Watching a particularly scary horror movie might be terrifying for an audience, but surely the actors aren't actually sacred while on set, right? Well, that's not quite true, especially when it comes to these fright flicks. The actors of these films had to deal with difficult sets, dictator-like directors, and some truly dreary circumstances while filming your favorite horror movies. From Jessica Chastain having to take the world's worst bath in "It: Chapter Two" to Shelly Duvall being forced to reshoot a scene in "The Shining" hundreds of times, these are the worst things actors had to do for horror movies.
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00:00 Are horror movies more real than we think?
00:03 The genuine terror and discomfort of these actors certainly seems suggested.
00:08 Did Jessica Chastain really submerge herself in 4,500 gallons of fake blood for It Chapter
00:14 2?
00:15 Keep watching to find out.
00:17 Bill Skarsgård did an excellent job bringing Pennywise the Dancing Clown to life in Andy
00:22 Muschietti's It, and made fans of Tim Curry's iconic performance proud.
00:27 That said, he also potentially scarred some kids for life and had a tough time dealing
00:31 with that, as he does really seem to be a pretty nice guy in real life.
00:35 "Tasty, tasty, beautiful fear."
00:42 In 2017, Skarsgård talked with Interview magazine about the experience of terrifying
00:47 small children as part of his job.
00:49 He said,
00:50 "It's a really weird thing.
00:52 If I succeeded doing what I'm trying to do with this character, I'll traumatize kids."
00:56 Skarsgård turned out to be right when a group of child extras showed up to film one day.
01:02 Without their parents and totally unaware that he preferred to stay in character even
01:06 while the cameras weren't rolling.
01:07 "This isn't real enough for you, Billy.
01:10 I'm not real enough for you."
01:13 He recalled of the experience,
01:14 "This one kid started crying.
01:16 He started to cry and the director yelled, 'Action!'
01:19 And when they say 'action,' I am completely in character.
01:22 So some of these kids got terrified and started to cry in the middle of the take and then
01:26 I realized, 'Holy s---, what am I doing?
01:29 What is this?
01:30 This is horrible!'"
01:32 All in a day's work, we suppose.
01:34 Actor Tony Todd is a horror legend for several reasons, but there's nothing quite like his
01:38 performance as the classic villain in 1992's Candyman.
01:43 "Be my victim."
01:47 That being said, Todd had to deal with some hazardous conditions with bees while shooting
01:51 the film, from which he was able to make a sizable buck.
01:55 Todd told The Guardian in 2019,
01:57 "I negotiated a bonus of $1,000 for every sting during the bee scene, and I got stung
02:03 23 times.
02:05 Everything that's worth making has to involve some sort of pain.
02:08 Once I realized it was an important part of who Candyman was, I embraced it.
02:12 It was like putting on a beautiful coat."
02:14 That means Todd walked away from the Candyman set with a $23,000 bonus.
02:20 Not too shabby for the star, but probably still less than what the performance was worth.
02:25 Regardless, it's one of those scenes you can't forget, even if you wanted to.
02:30 Captain Rhodes is one of the great villains in George Romero's zombie movies, a violent
02:35 and unhinged example of human rage unshackled from civilization.
02:39 "I said, I'll have you shot."
02:44 He deserves his brutal, iconic death scene in Day of the Dead, where a crowd of the undead
02:49 literally tear him in half and feast on his guts.
02:52 But actor Joseph Pallotto certainly didn't deserve what went down during the making of
02:56 the scene.
02:57 The pig and chicken guts used to create Rhodes' innards and organs were stored in a refrigerator,
03:02 but that's not the whole story.
03:04 "But while we were in Florida, somebody unplugged the refrigerator for weeks."
03:08 When someone finally noticed, it was too late.
03:11 They had to shoot.
03:12 During the many hours it took to stage the scene, many crew members were able to keep
03:16 their distance or at least wear a mask.
03:19 Unfortunately, Pallotto himself had to endure being literally covered in rotten animal pieces.
