From almost facing a watery death to suffering serious burns in the land of Oz, we count
9 horrifying accidents that happened on movie sets.
9.
Maximum Overdrive
Stephen King made his directorial debut with this sci-fi horror comedy about a comet that
makes all the machines come to life and attack their human creators.
In a way, something similar happened to one of the crew members on the set.
Cinematographer Armando Nannuzzi was injured while filming a scene where a character is
chased by a sentient lawn mower.
The camera sat on a wooden stand for one shot that would make the lawn mower look big and
menacing, with its revolving blades coming close to the camera.
Well, safety equipment was removed from the lawn mower to expose the blades and a device
was added to make it go faster via remote control.
When the camera rolled, the lawn mower glided up to the camera but ended up chopping at
the wooden stand, sending a series of splinters into Nannuzzi’s face.
He ended up losing an eye and sued King and other crew members for damages.
8.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1
The second to the last Harry Potter film was a much-anticipated release for fans, but what
many didn’t know was that an accident that occurred on set changed the life of one particular
crew member.
Stunt performer David Holmes, who was star Daniel Radcliffe’s double for all the previous
entries, was rehearsing a flying stunt involving an explosion.
Holmes was thrown against a wall before falling to the ground at Warner Bros. Studios in Leavesden,
England.
Remaining conscious, Holmes told crew members that he couldn’t feel his legs.
He could move his arms but just barely.
The former gymnast ended up fracturing his neck, leaving him permanently paralyzed from
the neck down.
Sadly, Holmes was only 25-years-old when the accident occurred.
7.
XXX
Another stunt performer found himself in trouble, but this time he wasn’t as lucky.
Stunt performer Harry O’Connor was in the Czech Republic doing stunt work for the Vin
Diesel action film XXX.
O’Connor was on a paraglider, being pulled at high speeds.
He hit a pillar of the Palacky Bridge, in Prague, dying on impact.
Prague authorities even investigated whether the accident was caused by a technical issue
or by the filmmakers not obeying safety rules.
As a tribute to O’Connor’s work, the scene was included in the finished movie… minus
his death.
6.
Top Gun
This popular military movie from the 80’s dealt with Navy pilots in flight school had
several impressive aerial stunts.
One of the stunt pilots performing these stunts was Art Scholl.
The veteran stunt pilot was performing an aerial stunt known as an inverted flat spin
– an easy maneuver for an experienced pilot such as Scholl – for a backdrop shot.
The script said the plane was supposed to go through a spin over water.
While midway through the stunt, Scholl radioed to the crew that he was having a problem but
never mentioned what the problem was.
His plane never stabilized from the maneuver, and it plunged into the Pacific Ocean.
Unfortunately, Scholl and his plane have never been recovered.
The film was dedicated to Scholl’s memory.
5.
The Wizard of Oz
Margaret Hamilton played one of the most memorable villains in film history, The Wicket Witch
of the West.
Throughout the film her character tormented young Dorothy Gale and her friends.
But during the filming of one scene, Hamilton encountered some horror of her own.
After threatening Dorothy in Munchkinland shortly after her arrival, the Wicked Witch
runs away and vanishes in a huge cloud of smoke.
Well, actually Hamilton had to stand on a trap door a certain way so the pyrotechnics
wouldn’t harm her.
Unfortunately, on the second take, the trap door was delayed in bringing the actress down
to safety.
The results were a second degree burn on her face and a third degree burn on her hand.
Her burns cost Hamilton a hospital stay followed by a recuperation at home for six weeks before
returning to work on the film.
She only agreed to return to filming as long as there were “no more fireworks”!
4.
Thor: The Dark World
Jaimie Alexander, like Margaret Hamilton, is further proof that the actors are just
as prone to on-set accidents as stunt performers and crew members.
In the Thor movies, Alexander portrays warrior Lady Sif.
One rainy night, while filming a scene in London, the actress slipped on a metal staircase
and fell.
She sustained a herniated disc and torn rhomboid muscle in her upper back, a dislocated shoulder,
and chipped 11 of her vertebrae.
The accident took Alexander out of filming for a month.
After her one-month hiatus, Alexander was back in her Lady Sif costume and kicking ass.
3.
Now You See Me
Safety is very important on a movie set, especially when there’s a risky stunt involved.
Sometimes, despite the safety precautions taken, accidents will still happen.
This was the case with actress Isla Fisher.
Fisher played a female Houdini in “Now You See Me”, which was about a group of magicians
who use their skills to rob banks.
Her character is first introduced when she is shackled and thrown in a large tank of
water.
In the script, it called for the character to pound on the glass of the tank to give
the impression of distress, so nobody thought Fisher was actually in peril when she started
to drown for real when her chains tangled.
There was a stunt diver with an emergency oxygen tank, but he was too far from the water
tank.
Another safety feature was a kill switch inside the tank that Fisher could push and drain
the water in a matter of seconds, but she couldn’t reach it.
She was able to calm herself down long enough to get out of her shackles and get to safety.
2.
The Crow
The old saying “art imitates life” came into play on this movie set.
‘The Crow’ told the story about a rock star who comes back to life to avenge the
murders of him and his fiancée.
The moment where he and his fiancée are murdered became a little too real.
The scene called for star Brandon Lee to walk into his apartment carrying a grocery bag
and get shot.
When the actor playing an attacker fired his prop gun at Lee, Lee would trigger a small
explosion – called a “squib” – in the bag by a switch at the bottom of it.
The explosion in the bag caused a projectile to lodge into the actor’s abdomen.
Instead of falling forward, as he was supposed to do, Lee fell backward.
He was rushed to the hospital where he later died, despite surgery to repair the damage
that had been done.
A rumor went around that the footage of Lee’s death actually made it into the final film.
This is untrue, as all the footage of Lee’s death was turned over to the police for investigation.
1.
Twilight Zone: The Movie
In the early 80’s, a major accident occurred while filming the first of four segments of
‘Twilight Zone: The Movie’.
The segment was about a bigot, played by Vic Morrow, who goes back in time to experience
the suffering of the very people he hates through various eras of persecution, including
the Vietnam War and Nazi Germany.
One scene called for Morrow to carry two Vietnamese children across a river while a U.S. helicopter
chased after them.
The scene was supposed to be full of various pyrotechnic effects as well.
When one of the explosions went off, it caused the tail rotor to come off the helicopter.
As a result, the helicopter landed on Morrow and the children.
One of the children was crushed to death by one of the skids, while Morrow and the other
child were decapitated and brutally mutilated by the helicopter’s top rotor blades.
The children were only 7 and 6 years old.
The director of the segment, John Landis, and some other crew members including the
helicopter’s pilot and one of the explosives specialists were acquitted of manslaughter
charges.
The families of the two children who were killed collected millions of dollars in a
series of civil lawsuits.