Ever watched a horror movie and wondered just how those actors manage to get through playing
such terrifying and disturbing roles?
Well, the truth is: some of them barely do.
These actors have experienced everything from abusive directors to creepy on-set experiences
to full-blown psychological breakdowns.
Here are a few of the brave souls who took on roles that ended up messing with their
heads.
Screaming in space
The chest-bursting scene in Alien ranks among the most iconic moments in sci-fi history.
Part of what made that moment so impactful might be that the cast involved had no idea
what was about to happen to them.
Director Ridley Scott made sure that the creature’s reveal would happen in real-time during shooting,
hoping for more authentic reactions from his actors.
It worked.
Actress Veronica Cartwright later remembered: "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 was Cartwright herself who suffered the most intense reaction of all to the scene
- when the blood hit her during the take, she passed out.
Hotel trauma
Stanley Kubrick pretty much obliterated the the psyche of actress Shelley Duvall during
shooting on his adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining.
His mistreatment of Duvall included ordering cast and crew not to help her when upset and
actively hindering her efforts to deliver her performance.
And because the whole film was shot chronologically, the viewer is treated to an entirely realistic
portrayal of the unravelling of someone’s mental well-being.
According to Duvall: “Stanley pushed me and prodded me further than I've ever been
pushed before.
It's the most difficult role I've ever had to play."
She had to keep bottles of water nearby on-set to keep her hydrated after her bouts of hysterics
and even confronted Kubrick with clumps of her own hair to demonstrate just how unwell
she was during the shoot.
Perhaps worst of all, Kubrick forced her to perform her iconic, traumatic baseball bat
scene over and over again across a stunning 127 takes.
“And are you concerned about me?"
"Of course I am!"
"Of course you are!”
The Omen’s curse
Richard Donner's 1976 creepfest The Omen has a rich history of freaky incidents that solidified
the antichrist-centric flick’s reputation as one of the most cursed sets of all time
- and it was Gregory Peck who bore the brunt of the tragedy.
His son Jonathan shot himself just two months prior to production on the movie, and then
his plane was struck by lightning - something that would also go on to happen to The Omen’s
executive producer Mace Neufeld.
Elsewhere during production, an animal handler would be mauled by a tiger, a special effects
assistant would be beheaded in a car crash - near a car sign which read “Ommen, 66.6km”
- and a plane originally chartered for use on aerial shots during shooting would go down
in Israel, killing everyone on board.
These eerie happenings had everyone so spooked that producer Harvey Bernhard actually carried
a cross with him on set.
It was Bernhard who said of The Omen: “the devil was at work - and he didn't want that
film made."
Man in the mask
During shooting on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tobe Hooper withheld the appearance of Leatherface
from his actors until the cameras actually started rolling.
Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface, has spoken of the difficulties endured by his
fellow cast members during filming on the movie’s iconic dinner table scene.
He said: "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.”
Marilyn Burns, who played Sally, experienced the worst of it.
Burns herself later told Hansen that: "I thought you were really going to hurt me.
You couldn't see through your stupid mask."
“I’ll do anything you want."
Lost in the woods
The Blair Witch Project was filmed over the course of an eight-day camping trip - if you
can call it that.
There was practically no interaction between the cast and crew, save for a daily meeting
meant to provide the actors with supplies and instructions on where to go next.
The crew would then go on to stalk the actors during the daytime, rattle their tents at
night when they were sleeping and, as the shoot progressed, give them less and less
food so they’d become steadily more frustrated and exhausted by each other.
“No Mike, it's not the same log.
It's not the same log, Mike!"
"Same log!"
"Look, it's not."
"It is, open your eyes!"
The devil’s work
As a child star of one of the most iconic horror movies of all time, Linda Blair experienced
no small number of side-effects from shooting The Exorcist.
Despite not really understanding much about the depravity of the movie during filming
- to her, it was simply acting - she was faced with a litany of questions after its release
about possession, Catholicism and the nature of faith.
To say she was unprepared for this is something of an understatement.
She later said: "To me The Exorcist was a work of fiction.
I didn't realize then that it dealt with anything in reality, and so when the press kept asking
me about all the devil stuff, it just kept adding to the pressure I was under, and it
was just an awful thing to go through as a teenager."
"Can you feel this?"
"I don't feel anything."