Skin-Crawlingly Scary Stories From Behind The Scenes Of Huge Horror Movies

What’s your favorite scary movie? The Shining? Hereditary? Halloween? Whichever horror movie messes you up the most, you'll never be as scared as the cast and crew who suffered some form of trauma to bring the films to the big screen. Strange and sinister real-life events plagued the sets of the most iconic terror flicks ever made. Here's a look at some particularly chilling cases.

1. The Shining (1980)

There were plenty of scary goings-on behind the cameras of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. But life imitated art when it came to filming the scenes in the infamous hedge maze. The conditions were so hellish that crew members repeatedly got lost in the maze, and Kubrick himself got stuck at one point. He had to be led out by others before filming could continue.

2. The Shining (1980)

Kubrick made poor Shelley Duvall enact The Shining’s exhausting bat-swinging scene no fewer than 127 times. Duvall was also often required to spend half of her entire day simply yelling at the top of her voice. The actress admits that these tactics helped to coax an unforgettable performance from her, but she also labeled the experience of playing Wendy Torrance “almost unbearable.”

3. It (2017)

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in January 2018, Bill Skarsgård admitted that the character of Pennywise in It haunted his dreams. He said, “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."

4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre also put its leading lady through the wringer, too. In the famous dinner scene, Marilyn Burns had to endure constant blows to the skull with a fake yet weighty sledgehammer. She was also required to shriek for hours and hours on end. She later revealed to the website Terror Trap, “Afterwards, I was just so grateful it was over. I probably was the happiest girl alive.”