” (1973)
Ellen Burstyn wasn’t the only actor to get hurt on the set of “The Exorcist.” Linda Blair suffered some debilitating injuries during the filming of this classic frightfest. We’re speaking specifically of the sequence where Blair’s possessed character Regan is thrashing around in a bed. The harness that held Blair down was improperly secured, to the point where the actors’ beleaguered pleas for help were just that: she was in some real pain. Blair would develop scoliosis as a result of the sequence, but even more troubling is the case of Paul Bateson, who played a radiographer in the film. Bateson served actual prison time for the murder of film industry reporter Addison Verrill in 1977.
#16: Real Bees
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“Candyman” (1992)
We’re not sure how many trained Hollywood stunt bees exist out there, but we do know that “Candyman” star Tony Todd held a remarkable amount of them in his mouth during this legendary sequence. The bees in Todd’s mouth are actually babies, although they appear like the normal, everyday bees you’d see pollinating a flower. However, baby bees have less-developed stingers, so the effect of an attack is less painful than if Todd was getting stung by a fully-grown honeybee. Oh Todd WAS stung, however. Stung twenty-three times, in fact. However, the actor had a clause in his contract that paid out a cool thousand bucks for every sting on set. Not too shabby.
#15: That Horse Head
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“The Godfather” (1972)
It seems so simple, right? Develop a mock horse head that you can put in the bed during that infamously bloody scene in “The Godfather.” This wasn’t what director Francis Ford Coppola had in mind, however. He wanted realism, to the point where he ordered an actual horse head from the local slaughterhouse - a horse that was being put down anyway, mind you. Soon enough, a box containing a severed horse head arrived on set, enclosed in a package of dry ice. Coppola and crew set up the head on the bed, shot the scene… and the rest is history. Gross, bloody history.
#14: Danger, Then Fiction
“Roar” (1981)
The 1981 movie “Roar” is one of craziest ideas from an industry that is basically defined by crazy ideas. The decision to film a family comedy-drama surrounded by real, wild cats was that of writer-director Noel Marshall and his wife, film star Tippi Hedren. The film itself would probably be forgotten today, were it not for the extremely dangerous and potentially deadly situations “Roar” provided for its cast and crew. At least seventy people were injured during the making of “Roar,” including the main cast of Marshall, Hedren and Hedren’s daughter Melanie Griffith. These injuries and attacks can be seen on screen, too, and “Roar’s” infamous reputation eventually grew to the point where documentaries were made about this stranger-than-fiction exercise in poor judgment.
#13: Dawn Doe
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“Dawn of the Dead” (1978)
George A. Romero and the crew from 1978’s “Dawn of the Dead” didn’t intend to utilize real human remains in their movie. However, “Dawn Doe,” as she’s now affectionately known by fans, was indeed a mummified corpse that was accidentally featured in Romero’s film. This occurred when special effects legend Tom Savini brought over what he thought was a rented prop from a man named Larry Wintersteller. Dawn Doe wasn’t a prop, however, but a real person, and she then spent time in the front window of a costume shop for years after her brush with undead fame. The skeletal remains were then spotted by a police officer, positively identified, and finally laid to rest in a grave on March 19th, 1983.
#12: Lemming Toss
“White Wilderness” (1958)
It’s an animal myth that’s persisted for decades, thanks in part to one, old-school Disney film. “White Wilderness” presented the idea that lemmings commit self-destruction in groups, hurtling themselves over cliffs to their deaths. This actually isn’t true, but that doesn’t mean “White Wilderness” is off the hook with regards to creepy behavior. That’s because the crew on set actually tossed lemmings from cliffs and into the water in order to achieve the illusion of self-destruction. It’s unclear as to whether any lemmings were actually hurt during this sequence, but it’s always controversial when any production stages animal behavior in a dangerous or reckless manner.
#11: Nearly Electrocuted
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“A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984)
What do you think of when the original “Nightmare on Elm Street” pops into your head? Maybe it’s the reports of actual dream death that inspired director Wes Craven’s creative vision for the film? Or maybe it’s that iconic Johnny Depp death scene? Well, as classic as that scene is, getting it in the can didn’t come without cost. The rotating room turned into a wheel of electrified death after fake blood spilled onto some set equipment. Multiple crew members were non-fatally electrocuted during the scene, and Robert Englund recalled in an interview how he assisted in getting co-star Heather Langenkamp out of the way from suffering similar shocks.
#10: Lion Attack
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“Tarzan, the Ape Man” (1981)
John Derek directed a number of films that starred his wife, the actor and model Bo Derek. One of them was 1981’s “Tarzan, the Ape Man,” featuring the hunky Miles O’Keeffe in the lead role. It would be O’Keeffe that would ultimately prove to be Bo Derek’s guardian angel on set, since it was the actor’s quick thinking that allowed his co-star to escape a potentially fatal lion attack. The attack was actually kept in the finished film, too, although it’s edited in a way that cuts out the drastic moment where O’Keeffe restrains the lion long enough for his co-star to escape with just minor injuries.
