Buzz
When filmmakers talk about 'horror stories' on set, they often refer to issues like scheduling conflicts, heated arguments, or technical failures. However, some incidents go beyond these mundane troubles, delving into events so eerie they could easily be mistaken for scenes from a horror movie. While many of these tales sound like urban legends, they are, in fact, entirely true.
10. Dau
By 2011, the Dau project had essentially collapsed, though filming continued in a bizarre and unsettling manner. Director Ilya Khrzhanovsky transformed what was meant to be a tribute to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Lev Landau into an extreme exercise in method filmmaking. Cast and crew were forced to wear mid-20th-century Russian attire to align with the film's historical setting. Modern conveniences like cell phones were banned, and even food had to be packaged in era-appropriate cans. All documents and passes were required to be typewritten. Breaking these rules, such as mentioning modern life or leaving the set without permission, resulted in fines. Khrzhanovsky's obsessive control created an environment so oppressive that some participants likened it to a 'prison experiment,' with repetitive tasks and psychological strain pushing them to their limits.
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9. Eraserhead
Eraserhead is renowned for its mysterious and unsettling atmosphere. The film follows Henry Spencer, an ordinary man thrust into an extraordinary and surreal world, where he grapples with bizarre visions and the birth of a grotesque, inhuman child. While this might seem typical of David Lynch's style, the behind-the-scenes stories are even more peculiar than the film itself.
For instance, Lynch remained tight-lipped for decades about how the baby's effects were achieved, and he forbade others from discussing it. Given the creature's lifelike appearance, the limited budget, its textured skin, and its intricate articulation—such as vertically closing eyes—many speculate that it was crafted from a preserved calf fetus.
The theory that Lynch used a real corpse and wired it to simulate life is bolstered by a bizarre experiment he conducted for a deleted scene. He obtained a deceased cat from a veterinarian, promising it wouldn’t be identifiable on camera, dissected it to observe its vivid internal colors, and then submerged it in a tar pit for a year. This was all for a scene where Henry’s shoe snags on a cord attached to the cat. Such antics suggest Lynch might have ventured into filmmaking simply to legitimize his already eccentric behavior.
8. Noah
Stalkers targeting celebrities are not uncommon, but one particularly aggressive individual pursued Emma Watson during the filming of Noah. While exploring a wooded area near the set, Watson encountered a stalker she recognized from outside her home. Crew members quickly intervened, ensuring her safety. Although Watson chose not to press charges, the incident cast a shadow over the production. Some questioned her decision, fearing it might embolden other stalkers.
7. Skippy
This 1931 Best Picture nominee includes a scene where young actor Jackie Cooper had to cry on cue. Director Norman Taurag believed only real emotion would suffice, so he orchestrated a cruel ruse: a stagehand took Cooper’s beloved dog behind the studio and pretended to shoot it. Though the dog was unharmed and Cooper’s performance earned him a Best Actor nomination, the traumatic experience left a lasting mark. Cooper later titled his autobiography Please Don’t Shoot My Dog as a testament to the incident.
6. Alien
The infamous chest-bursting scene from this 1979 horror masterpiece shocked both audiences and unsuspecting cast members. However, a lesser-known and far more disturbing tale comes from Dan O’Bannon, who revealed that artist H. R. Giger used real human skulls from India to design the xenomorph’s head. O’Bannon grew suspicious but only addressed it years later in his comedy Return of the Living Dead. Around the same time, reports surfaced that India had shut down skeleton-supplying companies, hinting at unethical practices. Most chillingly, O’Bannon noted that the skulls Giger used had teeth resembling those of children.
5. Aguirre, Wrath Of God
The most notorious tale from Werner Herzog’s 1972 film involves Herzog allegedly threatening Klaus Kinski with a gun to prevent him from quitting. However, Kinski revealed in his autobiography that he was the only one armed. He didn’t just make threats—he fired shots into a cabin where the crew was staying due to their noise, accidentally severing someone’s fingertip. In another incident, Kinski nearly killed an extra by striking him with a sword during filming, an act that would have been fatal without the extra’s helmet. Given these events, it’s unsurprising Herzog later contemplated murdering Kinski.
Additionally, one of the corpses featured in the film was real. Herzog’s brother reportedly flew with the body from Europe to the set, sitting beside it on the plane to ensure it wasn’t mishandled by luggage services.
4. End Of Evangelion
This 1997 anime film is one of the defining works of the ’90s that reinforced the stereotype of anime being filled with violence and cryptic symbolism. Few films, however, can rival the strange and unsettling events woven into this story, which revolves around a prophecy combining science and monstrous energy beings to bring about the apocalypse. For instance, the protagonist experiences vivid hallucinations in his final moments, filled with disjointed imagery like letters and children’s drawings.
These drawings, shockingly, were created by children who were victims of real abuse, immortalizing their trauma on screen. The letters included in the film were actual death threats sent to director Hideki Anno by disgruntled fans unhappy with the series’ previous installment, which was meant to bridge the show and the movie. Even more disturbing, one voice actress physically strangled another during a recording session to match the scene’s intensity, an act so severe it left her struggling to continue.
3. Men Behind The Sun
The director of this 1986 film, T. F. Mous, likely believed that extreme measures were necessary to convey the horrors of Unit 731’s human experimentation and torture during World War II. To immerse the audience in the grim reality, he blurred the line between fiction and reality. One scene involved setting live rats on fire, while another featured the autopsy of a child who had died from exposure—a real corpse obtained just before filming. These unsettling choices have cemented the film’s reputation as one of the most disturbing ever made.
2. Last House On The Left
Wes Craven’s breakthrough film pushed boundaries both on and off-screen. Actors David Hess and Marc Shaffer revealed that the intensity often escalated behind the scenes. To elicit genuine fear from co-star Sandra Cassell, Shaffer dangled her over a drop, threatening to throw her off if she didn’t deliver the next take. In a later scene, Hess intimidated an actress by threatening to assault her for a more authentic performance. The dangers extended to a chainsaw scene, where the actor playing the father wielded a fully operational chainsaw without safety precautions, adding real peril to the already brutal filming process.
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1. Come And See
The 1985 Soviet film Come and See depicts the harrowing experiences of those traumatized by the Third Reich’s invasion of the USSR. Director Elem Klimov’s commitment to realism went to extreme lengths, including firing live bullets near cast members during filming. Lead actor Aleksey Kravchenko recounted how bullets whizzed dangerously close to his head, adding an unnerving authenticity to the scenes. While this sense of peril resonates with viewers, one can’t help but question whether such risks were truly necessary.
