- 4 months ago
These scenes are even scarier than you realised.
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00:00The work that goes into crafting an all-timer scene in a horror movie is staggering, frankly.
00:05It requires a filmmaker, cast and crew working in perfect tandem to deliver something that leaves audiences with a cinematic memory they'll never forget.
00:14Sometimes the things happening on the periphery and behind the scenes, though, are just as creepy and unsettling as those that occur on it,
00:22as is categorically confirmed by the following 10 movie moments.
00:25I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 horror movie moments more terrifying when you know the truth.
00:32Number 10, Bill's death left Harry Crosby partially blind for months, Friday the 13th.
00:38The penultimate death in the original Friday the 13th sees camp counselor Bill's corpse being discovered by final girl Alice.
00:46His brutalized remains pinned to a doll with his throat cut and an arrow sticking out of his eye.
00:51To achieve the effect of Bill being shot through the eye, though, actor Harry Crosby, son of Bing, believe it or not, wore a makeup prosthetic.
00:59But due to the low-budget nature of the production, makeup designer Tom Savini ended up using cheap, unsafe ingredients for fake blood.
01:08This included the wetting agent Kodak Photoflow, which then seeped from the prosthetic eye into Crosby's real eye, causing him to feel intense pain and then be rushed to the hospital.
01:18According to Crosby himself, he was left blind in his eye for around six months, though thankfully made a full recovery eventually.
01:26Savini, for his part, later said that this quote wasn't a proud moment for him.
01:30And so, whenever you marvel at that gnarly gore effect in the future, know the real pain and months of trauma that went into it.
01:38Number 9, Jo Beth Williams went swimming with real skeletons.
01:42Poltergeist.
01:43Now, this one is iconic.
01:46One of Poltergeist's most unforgettable moments, of course, occurs when Diane Freeling slips into her swimming pool, and because being immersed in muddy water apparently isn't gross enough, she's soon greeted by a bunch of skeletons buried underneath it.
02:00Ever since the film's release, there have been persistent discussions about the so-called Poltergeist curse, that the production was assailed by so much bad luck that it must surely have been the result of a pissed-off spirit.
02:11But one of these dubious claims actually ended up being true, that without actress Jo Beth Williams' knowledge, the skeleton props used for the harrowing sequence were in fact totally real.
02:23In a 2008 TV interview, Williams said, quote,
02:26You have to understand that this sequence took probably four or five days to shoot.
02:31In my innocence and naivete, I assumed that these were not real skeletons, end quote.
02:37Now, why would you assume that, Jo Beth?
02:39She later went on to say that they were indeed real skeletons, because they were cheaper to get.
02:44Number 8, the angiogram scene features a future murderer, the exorcist.
02:49One of the most unassuming scenes that's caused the most visceral responses has to be the one where Regan undergoes a cerebral angiography, in an attempt to deduce the cause of her behaviour.
03:00The perceived realism of the procedure, as depicted in the film, lends it a disturbingly skin-crawling quality.
03:06One that's made even worse once you know the future destiny of one of the actors involved.
03:11That's because the actor playing the radiological technician is a man called Paul Bateson, a real radiologist who in 1977, four years after the film's release, murdered a journalist called Addison Verrill.
03:25Bateson was also viewed as a person of interest in a number of other killings in New York City at the time, though never decisively tied to any of them, despite some continuing to incorrectly label him as a serial killer.
03:36Number 7, Betty Buckley was genuinely terrified of an untested prop, Carrie.
03:42Carrie's iconic climax is absolute incredible nightmare fuel, as the title character wreaks telekinetic havoc on the assembled prom night party.
03:51One of the more brutal deaths is afforded to Carrie's poor gym teacher, Miss Collins, who during Carrie's outburst is crushed to death by a falling basketball backboard.
04:01Now, actress Betty Buckley certainly sells the terror of Miss Collins' impending demise incredibly well, and that's because Buckley was genuinely scared of the rigged backboard prop hitting her for real, given that it hadn't been adequately tested prior to shooting.
04:16Buckley said in an interview with Vulture, quote,
04:18This contraption they built for Miss Collins' death scene was a basketball backboard that was on a pendulum.
04:24They planned it so that we shot four takes with the pendulum falling and then stopping right before it hit me, and that was very scary.
04:31So what you're seeing on film is not acting at all. I'm absolutely terrified because they had not tested out the machine.
04:36Number 6, Betsy Baker was blindly swinging a real dagger at Bruce Campbell, the Evil Dead.
04:42It's little secret that Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead was a seat-of-the-pants production.
04:46With Raimi employing every corner-cutting trick in the book to wring as much production value as possible out of his $375,000 budget.
04:55Of the movie's many memorable moments, though, you'll surely recall Ash fending off his possessed girlfriend Linda in the third act of the movie,
05:02when she starts wildly swinging the Sumerian dagger in his direction.
05:06But as Campbell confirmed in a commentary track for the film, he's not simply giving a stellar performance pretending to be scared of co-star Betsy Baker.
05:14Rather, he's genuinely terrified because Baker's demonic contact lenses prevented her from seeing while shooting the scene,
05:22which, in combination with a real dagger being used, oh my god, ensured that Campbell had to dodge her or risk getting stabbed for real.
05:31Yeah, he didn't have to do much acting in this scene, did he?
05:33Number 5, The Helicopter Crash Was a Genuine Accident, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
05:38Now, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes may be a deeply silly horror comedy,
05:42but there's a moment early in the film that's genuinely anxious to watch once you know the behind-the-scenes hoopla.
05:49In the opening minutes of the movie, we see the police doing battle with the titular Killer Tomatoes in a field.
05:54All the while, a helicopter loses control in the air, crashes to the ground, and flips over.