#9: Ghostly Goings-On
“The Conjuring” (2013)
At this point, it is almost expected to have some supernatural story come out of the making of a scary movie. Even more so for “The Conjuring,” due to its basis on the true paranormal investigations of demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren. The entire production process was marred with strange occurrences early on, with weird noises being heard when the screenwriters were communicating over the phone with Lorraine Warren, and Vera Farmiga finding claw marks on her laptop. The strangeness continued onto the set of “The Conjuring 2,” when curtains were caught moving on camera without a draft in the room.
#8: Beak and Switch
“The Birds” (1963)
Alfred Hitchcock became infamous for his behind-the-scenes antics, and for how he treated some actors over the years. Actress Tippi Hedren, who made her big-picture debut in “The Birds,” has often gone on record to describe her time with Hitchcock as abusive. This is evident by the shocking climactic attack of Hedren’s character by a swarm of birds. While she was promised that they would use mechanical ones, instead, tons of live birds were thrown at her, in what she called a “brutal and ugly and relentless” experience.
#7: A Haunted House & Then Some
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“The Amityville Horror” (2005)
Another famous horror film based on a supposedly real-life haunting, you can bet that some bizarre stuff happened on the set of “The Amityville Horror” remake. Not only did a dead body turn up in the lake at the outdoor set, but the real Kathy Lutz passed away during production. Melissa George, who played Kathy in the remake, has claimed that many supernatural things happened during filming. For example, just like the real George Lutz, Ryan Reynolds kept waking up at 3:15 am, the estimated time the DeFeo murders occurred in the Amityville house.
#6: “It’s Only a Movie”
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“The Last House on the Left” (1972)
A brutal film about assault and revenge, “The Last House on the Left” famously used the tagline, “To avoid fainting, keep repeating ‘It’s only a movie.’” However, the on-set reality was quite brutal itself. Actress Sandra Peabody was allegedly so genuinely scared she even walked off set. Actors David Hess and Marc Sheffler were reportedly very abusive towards their female co-stars, threatening to hurt or even kill them off-camera in order to get a strong reaction. Hess also experienced some real terror, since he was chased by a real chainsaw in the film’s climax.
#5: Dealing with the Devil
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“The Omen” (1976)
“The Omen” may deal with demons and the antichrist, but the production team is considered one of the most cursed film crews of all time. Head-on collisions, Rottweilers attacking trainers, multiple planes being struck by lightning, and even director Richard Donner’s hotel being bombed by the IRA were all challenges the crew had to deal with. If all that wasn’t enough, their special effects artist, John Richardson, was seriously injured in a car accident less than a year later, while his assistant, who was sitting next to him, was brutally cut in half, similar to a scene in “The Omen.”
#4: Mystery Baby
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“Eraserhead” (1977)
Indie productions, as opposed to Hollywood pictures, normally have much less coverage and reports from behind the scenes, and if David Lynch is the director, then even more of the film’s details will be shrouded in mystery. “Eraserhead” may be a big question mark to any moviegoers who discover it, but the biggest mystery will always be how Lynch created that mutant baby effect. Many claim that he used and wired up a real preserved lamb fetus. Decades later, Lynch refuses to reveal his secret, instead making comments that raise more questions than answers.
#3: Harrowing Hallucinations
“End of Evangelion” (1997)
As one of the trippiest and most surreal anime series ever made, the cinematic conclusion to “Neon Genesis Evangelion” clearly does not shy away from nudity, violence, or general controversy. In fact, during one of the many hallucinations in the film, it’s been rumored that the drawings shown are in fact real drawings made by victims of abuse. Whether this is true or not, the sequence also includes real death threats the director received for the ending of the original series, as well as pictures of his vandalized animation studio. It’s a chilling bit of trivia that adds to an already traumatic viewing experience.
#2: No Special Effects, No Problem
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“Men Behind the Sun” (1988)
A movie about the real life torture and human experimentation that occurred in a Japanese WWII camp was always bound to cause some controversy. However, its disturbing nature not only stemmed from its subject matter, but from how far the production went for the sake of realism. Some of its highlights are when they set real rats on fire, and more famously used a real dead body for the autopsy scene. Real animals and dead bodies were utilized from many of the effects, since there was no mainstream special effects industry in China at the time.
#1: Welcome to the Jungle
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“Cannibal Holocaust” (1980)
One of the most famous post-production scandals in all of film history, “Cannibal Holocaust” took the documentary-style found-footage angle a little too far. So much so that director Ruggero Deodato was brought in front of a court on murder accusations, and had to get his actors to come out of hiding to prove he did not kill them. But the creepiness doesn’t end there, as many still refuse to watch the film because of the very real animal deaths caught on camera, including a detailed butchering of a river turtle.