03:25 Before his death in 2019, he claimed he could, quote, "still smell them to this day."
03:30 Knowing this makes Pallotto's performance all the more impressive when he delivers his
03:35 character's final words.
03:37 "Self-harm!
03:38 Self-harm!"
03:39 Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead may be a low-budget horror masterpiece, but making the original
03:48 Cabin in the Woods monster movie was no picnic.
03:50 "The best part is, we get it so cheap."
03:52 "Yeah, why are we getting it so cheap?"
03:55 "Well, I don't know.
03:57 Might be in real bad shape."
03:58 Raimi and longtime collaborators Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell set out to make a new experience
04:03 in terror, maxing out credit cards, begging relatives for financing, and shooting their
04:08 movie in a ramshackle cabin in the middle of the Tennessee wilderness.
04:11 Crew members and actors kept quitting.
04:14 Money kept running out.
04:15 The cabin had no running water or heat.
04:18 With all of that, it was pretty easy to look exhausted for the camera.
04:22 In an interview with the Columbus Dispatch, Campbell was pretty blunt about the experience.
04:26 "From the beginning to the end, they were all low points.
04:29 You were in a cabin that had not been occupied in decades and had no power or running water,
04:34 no sewage, no nothing.
04:36 We were miserable all day long.
04:39 We were good to go."
04:40 Movie fans may argue it was worth it, but we can't say we'd be in a rush to go through
04:44 that.
04:46 Gunnar Hansen has cemented his place in cinema history for bringing Leatherface to life in
04:51 Tobey Hooper's horror masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
04:55 [Chainsaw noises]
05:02 As is often the case, Hansen was an artist who suffered for his art, even if he didn't
05:07 set out to be the suffering artist type.
05:09 The movie was filmed in Texas during a sweltering summer.
05:13 It was also made on a shoestring budget, so the cast all wore the same clothes each day
05:17 during filming.
05:18 In Hansen's case, that meant a whole lot of sweat collecting in all those clothes, and
05:23 that mask, during the production.
05:25 Speaking to Yankee Magazine in 1987, Hansen recalled,
05:29 "Sometimes shooting sessions dragged on for more than 26 hours.
05:33 Since we all had only one set of clothes for the movie, it was too much of a risk to get
05:37 them washed.
05:38 The colors might change."
05:40 With that, being in close proximity to the other cast members became challenging, because,
05:45 as one can imagine, things got smelly.
05:48 Hansen said,
05:49 "After a few weeks of shooting, it was a little more than fright that made us keep our distance
05:53 from each other."
05:54 Actual blood and gore is rather unhygienic and tends to hold up poorly on long filming
05:59 days.
06:00 For this reason, and a few others, film productions generally avoid using the real thing, and
06:05 instead opt for substitutes like corn syrup and, in the case of Netflix's 2018 horror
06:10 movie Apostle, mashed up bananas.
06:13 Star Dan Stevens recalled in an interview with Vulture,
06:16 "Someone would come on with a giant paintbrush in between takes and just slather on another
06:21 layer."
06:22 And off we go.
06:23 Director Gareth Evans went all out with the blood and gore in Apostle, including a scene
06:28 where Stevens' character loses several fingers to a meat grinder before grappling with his
06:32 basket-headed would-be executioner.
06:34 "Ahhhhhhhhh!"
06:35 "Ahhhhhhhhh!"
06:36 "Ahhhhhhhhh!"
06:37 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:38 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:39 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:40 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:41 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:42 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:43 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:44 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:45 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:46 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:47 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:48 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:49 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:50 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:51 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:52 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:53 "Ahhhhhh!"
06:54 The sequence took three days to film, and, since the on-camera gore was made from mushy
06:55 bananas, the stink of rotting food eventually got pretty intense.
06:56 Being smeared in smelly, mashed-up bananas was actually a high point of the Apostle shoot
06:57 in the film.
07:03 The banana was nice and warm.