05:59But, as it turns out, this was a genuine accident, and not at all something that was intended to be part of the movie.
06:06The pilot legitimately lost control of the chopper, crashed it, rolled it over, and it indeed burst into flames.
06:13The pilot was thankfully able to evacuate the vehicle without harm,
06:17and so quick-thinking director John DiBello decided to work the unexpected incident into the story.
06:22The director used the footage of the crash, and even filmed extra clips of the burning wreckage,
06:27while adding in dialogue about a tomato jumping into the chopper.
06:31And, though nobody was ultimately harmed, thankfully,
06:34knowing how easily disaster could have struck makes watching this otherwise amusing scene rather queasy.
06:40Number 4, Marilyn Burns' finger was cut for real, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
06:45By all accounts, making The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a thoroughly miserable experience,
06:50as is evidently reflected in its grimy, makes-you-want-to-shower aesthetic.
06:55And no scene proved more harrowing for the cast or crew than the iconic dinner sequence,
07:00where the murderous Sawyer family toys with final girl Sally Hardesty,
07:04even cutting her finger so that the incomprehensibly alive Grandpa Sawyer can suck the blood out of it.
07:10The dirty old fart that he is.
07:12Though the scene was unpleasant for all involved,
07:15being shot for an entire 24-hour day in intense Texas heat,
07:19actress Marilyn Burns, of course, took by far the worst of it,
07:23given the difficulty involved in filming the finger cut.
07:26Because the blood squib attached to the prop knife malfunctioned,
07:29Leatherface actor Gunnar Hansen decided to just do it the hard way,
07:33cutting Burns' finger with a razor for real.
07:36Number 3, most of the cast had diarrhea during shooting, Predator.
07:40Predator is a gut-wrenchingly suspenseful sci-fi horror action film,
07:44and one that somehow becomes even more nervously anxious once you know the dire straits
07:48that the cast went through during the shoot.
07:51See, most of the cast and crew suffered severe bouts of diarrhea while filming,
07:55due to drinking contaminated water in their Mexican hotel.
07:59And in recent years, Arnold Schwarzenegger himself even admitted that on one occasion,
08:04he actually shat Trow while working out before the day's shoot.
08:07It's been said that the cast's constant fear of following in Arnie's footsteps
08:11created a tense atmosphere on set throughout shooting,
08:15in turn only amplifying the palpable fear felt by the central characters
08:19facing off against the titular creature.
08:21And that's because, at any moment,
08:23you're watching a group of muscle-bound grunts absolutely petrified
08:27that they're about to drop an involuntary deuce mid-scene.
08:312. Alex Wolfe Intentionally Dislocated His Jaw
08:36Hereditary
08:37Throw a dart and you'll probably find a scene in Ariastha's Hereditary
08:41that's imprinted on the minds of horror fans forevermore.
08:44And while far from the most immediately traumatic scene,
08:47who can forget the disturbing beat where Peter loses control of his body at school
08:51and brutally slams his head on the desk?
08:54Though the desk was obviously padded for the stunt,
08:57the most disturbing part of the scene is seeing Peter's increasingly contorted face
09:02leading up to the desk hit,
09:04which is kind of grotesque enough to suggest that prosthetic work
09:07must have done the heavy lifting.
09:09But believe it or not, this was mostly all Alex Wolfe's doing,
09:12who took advantage of a pre-existing injury
09:14to briefly dislocate his jaw for the scene.
09:17In an interview, he said, quote,
09:19I boxed for three years and I dislocated my jaw.
09:22To preface that, no special effects are done in that scene.
09:25I dislocated my jaw and then I held my breath for about a minute
09:29and pushed out as hard as I could
09:30so my face was all red and almost purple in that scene
09:34because I was holding my breath for so long.
09:36And I remember seeing stars and the cameras pushing in
09:38so I did that and then we glued my eyelid back
09:41and glued my lip up, end quote.
09:44The end result is certainly impressive
09:46and proof of how something most unexpected
09:48can add something totally incredible, if gnarly, to a scene.
09:52Number one, Lorenza Izzo almost drowned
09:55while getting swept away.
09:56The Green Inferno.
09:58As embattled protagonist Justine, Lorenza Izzo
10:01sure gets put through the physical ringer
10:03in Eli Roth's cannibal holocaust homage, The Green Inferno.
10:06But somehow the experience was even worse than it looks.
10:09See, near the end of the film, Justine is swept down a river
10:12while trying to escape her cannibal captors.
10:15And while you might assume that Izzo had a stunt double
10:17for the scene, or that the stunt was at least performed
10:19under extremely controlled circumstances, well,
10:23that wasn't quite the case.
10:24I mean, hell, you're 10 entries into a list with this title.
10:27You know what you're getting in for now.
10:29Izzo did indeed perform the scene herself
10:32and, per the untameable nature of the very real river,
10:35was simply at nature's mercy to the extent
10:38that she very nearly drowned.
10:40In an interview with Yahoo, director Roth confirmed this,
10:42saying, quote,
10:43Lorenza Izzo almost drowned in the river during a take,
10:46and yes, we used it in the film.
10:48We had a safe word for her to yell,
10:50but it was so loud that when she was screaming
10:52at the top of her lungs, none of us heard her.
10:55When you see her clinging to the rock screaming,
10:57that's real, end quote.
10:59Outside of this context,
11:00it's certainly a believably terrified performance,
11:03and now we all know why.
11:04So that's our list.
11:05I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.
11:07Did you know about the reality of these sequences,
11:10and are there any crazy true stories I missed off here?
11:13Let me know, and while you're down there,
11:14if you could, please give us a like, share, subscribe,
11:16and head over to Wakuljahara for more lists like this on the regular.
11:20Even if you don't though, I've been Josh,
11:21thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.
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