Chest-bursting chaos. A serial killer's grand entrance. And some of the most iconic lines of dialogue ever spoken. Who knew it was all unscripted?
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00:00Chest-bursting chaos, a killer's grand entrance, and some of the most iconic taunts of all
00:06time.
00:07Who knew it was all unscripted?
00:10Wes Craven's slice-and-dice, game-changer scream hit theaters in 1996.
00:14Right away, the movie shook up the old slasher movie conventions of the previous decade,
00:19from its non-virginal final girl, Sidney Prescott, to its hip-to-the-genre teens who toss around
00:24the barbed insults and sly remarks conceived by screenwriter Kevin Williamson.
00:28"'Cause let's face it, baby, these days, you gotta have a sequel!"
00:33One of the film's funnier moments takes place in the climax.
00:36On the screen Blu-ray commentary, Williamson admits that the character of Stu was a little
00:40underwritten, but it was no problem for Matthew Lillard, who ad-libbed several of Stu's lines
00:45throughout filming.
00:47During this particular scene, Stu and Billie have revealed to Sidney that they're behind
00:51the spree of killings, but she slips away, calling to taunt Billie on the phone from
00:55elsewhere in the house.
00:56At this point, Skeet Ulrich was supposed to rage-throw the phone at the nearby kitchen
01:00countertop, but because of the slippery theatrical blood covering his hands, this happened.
01:05"'F---- me with the phone, dick!"
01:10It's a great moment of levity in the eye of the movie's storm, sweetened all the more
01:14by the satisfaction of seeing Sidney dispatch these two psychopaths just moments later.
01:19The chestburster sequence in Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror masterpiece Alien is one
01:25of the most shocking moments in movie history, and that's in large part because the cast's
01:29reaction to it is totally genuine.
01:31Prior to this scene, John Hurt's character was infected by a face-hugging alien, which
01:36impregnated him with a baby xenomorph.
01:38No one on the ship knows this yet, however, and they're all shocked when he doubles over
01:42during mealtime and then begins to seize up.
01:45As they try to restrain him, the baby alien shoves its head through his ribcage.
01:49The only actor completely in on the whole thing was Hurt, because he had to go through
01:53special effects prep and setup.
01:55The rest of the cast was kept in the dark, beyond the fact that something would come
01:59out of his chest.
02:00When they arrived on set that day, though, they noticed that the cameras were covered
02:03in plastic and the crew were all wearing raincoats.
02:06Clearly, there was going to be some kind of splash zone.
02:10But after a false start with only a tiny bit of blood and a not-too-threatening burster,
02:14the actors let down their guard.
02:16That's when Scott struck, sending real animal organs and gallons of fake blood in the cast's
02:21direction.
02:22The screams, gasps, and horrified faces of the cast are all very real, which sells the
02:27shock of the scene in a truly visceral way.
02:30Discussing the reaction of alien actor Veronica Cartwright, H.R. Giger later said,
02:34"'She was so, so hysteric.
02:37She cried so much.
02:39I think it was real.'"
02:42There are more than a few scary moments in the 1980s Stanley Kubrick movie The Shining,
02:46but the vast majority of them are scripted.
02:49Kubrick was an exacting director who pushed his performers to the limit, so it's surprising
02:53that he even allowed an improvised line in one of his films.
02:56In fact, it was because Kubrick required dozens of takes for every scene that we ended up
03:01with one of the greatest improvised lines in cinematic history.
03:05During the climax of the film, writer-gone-mad Jack Torrance is chasing his wife Wendy around
03:09the empty Overlook Hotel.
03:11Wendy locks herself in a bathroom and Jack hacks his way through the door with a hatchet
03:15before peering in through the hole.
03:18Carson plays the part as completely unhinged, and he taunts Wendy as he attacks the door.
03:22When he manages to cut through enough to reveal his face, he sticks his head into the hole
03:26and shouts,
03:27"'Here's Johnny!'
03:30This iconic line was improvised, referencing late-night talk show host Johnny Carson, who
03:34would be introduced the same way every night by co-host Ed McMahon.
03:38"'Here's Johnny!'
03:42It was an easy-to-catch reference for Americans in 1980 that makes the film feel more lived-in
03:47despite its supernatural story.
03:49The quote has gone on to be referenced far more from The Shining than its original usage
03:53on The Tonight Show, and it's all because of Nicholson's need to change things up after
03:56so many takes."
03:58Sir Anthony Hopkins only spends 24 minutes on screen in Silence of the Lambs, but his
04:03gripping performance as Hannibal Lecter earned him an Academy Award.
04:07It has since made him one of the most recognizable figures in horror history.
04:10Playing a brilliant forensic psychiatrist who also happens to be a murderous cannibal
04:14is enough to creep out audiences.
04:17But Hopkins truly made the character his own, providing multiple unscripted moments that
04:21helped make the film so memorable.
04:23Take this, for example.
04:24"'I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.'"
04:32That noise he makes wasn't in the script.
04:35As Hopkins tells it, it was simply an odd sound he was making on set, and figured it
04:39would be a creepy addition to an already unsettling line.
04:42But that's not all.
04:43When Clarice Starling first encounters Dr. Lecter from his cell, Ted Talley's script
04:48describes the moment as,
04:49"...Dr. Hannibal Lecter is lounging on his bunk, in white pajamas, reading an Italian
04:53Vogue."
