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Horror films are often filled with gory violence and blood-curdling screams. While much of it is staged, some productions were an actual nightmare behind the scenes. From never-ending takes to inclement weather, the cast and crew sometimes experienced their own personal horrors while filming. Here are 10 spine-chilling stories from the making of some of the most iconic horror films.
10. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
The Blair Witch Project was filmed over a grueling eight days in the woods. Co-directors and writers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez aimed to make the found footage film feel as authentic as possible, so they had the three actors improvise their lines. They would leave cryptic notes for the actors, like 'Heather, you’re absolutely sure that to get out of this mess, you go south. Don’t take no for an answer.' and 'Josh, somewhere along the way today, you’ve had it with this bulls**t.'
The crew also made an effort to scare the actors during the night by shaking their tents and playing eerie recordings of children’s voices. However, in a 2018 interview with the Guardian, actor Joshua Leonard admitted that this tactic was 'more annoying than anything else.' According to Leonard, the filming experience was a nightmare because 'tensions got high, we got hungry, we got uncomfortable, and we hurt each other’s feelings.' The cast even used the word 'taco' as a safe word to break character, but they quickly regretted it because it 'kept reminding us how hungry we were.'
9. Midsommar (2019)
Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor have nothing but admiration for the direction of Ari Aster in Midsommar, though the nature of the film’s themes made the production particularly challenging. “Each day, the content would become increasingly bizarre and difficult to handle,” Pugh shared on an episode of the Off Menu podcast. “I found myself mentally overwhelmed, sinking deeper into bleakness. By the end, I was probably pushing myself beyond limits to achieve that performance,” she confessed.
Reynor also discussed the emotional weight of the film. “It’s dark, unsettling, and watching the other cast members pretend they’re going to kill you in horrific ways makes it even worse,” he told Collider. “You’re stuck, paralyzed, and there’s no escape. It’s intense.” He responded to skeptics who downplay the realism of acting with, “It’s f–king real when you’re actually in it.” He also highlighted the discomfort caused by the oppressive heat, swarming insects, and growing tension between the crew.
8. The Lighthouse (2019)
Filming for The Lighthouse took place in a specially constructed lighthouse in cold Nova Scotia, a setting that made the production particularly grueling. Director Robert Eggers confessed to Rolling Stone, “There were moments when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, and I love the cold.” He noted that the local crew, accustomed to the harsh conditions, admitted, “This is the hardest shoot we’ve ever done.”
Actor Robert Pattinson shared with Interview Magazine that while he holds director Robert Eggers in high regard, the scene where he is drenched with water while strolling along the beach came close to pushing him to his limits. He described the experience as 'the closest I’ve come to punching a director,' calling it 'some kind of torture.' After the fifth take, Pattinson exclaimed, 'What the f**k is going on? I feel like you’re just spraying a fire hose in my face.' To which Eggers simply replied, 'I am spraying a fire hose in your face.'
7. The Evil Dead (1981)
In 2009, Sam Raimi, the writer and director of The Evil Dead, admitted to Empire, 'As far as a physical endeavor goes, [The Evil Dead] was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Every night we were freezing. We didn’t have warm coats. The only source of heat was an industrial heater that blew out toxic fumes.' They also lacked running hot water, but Raimi cleverly used a coffee maker to wash the fake blood off his hands so he could touch the camera.
There was no shortage of physical suffering during the shoot. Tom Sullivan, the special effects makeup artist, expressed his apologies, explaining that for the Deadite makeup, he used 'acrylic paint, which it even says on the tube not to put on your skin,' but it was applied to both masks and actors' faces. The paint had to be scraped off with a scouring pad afterward.
Ellen Sandweiss (Cheryl, Ash’s sister) injured her feet and legs while running barefoot through the woods, while Betsy Baker (Linda, Ash’s girlfriend) was struck in the face by a wooden beam. She had been assured that the beams would be made of Styrofoam, but they turned out to be strong enough to, as she put it, 'put up in your den or your rumpus room.'
6. Frankenstein (1931)
Boris Karloff delivered a legendary performance as the Monster in James Whale’s Frankenstein, but the experience was far from easy. Karloff often worked grueling hours, including one instance where he endured a 25-hour shoot, which he referred to as 'a long pull.' Interestingly, the studio didn’t count the lengthy hours spent applying and removing his makeup—four hours to apply and an hour and a half to remove—as work, leaving Karloff to face even longer days.
Karloff also had to repeatedly carry Colin Clive (Henry Frankenstein) up the hill to the windmill and then up the stairs while burdened by his heavy 48-pound (21.8-kilogram) costume, which eventually led to back problems. This treatment prompted Karloff to advocate for actors' rights, and he later became one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild, formed in 1933.