07:07 The Birds is one of the most famous horror movies of all time, but the story of how it
07:11 was made is a horror story unto itself.
07:15 Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was a notorious prankster at best and an abuser at worst,
07:20 and he firmly set his sights on star Tippi Hedren while filming this tale of nature gone
07:25 amok.
07:26 In addition to dealing with Hitchcock's vague direction, she endured genuine physical trauma
07:30 while filming the movie's climax.
07:31 "Take it easy, lady.
07:33 There isn't a bird anywhere in sight."
07:35 Despite being told fake bird props would be used for the finale, the actual shoot involved
07:40 live birds being literally thrown at Hedren by crew members.
07:44 Hedren endured this torment for five long days, until one bird sliced her face, leading
07:50 the actress to collapse and break down in tears.
07:53 Finally a doctor's order for immediate rest saved her from additional torment, even as
07:57 Hitchcock himself pushed back against the doctor.
08:00 The doctor reportedly asked Hitchcock,
08:02 "Are you trying to kill her?"
08:04 From the sound of things, that could have very well been the case.
08:07 2011 saw the remake of the 1985 vampire classic Fright Night, with Colin Farrell stepping
08:14 into the role as the seductive and dangerous vampire Gerry Dandridge.
08:19 Vampire movies are known to be bloody, and this remake is no exception.
08:23 However, as the bloopers of Fright Night would showcase, Colin Farrell had a bit of a rough
08:28 time with one of the blood gags on set.
08:30 Farrell's Dandridge attacks an unsuspecting victim, played by Christopher Sarandon, the
08:35 original Gerry Dandridge in 1985's Fright Night, in a cameo role.
08:39 "You deserve to die, boy."
08:42 During the scene, however, the two being rigged on Sarandon to squirt blood worked a little
08:46 too well, and shot high-pressure fake blood directly into Farrell's throat.
08:51 The crew heard what they thought was the rigging making a terrible gurgling sound, but was
08:55 actually Farrell choking on the blood.
08:57 Thankfully, he was okay and able to laugh about the incident after the fact.
09:02 Imagine being encased by latex in North Carolina's heat for multiple hours a day on a film set
09:08 where high-powered lights and other production elements increase temperatures.
09:13 What was Ted Raimi's curse during his scenes as Henrietta in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2, where
09:18 he played a historian's demonically-possessed wife?
09:21 "Get back here!
09:23 Get back here!"
09:26 Ted's body sweated literal buckets of salty runoff into the deadite's full-body costume.
09:32 You have to wonder what childhood abuse Ted inflicted onto Sam Raimi, his brother and
09:37 director, that would justify such torment.
09:39 Or you could outright award Ted a Brother of the Year trophy for broiling day after
09:44 day just to give Sam the perfect take.
09:46 At least special effects guru Gregory Nicotero was reportedly available to pour Ted's sweat
09:51 into Dixie cups, so the actor wasn't sloshing around in his self-produced stanky stew.
09:58 Willem Dafoe had to run lines with a mouthful of dirt while shooting Robert Eggers' The
10:03 Lighthouse, but it seems that Robert Pattinson may have had it a touch worse to get into
10:07 character.
10:08 "You ain't right.
10:10 These lodges is more ramshackle than any shanty boys' camp I ever seen."
10:14 In a 2019 interview with Esquire, Pattinson said he took method acting to a new level
10:20 when preparing for his role off-screen.
10:22 He said,
10:23 "It was crazy.
10:24 I spent so much time making myself throw up, piss in my pants.
10:27 It's the most revolting thing.
10:29 I don't know, maybe it's really annoying."
10:31 Not so sure we'd describe that as annoying, per se, but "revolting" sounds about right.
10:36 That said, it seems the majority of his approach is a reaction to the pressure of his early
10:40 immense fame.
10:41 He explained,
10:42 "For a long time, you're very self-conscious in the street.
10:45 You're hiding a lot.
10:46 So, on set, you have an excuse to be wild.
10:49 It's like being an adrenaline junkie.
