Audiences aren't the only ones who get the willies from horror movies.
For some actors, the process of starring in a film full of jump scares and weapon-wielding
maniacs can leave some long-lasting emotional marks.
In the case of these scary movies' stars, being a part of a fright flick took a toll
on their psyches during, and sometimes even after, production.
The chestburster
The chest-bursting scene from Alien ranks among the most iconic moments in all of sci-fi
film history.
And there's no doubt that it works so well because the cast really didn't know what was
about to happen and were genuinely shocked and terrified by it.
Director Ridley Scott explained his reason for letting the creature's cruel reveal happen
in real-time during the shoot, by telling Empire Magazine:
"The reactions were going to be the most difficult thing.
If an actor is just acting terrified, you can't get the genuine look of raw, animal
fear."
His approach to eliciting sincere scares worked.
As 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 came out and twisted round."
Cartwright reportedly passed out as a result of the scene and still talks about how upset
it made her to this day.
The claws
The real-life ghost-hunting history of Ed and Lorraine Warren is freaky enough to put
anyone on edge.
But actress Vera Farmiga knew very little of her character's real-life counterpart before
signing on for The Conjuring, and receiving her first paranormal encounter as a welcome
gift.
While she was doing research on Warren's work, she had a brush with the beyond after she
hung up the phone with director James Wan.
CinemaBlend reported her saying,
"I opened the computer screen and there were three digital claw marks, from the upper right
diagonal to the lower left."
It wasn't enough to steer her away from the movie, but the haunting experience did follow
her through to the film's end.
The day after she finished shooting the first film and returned to her home in New York,
she woke up to find something even scarier: three claw-mark bruises on her thigh.
Even though she chose not to "give into the fear" of the moment, she said she had to build
up an "emotional armor" to deal with what she experienced with those series of scratch
marks.
The curtain
When it comes to the horror genre, Patrick Wilson is something of a scream king.
The actor's filmography is filled with freaky fare, but it was the second Conjuring film
that freaked the actor out the most.
According to him, there was a "pretty trippy" moment during production involving a curtain
haunting that led the crew to bring in a priest to bless the set.
He told Metro:
"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 fan on, no nothing.
[...] You didn't even hear any air, but you watched these curtains sort of violently going."
Wilson considers himself a skeptic, but this moment may have gotten the better of him because
he's admitted to believing his own house may be haunted now.
He told The Independent:
"I've heard people on two different occasions say they've heard kids' laughter in the middle
of the night in my house."
Perhaps he should do a few more comedies in between haunted house pics.
The visitor
James Brolin was initially unsure about the 1979 adaptation of Jay Anson's true story-inspired
novel The Amityville Horror.
"I didn't realize what I was getting into."
He gave the book a look and got so frightened by what happened to him mid-read that he accepted
the gig right then and there.
Brolin explained to The A.V.
Club:
"I would hang my pants on the door of the bedroom [...] and all of a sudden the pants
fell off the door and onto the floor.
[...] I was at a scary part of this book, and so it surprised me that I started laughing
after I recovered and said, I've got to do this movie!'"
And he wasn't the only Amityville alum to succumb to superstition associated with the
series.
The 2005 remake was also the site of some freakish coincidences, such as a fisherman's
body washing up on the set's shore as filming geared up to begin.
Ryan Reynolds told MovieWeb:
"A lot of the crew were waking up at 3:15 in the morning which was when all these atrocities
in the house took place each time.
I think it was a subconscious thing.
You read the script and suddenly pop awake at 3:15 in the morning."
Even if it's just a coincidence, it's still creepy.
The box
He might be playing a savage, bat-slinging brute of the zombie apocalypse in The Walking
Dead, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan got pretty worked up over his time on the set of The Possession.
He admitted to being so freaked out by the real story of the dybbuk box that they made
sure not to take it lightly during filming.
He told io9:
"There was some weird goings on on set.
Lots of light bulbs exploding.
Just overall kind of creepiness […] 'Don't mock the box' was sort of the mantra that
we lived by while we were filming this."
He purposefully steered clear of the real box that inspired the film because, saying:
"Somebody wanted to bring the box to the set, the real box.
I was adamantly against it.
If you go and you look at what has happened to people that have had contact with an actual
dybbuk box, it's not good stuff.
[…] Why risk that?"
Why indeed.
The clown
Capturing the essence of Pennywise the Clown for the cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's
It would be no easy feat for anyone.
Not only was there a prior portrayal by Tim Curry to live up to, but unlike most villains,
there are no human or redeeming qualities to latch onto to make an actor feel better
about playing him.
Understandably, for Bill Skarsgård Skarsgard, the process of suiting up as the child-slayer
was no picnic.
The actor has said that the process of spending time with this character was like a "destructive
relationship" that he was relieved to end when his part wrapped.
Even putting away Pennywise's costume wasn't enough to keep the bad vibes at bay, though.
He told Entertainment Weekly:
"I was home, done with the movie, and I started having very strange and vivid Pennywise dreams
[...] Every night, he came and visited.
It was in the shape of either me dealing with him, sort of Pennywise as a separate entity
of me, and then also me as Pennywise in circumstances that I didn't appreciate.
Like, I'm Pennywise and I'm really upset that I'm out in public and people are looking at
me."
Sounds awful, but it couldn't have been too bad — Skarsgård signed on to reprise his
role for It: Chapter Two.
Thanks for watching!
Click the Looper icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!