18 Insanely Creepy Movie Facts You Probably Didn’t Know Until Now

Omfg???

We asked the BuzzFeed Community for the freakiest horror movie facts they know. Here are the creepiest results.

1. The corpses in the rainy Poltergeist pool scene were real skeletons.

MGM

It was supposedly cheaper than fabricating fake ones, and the actress who starred in the scene, JoBeth Williams, wasn't told her bony buddies were real until after shooting.

—adamjunrein

2. In the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Gunnar Hansen (Leatherface) accidentally cut Marilyn Burns' finger in the dinner scene, because he was exhausted and could barely see.

Bryanston Pictures

—michellec41

3. The cast and crew of the 2005 Amityville Horror kept waking up inexplicably at 3:15 a.m. while filming, which is the same time Ryan Reynolds' character mysteriously wakes up every night in the film.

MGM

—Anna Kopsky

4. In Candyman, Tony Todd had to fill his mouth with real bees.

TriStar

The only thing keeping them from crawling down his throat was some sort of mouth guard. He ended up getting stung several times.

—adamjunrein and tawncat

5. After the first day of filming The Conjuring, Vera Farmiga found three unexplained claw marks on her skin.

Warner Bros.

"I don’t know what happened," she said, "unless I had a mosquito bite and I scratched it with three fingers."

—annaw42

6. Shelley Duvall, who played Wendy Torrance in The Shining, said the amount of emotional distress from filming was "excruciating" and "unbearable."

Eagle Film SS / Via youtube.com

She was genuinely terrified while filming, and had a mental breakdown after the movie due to the stress and torment Stanley Kubrick put her through.

—amyk4

7. During the chestburster scene in Alien, the actors didn’t know what was about to happen, so their absolutely horrified reactions are real.

20th Century Fox

—kristinm49

8. Eli Roth got the idea for Hostel after coming across a Thai website about murder vacations, where people could pay to torture and kill people.

Warning This image is graphic Tap to reveal Click to reveal

Lionsgate

—a4e75

9. While filming Poltergeist, Oliver Robins, aka Robbie, truly got choked by the robot clown doll — it wasn't until he turned purple that Spielberg realized what was happening.

MGM

—Rynneer

10. The actor who played a radiologist's assistant in The Exorcist was a convicted murderer who dismembered and killed gay men in the late '70s.

Warner Bros. / Murderpedia / Via buzzfeed.com

Paul Bateson murdered and dismembered six men in New York City, while also training to be an X-ray tech (which landed him his spot in the movie).

—audreyk4

11. An actual human skull was used in the first model of the iconic Alien creature.

20th Century Fox, Flickr Creative Commons / Adrian Scottow / Via flic.kr

The late artist H.R. Giger was in charge of the design. When asked about the skull, he once said, "Don't ask me where I got it."

12. The creepy, possessed Annabelle doll from The Conjuring is based off a real, possessed Raggedy Ann doll.

Warner Bros., Wikipedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Via en.wikipedia.org

The real doll, which is kept at the real Ed and Lorraine Warren's in-home occult museum, is believed to be inhabited by an inhuman spirit.

—katiem40

13. The schoolhouse in Hitchcock's The Birds is a real-life haunted house, and its current residents say they hear footsteps and children laughing.

Universal Pictures

Tippi Hedren, who played Melanie in the film, mentioned that "the building was immensely populated... but there was nobody there."

—kpie1211

14. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre set was filled with 500 pounds of decomposing animal corpses, and the stench mixed with the heat caused the actors to vomit constantly.

MGM

Director Tobe Hooper said within the last few days, every time he'd yell "cut," the actors and crew would immediately run to throw up.

—michellec41

15. While on the set of The Exorcist, director William Friedkin told the prop man to randomly fire shotgun blanks to get more "authentic" reactions from the actors.

Warner Bros.

—Roxanne Marie, Facebook

16. During filming of the 2005 version of The Amityville Horror, a dead body was found floating in the water near the set.

MGM, Wikipedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

—erikao43

17. Hannibal Lecter was based on an actual killer, Dr. Alfredo Ballí Treviño, who had the same mannerisms Anthony Hopkins portrayed in The Silence of the Lambs.

Orion Pictures, Wikipedia Commons / Fair Use

Thomas Harris, the author of the book that the movie is based on, thought Treviño was the prison doctor, but he was actually there serving time for killing a man, draining him of his blood before dismembering him, and burying the pieces in boxes.

—crystalk8

18. And multiple actors from the Poltergeist movies died tragically either during or after filming.

MGM

Dominique Dunne, who played the older sister in the first movie, was murdered right after it first premiered. Two others died, along with the little girl who played Carol Anne, who died at 12 years old from cardiac arrest. Many people attribute this "curse" to the real skeletons used on set in the pool scene.

—emilyk46

Want to be featured on BuzzFeed? Follow the BuzzFeed Community on Facebook and Twitter!