Whether you love horror movies, or hate them, you can’t help but be impressed by some
of the performances given by some highly skilled actors.
Some are well trained in at the art of horror, and are capable of pulling from dark, emotional
places to get the performance the director needs.
However, some actors suffered some quite intense ordeals on set, whether at the hands of the
directors, or even their co-stars.
So today on Beyond The Screen, we’re going to be counting down the Top 10 Scary Movie
Scenes That Pushed The Actor Too Far.
Lets jump in.
10 A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street is
a genre-defining horror that introduced the world to one of the most iconic villains of
all time, Freddy Krueger.
Right off the bat, Craven had a lot of trouble even getting the film financed due to the
sheer amount of blood in it, and at the time, New Line Cinema was scared to take a chance.
But of course, they did, thank god.
And newcomer Heather Langenkamp was cast in the lead role of Nancy Thompson.
Now, one of the most memorable scenes in the first movie is the bathtub scene, in which
Freddy’s hand emerges from between Nancy’s legs.
To achieve this, Craven actually modified to the tub so a man in a scuba suit could
sit between Nancy’s legs.
Langenkamp stated, I quote, “Every day, Wes presented me with something that would
make me shift my mentality.
Today, I am going to be in a bathtub all day long.
It lasted eight or nine hours.
One time it’s took far to the right, next time it’s too far to the left, then it’s
way too fast -- and Wes just patiently waited until he got the take he wanted.”
9 The Strangers (2008) Despite it’s mixed reviews, The Strangers
was a masterclass in home invasion horror, and followed a young couple whose stay at
their vacation home is rudely interrupted by a gang of masked killers.
It’s a brutal film, and is absolutely terrifying -- because there is nothing quite as bad
as your personal space being breached, particularly with folks with knives.
Now, according to Liv Tyler her reactions throughout the film were legitimate, and she
was truly terrified.
I quote, “That’s what is so real about The Strangers.
Like, you’d be in bed at night trying to relax, and all of sudden you hear a noise
and you go, “What was that!”
And you wonder, are you brave enough to go check or not.
Imagine if you went to look, and there’s a person in a mask in your living room, with
a butcher knife!”
-- Preach Liv.
Now, once specific moment included Liv Tyler, and actress Laura Margolis who plays the Pin-Up
Girl intruder.
It was revealed on the Blu-Ray extras that she had been told to make Tyler feel genuine
fear throughout the film, particularly during the first reveal of the strangers.
I quote, “I got strict instructions not to let Liv see me in my mask before we shot.
She didn’t want to have to fake it, and so it was my responsibility to really scare
her.”
8 The Conjuring 2 (2016) It’s safe to say that in the Horror genre,
Patrick Wilson has become something of a Scream King -- with films such as Insidious, Hard
Candy, Bone Tomahawk, and of course The Conjuring films under his belt.
However, it was The Conjuring 2 that freaked the actor out the most.
According to Wilson, during a particular scene, there was a trippy moment that involved a
curtain haunting that led the crew to bring in a priest to bless the set.
I quote, “It was a huge curtain that went from the floor to the ceiling, which was sort
of waving violently and there was no door open or no fan on, no thing.
That was a very, very odd occurrence because nothing else was moving around it and nothing
was blowing.
You didn’t even hear any air, but you watched these curtains sort of violently going.”
Prior to this, Wilson considered himself to be a skeptic of sorts, but following this
moment he may just be a believer, with the actor now believing that his own house might
even be haunted.
I quote, “I’ve heard people on two different occasions say they’ve heard kids’ laughter
in the middle of the night in my house.”
Very spooky.
7 It Follows (2014) This 2014 horror was an unexpected hit that
followed a group of teenagers plagued by a curse that gets passed from person to person
via sex, almost like an STD.
Sex is also the only way to rid yourself of the curse, passing it along to the next person.
Now, when you receive the curse, it manifests itself as a shape-shifting entity that follows
you everywhere you go, before eventually killing you, unless of course, you pass it on to someone
else before it can get to you.
Maika Monroe who played the role of Jay Height said that the film was a lot more mentally
taxing than expected.
I quote, “It was a very difficult shoot.
Every day was another battle to face just in terms of acting and the screaming and crying
and running.
All of that every day is very tiresome.”
However, the most difficult scene for the actress was one that occurred at the beginning
of the film -- The Wheelchair scene, which saw Monroe shooting through the night for
12 hours straight in nothing but her bra and underwear, and a very creepy and rundown building.
6 The Entire Cast of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Now, one thing that this 1974 horror taught us, is that Tobe Hooper can be a very, very
cruel dude.
He not only scared the daylights out of viewers by unleashing Leatherface, but he also scared
his own cast by concealing the character’s look until it was time to roll.
Gunnar Hansen who played Leatherface stated that dinner table scene was particularly brutal
for the actress Marilyn Burns, I quote, “The whole dinner scene is burned in my memory.