5. The Birds (1963)
In her 2016 memoir, Tippi Hedren claimed that director Alfred Hitchcock subjected her to mistreatment while filming The Birds, particularly after she rejected his romantic advances. One such incident occurred during the scene where her character is attacked by birds in a bedroom. Although the scene was originally planned to feature mechanical birds, Hedren was informed just before filming that they were not functioning, and live birds would be used instead.
Hedren endured five excruciating days of having shrieking birds thrown at her, and on the final day, they were even attached to her dress. 'By then, I was barely coherent, unsure how much more of this I could possibly take,' she wrote. 'I was told later that it was even more horrifying and heartbreaking for the crew to watch than the previous four days had been, and there wasn’t a thing anyone but Hitchcock could do to stop it.' When one of the birds nearly pecked her eye out, Hedren finally snapped and declared that she was done. She spent the following days bedridden from exhaustion, and according to her memoir, Hitchcock continued to torment her, damaging her acting career and sexually assaulting her.
4. The Shining (1980)
The production of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining spanned a brutal 56 weeks, with Shelley Duvall, who portrayed Wendy Torrance, enduring the worst of it. In a documentary filmed by Kubrick’s daughter, Vivian, Duvall revealed that the stress of the role took a heavy toll on her health, explaining that she was 'in and out of ill health.' In one heartbreaking moment, she was shown lying on the ground in pain, her hair falling out in chunks. When she showed Kubrick the hair, he coldly responded, 'I don’t sympathize with Shelley.'
Kubrick, notorious for his perfectionism, would insist on shooting each scene at least 35 times before moving on. The combination of his meticulousness and the intense emotional demands of the role left Duvall physically and mentally drained. In a 2021 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, she spoke about the difficulty of repeatedly performing scenes of 'running and crying and carrying a little boy… it gets hard.'
One of the most grueling sequences was the staircase scene in which Wendy swings a baseball bat at Jack (played by Jack Nicholson), which Kubrick made her shoot an astonishing 127 times. The emotional strain was evident, as Duvall explained, 'After a while, your body rebels. It says: ‘Stop doing this to me. I don’t want to cry every day.’ And sometimes, just that thought alone would make me cry.'
3. The Last House on the Left (1972)
While making The Last House on the Left, Sandra Peabody, who played Mari, became genuinely frightened that the scenes of sexual violence and torture might become too real. David A. Hess recalled that during their rape scene, 'I scared the living shit out of her, man, she really thought I might… I started to pull her pants down and grab her.' He even asked Wes Craven, the director, 'Can I?'—implying he might actually assault her, which caused Peabody to panic.
Wes Craven mentioned that Peabody 'often wasn’t acting.' Hess would stay in character even when not on camera, which left Peabody terrified of him, and possibly of Fred Lincoln as well. Marc Sheffler added to the terror by threatening Peabody during a difficult scene. 'I grabbed her, and I put her head over the cliff,' Sheffler remembered. 'I said, ‘If you don’t get it right the next time, I’m gonna throw you over here, and Wes will shoot it, and it’ll be great footage, and you’ll get hurt.’' Peabody, fearing for her life, pushed through and nailed the next take.
2. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
The iconic dinner scene in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was filmed over an exhausting 26 hours in stifling heat. In The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Film That Terrified a Rattled Nation (2019), author Joseph Lanza describes the set as being filthy, with rotten food scattered around. The combination of extreme heat and the repulsive environment caused the cast and crew to take frequent 'oxygen breaks' outside and endure 'periodic vomit breaks' throughout the grueling shoot.
Although filming this scene was miserable for everyone involved, it was especially harsh on Marilyn Burns, who portrayed Sally. When the prop knife meant to contain fake blood malfunctioned during the shot where her finger was supposed to be sucked, 'Hansen [who played Leatherface] grew so impatient that he surreptitiously sliced her finger for real.' For the scene where Jim Siedow’s cannibal character beats Sally, Burns herself encouraged him to make actual contact. Siedow recalled, 'I started really slugging her,' and after eight takes, 'she just fainted dead away. The poor girl was beaten up pretty badly.'
This physical and emotional toll weighed heavily on Burns, who later recalled, 'When I was crazy at the end of the movie, laughing hysterically, that wasn’t acting.'
1. The Exorcist (1973)
The onset of a fire and the tragic deaths of nine people sparked rumors of a curse surrounding the production of The Exorcist. Director William Friedkin stated, 'After all I’ve seen on this film, I definitely believe in demonic possession… We were plagued by strange and sinister things from the beginning. It is simply the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.'
Though the notion of a curse was likely a publicity stunt, the production of the film was undoubtedly unpleasant, largely due to Friedkin’s behavior. Director of photography Owen Roizman described Friedkin as 'the biggest schizophrenic I know. Completely warm one minute, and just venomous the next.' Friedkin’s erratic actions included firing and rehiring crew members at random. He also slapped actors and unpredictably fired a gun to startle them. Both Linda Blair (Regan) and Ellen Burstyn (her mother) suffered long-term back injuries due to the rough handling during the shoot.
