The Horror Genre has recently caught a lot of steam in the last few decades. But the genre has existed since long ago and some of its greatest classics harbor some really disturbing secrets.
Also Read: 10 Things Hollywood Gets Wrong About War Movies
The Exorcist was the First Horror Movie nominated for an Oscar
The horror genre is yet to receive the love it deserves in the awards arena. Back in the 1970’s, the hatred against the genre was sky high. The Exorcist was the first to break that stereotype. It was nominated for 10 Oscar Awards in the year of 9174, not just the highest for the genre at that time but also the first of its kind. Linda Blair, who was just 15 at that time, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 1974.
Stephen King hated The Shining
The Shining is regarded as one of the greatest horror movies to have ever graced the screens. Some would call it the scariest movie ever. The movie was made by Stanley Kubrick, based on Stephen King’s book of the same name. Stephen King was invited to the premiere of the movie. He hated it. For starters, he did not like the fact that they cast Jack Nicholson as the lead hero. The audience knew that something was going to happen with Nicholson’s character since he was known to play such characters before. Several parts of the movie did not bode well with the source material and according to King, most of the movie felt flat.
The Ring had an actual Cursed Tree on set
You talk about The Ring and the first thing that comes to your mind is the accursed video tape which opens the doors to Pandora. But the tape was not the only thing that was cursed in the movie. The sets of The Ring had an actual cursed tree. There was a red Japanese Maple Tree made out of steel tubing and plaster. It was called Lucille in honor of Lucille Ball who had flowing red hair. Three times the tree was erected and all three times the wind blew it down. Every time the tree was blown down, some mishap happened on set.
Halloween’s Myers was inspired by a mentally challenged teenager
John Carpenter’s Halloween started the age of silent serial killers that stalk their prey before they slash them up to Kingdom Come. John Carpenter actually has a real world inspiration for Michael Myers. John Carpenter had visited a local psychiatric ward where he was trying to draw inspiration from the patients. If that was not sick enough, Carpenter found his model within a 14 year old teenage boy with violent tendencies who would just stare at a wall all day long when he was not being aggressive. The movie drew a lot of controversy because it led to several copy-cat killers in the real world trying to portray themselves as Michael Myers.
The Ballad of Ed Gein
True horror fans would know the name Ed Gein. A psychopath who lived in the American mainland decades ago, Gein was later sent to a mental asylum for the criminally insane because of his actions. Ed Gein was a truly demented being. In his Wisconsin farm, authorities found multiple decapitated human heads. A human lip was being used as a window puller. Ed Gein had made a belt out of nipples and used bowls made up of human skin. His house also had four noses and nine masks made up of human skin. Ed Gein’s story inspired not just one but three blockbuster horror movies – Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the cult classic Psycho!
Also Read: 10 Underrated Keanu Reeves Movies
The Blair Witch Project’s actors got instructions via GPS
The Blair Witch Project used innovative cinematography and screenplay to compensate for lack of funding. And boy did they score. One of their creative methods to instruct actors was pre-programmed instructions on their GPS trackers that would point them towards a crate of food along with further instructions for their dialogues and how their character develops next. The only rule was the actors cannot show their lines to others. They were free to improvise and adapt as long as they followed the given instructions.
Final Destination has a connection to John Denver’s death
Final Destination was a movie that deserves a lot of credit. There is no killer in the movie. There is no ghost or monster to haunt the good guys. Instead the antagonist is the entity of death itself. As a result, nobody can escape what is coming for them. While filming the first Final Destination movie’s airplane explosion scene, the decision was made to use John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High. Coincidentally John Denver himself died of an airplane crash in the year of 1997. His body was so damaged that he could only be identified via his fingerprints. The airplane explosion scene’s graphic nature was also claimed to be a reflection of Denver’s gruesomely mangled corpse.
Paranormal Activity – One of the most profitable movie of all time
After The Blair Witch Project was made on a sum of a mere $60,000, it amassed around $250 Million Dollars at the International Box office. This meant that for every dollar invested in the project, the movie earned around $4170. And then we got to see Paranormal Activity. The movie was made on a shoestring budget of $15,000. It made around $195 Million internationally. That is $13000 earned for every dollar spent. That is a whopping return on investment.
The Hills Have Eyes was originally so dark the Crew threatened to leave
We Craven is said to have been really fascinated by the story of Sawney Bean, a Scot Highlander who lived as the head of a Scottish Clan and was deemed as a cannibal. He terrorized the Scots by killing and eating people. Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes took the cannibal tribe living in the middle of nowhere trope to new heights. A certain rape scene had already scared the cast and crew. Temperatures on the sets of the movie were also extremely high. But the breaking point for them came when Wes Craven introduced a scene where the cannibals had to kill a baby. The crew threatened to walk out because the movie was getting too dark. Craven had to redo that scene.