04:54On screen, however, Hannibal Lecter is standing in the middle of the cell, staring directly
04:58at her, with a curious expression on his face.
05:01In an interview between Hopkins and Foster as part of Variety's Actors on Actors series,
05:06Hopkins shared that he told director Jonathan Demme he'd like to be standing.
05:09"...Standing?
05:10Okay.
05:11Why?"
05:12I said.
05:13I can smell her coming down the corridor.
05:14He said,
05:15"...You?"
05:16Silence of the Lambs would have been a controversial success no matter what, but it's clear that
05:19Hopkins' unpredictable performance helped write the movie into the history books.
05:25One of cinema's most famous lines was actually a cheeky in-joke among its film crew.
05:30Steven Spielberg's 1975 adaptation of Peter Benchley's novel, Jaws, sees three men pursue
05:35a great white shark responsible for several attacks in their seaside town.
05:39Amityville police chief Martin Brody, oceanographer Matt Hooper, and seasoned shark hunter Quint.
05:44Having found the shark, a huge beast that later takes the pithy fishing vessel down
05:49with these, Brody delivers a simple line with gravity to the ship's captain.
05:53You're gonna need a bigger boat.
05:56This wasn't exactly an ad-lib, though.
05:58Carl Gottlieb, both co-writer of the adapted screenplay and bit actor in the film, later
06:02told The Hollywood Reporter that production on the set of Jaws was notoriously stingy.
06:07In particular, producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown overloaded the boat to such an
06:11extent that the words,
06:12"...you're gonna need a bigger boat," later became a go-to catchphrase behind the scenes.
06:16It was used by the movie's crew for everything from a delayed lunch to technical issues.
06:21Basically, any situation that meant those crew members were poorly equipped for the
06:24job.
06:25So during this scene, Roy Scheider infused the movie crew's frustration into the story,
06:30sprinkling the phrase into his dialogue on various occasions during filming.
06:33The one that's stuck is the one that lives on the big screen today, and in the mouths
06:37of anyone woefully unprepared for the task before them.
06:42Rowdy Roddy Piper was, without a doubt, one of the greatest professional wrestlers in
06:46history.
06:47Fellow WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair once described Piper as
06:50"...the most gifted entertainer in the history of professional wrestling," upon his induction
06:54to the hall in 2005.
06:56Before John Cena and Dwayne The Rock Johnson proved that wrestlers could be bonafide Hollywood
07:01superstars, wrestlers weren't often known for their acting chops.
07:04The biggest exception, however, was Roddy Piper.
07:07He had a recurring role as a dangerous wrestler named The Maniac on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
07:12and starred as Sam Hell in the cult hit Hell Comes to Frogtown.
07:16His biggest cinematic claim to fame, however, is starring as Nada in John Carpenter's masterpiece
07:21They Live.
07:22As Nada realizes that Earth has been taken over by aliens that are hiding in plain sight
07:26to manipulate the masses, he embarks on a crusade to free humanity and defeat its captors.
07:31Nada is the ultimate everyman in this movie, if the ultimate everyman was also a talented
07:36professional wrestler who could dish out witty insults to aliens and easily fight Keith David
07:41for nearly six minutes straight.
07:42In the film's most memorable moment, Nada enters a bank with a gun and delivers the
07:47now-famous line
07:48"...I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass.
07:52And I'm all out of bubblegum."
07:55This line has since become a pop culture staple, with people who've never even seen They Live
08:00at least having heard of the reference.
08:01Notably, it was later famously referenced in the video game Duke Nukem and became a
08:05popular meme among younger generations as a result.
08:08Incredibly, the line was improvised by Roddy Piper, having not been a part of John Carpenter's
08:13original script.
08:15In space, no one can hear you rage quit
08:18When people quote James Cameron's 1986 sci-fi action classic Aliens, the line that comes
08:23up the most often is a desperate one indeed.
08:25The movie finds a team of aliens stranded on a desolate, hostile moon, teeming with
08:29acid-blooded xenomorphs who mean to cocoon, impregnate, and otherwise slaughter the lot
08:34of them.
08:35It's during this mission that Colonial Marine and fan-favorite character Private Hudson
08:39surveys the situation and utters the iconic line
08:41"...That's it, man.
08:42Game over, man.
08:43Game over."
08:44Cameron, who had previously helmed The Terminator and therefore knew a thing or two about memorable
08:50but doomed characters, encouraged the sizable cast of Aliens to develop backstories for
08:55the characters they played.
08:56Some actors had enough experience to handle that kind of personal world-building, but
09:00for Bill Paxton, who only had a few film credits to his name at the time, the task proved daunting.
09:05That said, Paxton noticed his character's jumpy, immature demeanor and decided that
09:09Hudson was, like many service members, an avid gamer.
09:13This meant that he was prone to hysterics when he failed to overcome the combat simulators
09:17on which he and his fellow Marines would train.
09:19So what better syntax to capture utter defeat than the near-universal words,
09:23"...Game over."
09:24The phrase was a pop culture grenade, and has since been repeated in a wide variety
09:28of movies, TV shows, albums, and comic books over the years, as well as video games, obviously.
09:34For this performance, Paxton earned a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor and the undying
09:39devotion of horror fans worldwide.