10:51 And also, when you don't know how to do something, why not just run headfirst into a wall?
10:55 See what happens.
10:56 I haven't got any other ideas."
10:59 "Oh, no!
11:00 You're a loser!
11:01 Don't let me go!
11:02 Don't let me go, everybody!"
11:05 Some of his other ideas included spinning in circles to throw himself off balance and
11:10 putting a rock in one of his shoes.
11:12 None of that holds a candle to the discomfort of rehearsals, however, or long walks by the
11:16 sea.
11:17 Defoe interviewed Pattinson for Interview magazine, asking him,
11:20 "Do you remember when we were being sprayed with that water and it stung so bad?"
11:25 To that, Pattinson responded,
11:26 "That's the closest I've come to punching a director."
11:30 Elaborating further, he said,
11:31 "However much I love Robert Eggers, there was a point where I did five takes walking
11:36 across the beach, and after a while I was like, 'What the f--- is going on?
11:40 I feel like you're just spraying a fire hose in my face.'
11:43 And he was like, 'I am spraying a fire hose in your face.'
11:46 It was like some kind of torture.
11:49 It definitely creates an interesting energy."
11:58 While It Chapter 2 might not be as roundly beloved as its predecessor, an increased budget
12:02 allowed them to go bigger with some key sequences.
12:05 Namely, a scene in which adult Beverly, played by Jessica Chastain, gets covered by 4,500
12:11 gallons of blood near the film's climax.
12:14 The scene in question takes place as Pennywise is making the Losers face their biggest fears,
12:19 and Bev winds up submerged in blood in a bathroom, which Chastain actually had to do for hours
12:25 on end.
12:26 This was partly due to director Andy Muschietti's inexhaustible work ethic.
12:30 "He never gets tired, so he will literally not stop shooting.
12:34 He'll just go."
12:35 It was also due to the challenging logistics of the scene, which required the construction
12:40 of three interconnected sets to make it work.
12:43 Chastain, speaking to Vanity Fair, said,
12:45 "It was really disgusting.
12:47 It's like slime, and it was up my nose, in my ears, and stuck on my eyeballs.
12:52 I kind of did have some little fears."
12:54 But she also said she was happy to do it.
12:57 We'd call that a solid example of commitment to one's craft.
13:01 John Carpenter's The Thing is one of the chilliest cold-weather flicks in the horror genre, and
13:07 that's not just movie magic on display.
13:09 Alaska and British Columbia represent the frigid exterior shots of research facilities, but
13:14 indoor settings took Carpenter's production back to Los Angeles' 100-degree heat waves.
13:20 There was a brief consideration of filming refrigerated units.
13:23 Think gigantic meat lockers.
13:25 But their walls and ceilings didn't provide enough space.
13:28 Instead, the team amassed as many portable air conditioners as possible and closed off
13:33 the stage so that temperatures would dip below 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
13:37 Actors didn't need to pretend their characters are frozen to the bone, because they're legitimately
13:41 shivering under costume warmth.
13:43 "There's a storm hitting us in six hours.
13:47 We're gonna find out who's who."
13:48 It's a good thing Kurt Russell took that year to grow out his bushy beard and insulating
13:52 hairstyle, for more reasons than his character's iconic look.
13:56 "Well, what do we do?"
14:00 "Why don't we just wait here for a little while?"
14:08 It's not easy to apply fake tattoos that will stand up to the punishment of filming without
14:12 becoming smeared or faded.
14:14 But Robert De Niro felt that his tattoos in Martin Scorsese's 1991 thriller Cape Fear
14:19 were so important to the character of Max Cady that he was willing to go the extra mile
14:23 in order to make them look good.
14:25 De Niro was tattooed with vegetable dyes, which had to be touched up during filming
14:30 but otherwise remained on his body for several months before the organic ink eventually broke
14:35 down.
14:36 According to a blog post by Tem2, the makeup company behind the tattoos, their application
14:41 took an hour and a half.