I think just because of the misery of it.
At that point we were really just on the verge of mental collapse.
And Marilyn told me about how awful it was for her because she was terrified...just being
tied to a chair and then having these men looming over her constantly, she said it was
really unnerving.
I think that whole scene was certainly the most intense part of the movie, and I think
all of us were slightly insane by then.”
5 Alien (1979) Now, arguably one of the most iconic scenes
in cinematic history is the chest-bursting scene from 1979’s Alien.
But what makes this scene so great?
The visuals?
The grotesque Alien emerging out of a chest cavity?
Or the fact that all of the reactions in the scene are real -- that’s right -- the cast
involved in the scene weren’t aware of what was about to happen to them on set, and according
to some, were genuinely disturbed.
Director Ridley Scott stated, I quote, “The reactions were going to be the most difficult
thing.
If an actor is just acting terrified, you can’t get that genuine look of raw, animal
fear.”
Now, the most traumatized out of the bunch was actress Veronica Cartwright, who said,
I quote, “You see this thing start to come out, so we all get sucked in, we lean forward
to check it out...all of a sudden it comes out.
I tell you, none of us expected it.
It came out and twisted round.”
According to writer Ronald Shusett, Cartwright is credited as having the most intense reactions
of all because, I quote, “When the blood hit her, she passed out.”
-- Yikes.
4 The Last House on the Left (1972) This 1972 horror was Wes Craven’s breakthrough
film -- but, by no means is it an easy watch -- even for horror veterans out there.
Sandra Peabody the star of the film had a rough go both onscreen and off.
According to reports, her co-stars used very real threats to evoke fear in the actress’
performance.
Actor Marc Sheffler recalled, I quote, “she wasn’t getting the scene, she wasn’t at
the anxiety level that she needed to be.
So, we’d done it I don’t know how many times...everybody was getting annoyed.
So, I said to Wes, “Give me a minute with her”.
What I did was - you can’t see it in the shot - but I took her over to the cliff, and
I put her over the cliff and just grabbed her and said, “If you don’t get this f**cking
scene right now, I’m going to drop you...and Wes will shoot it, and we’ll get a different
scene, but it’ll work because you’ll be f**cking mangled.”
Not only that, but her other co-star David Hess also told the actress that he would actually
assault her to get a better result from her reactions.
Absolutely disgusting.
3 Poltergeist (1982) Of course this film is on our list, I think
the only shock will be that it wasn’t higher, but you will see why very soon.
This 1982 horror is regarded as one of the most cursed film sets in history -- the stories
and events that followed the making of the film seem endless.
Now, one specific incident that occured on set happened to actress JoBeth Williams, who
portrayed the mother in the film.
She, just like the rest of us, was shocked to find out that Steven Spielberg insisted
on using real human skeletal remains as props for the movie -- and of course, it freaked
her out -- and weird occurrences began to follow the actress.
I quote, “Because we were supposed to be scared so much, I think everybody’s nerves
were hypersensitive.
I didn’t live in LA then, so I was in a rented apartment, and I began to notice that
every night when I would come home from shooting, exhausted, fried, the pictures on the walls
would be crooked.
And I would straighten them.
And the next day, I would come in, and the pictures would be crooked again.”.
Lesson number one, perhaps don’t use real corpses during production.
Just a thought.
2 The Birds (1963) Tippi Hedren notoriously had a rough time
while filming Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.
Hitchcock tormented the star, both on and off set -- through manipulation, sexual slurs,
and obsession.
However, the tipping point for Hedren occurred in the movie after Hitchcock lied to her about
the use of real birds on one of the final scenes.
Instead of mechanical birds he used real ones, real ones that were hurled at her over the
course of a week of filming.
This resulted in the star suffering from intense bruises, bloody scratches, and emotional scarring.
1 The Shining (1980) Because of course, there is no other movie
that deserves the number one spot on this list -- the horrors Shelley Duvall faced on
the set of The Shining warrants her every award imaginable.
It has become common knowledge that Stanley Kubrick royally messed up the psyche of Duvall
during productions of The Shining.
This was down to constant mistreatment of the actress, and even telling others on set
not to sympathize with her when she was upset.
Not only that, but the film was shot in chronological order, so not only are we watching the characters
descent into madness, but Duvall’s as well.
Now, of course, the most notorious moment is the baseball bat scene, which Kubrick made
Duvall do a record-breaking 127 times.
The treatment on set was so bad, co-star Jack Nicholson credited her past as, I quote, “the
toughest job that any actor I’ve seen had because 40 percent of that picture, she’s
hysterical.”
Well, there we have it!
Do you guys agree with our list?
Were there any scary movies that we missed?
Leave us all your thoughts and feelings in the comments down below and perhaps we can
do a part 2.
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And until next time, see ya later.