14:42 They said of De Niro's performance,
14:44 "De Niro got so deep into character that we had to actually increase the size of the tattoos
14:49 about 10 percent due to the additional muscle he had gained."
14:52 "I got the all-over features on that one.
14:55 You really shaking me up.
14:57 I'm shivering all over."
14:58 Not all of De Niro's tattoos in Cape Fear were fake, though.
15:02 The Black Panther tattoo seen on his right bicep is real, and can also be spotted in
15:07 Scorsese's 1973 film Mean Streets.
15:11 In the years since the release of The Shining, much has been revealed about the horrendous
15:15 working conditions for all the cast and crew of the film.
15:18 However, none were as extensive or as exhausting as what happened with actress Shelley Duvall.
15:24 In an attempt to get a more authentic performance from Duvall, director Stanley Kubrick unexpectedly
15:29 cut her lines to throw her off, kept her isolated and waiting for long periods of time between
15:34 scenes, criticized every choice or acting impulse she had for Wendy Torrance, and ordered
15:40 the crew to follow suit.
15:42 He was even quoted in the documentary Stanley Kubrick, A Life in Pictures as directing crew
15:47 members,
15:48 "I'm gonna go to the side with Shelley."
15:50 Kubrick hit peak viciousness during one of the most iconic scenes of The Shining, the
15:54 baseball bat confrontation on the stairs, where Kubrick shot the scene with a world
15:58 record-setting 127 takes.
15:59 "As soon as possible.
16:00 As soon as possible."
16:05 The skin on Duvall's hands was shredded raw from gripping the bat, and she cried herself
16:10 hoarse and became dehydrated.
16:13 She was so stressed her hair began falling out.
16:16 Shelley Duvall's portrayal of Wendy Torrance made her a horror legend, but it's a performance
16:20 that came at the expense of her mental and physical well-being.
16:25 Florence Pugh made herself known to the world through her impressive and haunting performance
16:30 in Ari Aster's sophomore feature, Midsommar, and she really left her emotions on screen
16:35 while shooting.
16:36 In March 2021, Pugh revealed via Instagram that she went through an incredibly difficult
16:41 shooting process alongside the various Hargan women with whom she shot that intense crying
16:46 scene.
16:47 "No, no, no, no, no, no, no."
16:56 She wrote,
16:57 "Truly, these women made the scene possible.
16:59 It was terrifying.
17:00 As terrifying as it was to watch, it was to read and know we had to do it.
17:05 I love these girls so much.
17:06 I'm not a big crier, so going through that with them was true safely and love and respect.
17:12 When Ari said cut, we all clung on to each other's arms and dug our nails into each other's
17:16 palms and wept.
17:18 Sobbed.
17:19 Heaved.
17:20 I remember it being really hard to stop."
17:22 It's clear the emotional output paid off in spades, but there's no doubt that kind of
17:27 traumatic reenactment can mess around with your psyche.
17:31 Maybe difficult shoots are just a part of the Evil Dead backbone, because the star of
17:35 Fetty Alvarez's 2013 remake, Jane Levy, endured physical and psychological torture to bring
17:41 her character Mia to life.
17:43 "You are all going to die tonight."
17:47 She told Yahoo!
17:48 Movies that the hardest part was being buried alive.
17:51 She had a plastic bag around her head with an oxygen tube behind her ear.
17:56 Sometimes she would lose air and have to dig herself out.
18:03 She said of the experience,
18:05 "That was a hard day."
18:07 Other things Levy had to do?
18:08 Pretend to cut her tongue in half, vomit on someone's face, crawl through a swamp, crash
18:13 a car, rip her own arm off, and get assaulted by a demon tree.
18:18 By the end of filming, which was mostly shot chronologically, Levy had, quote, "nothing
18:23 left."
18:24 The actress has been candid about not really wanting to return to the franchise, so it's
18:27 no surprise she's not a part of Evil Dead Rise.
18:31 "
18:32 (upbeat music)
18:34 (upbeat music)