18 Spooky And Eerie Behind-The-Scenes Horror Movie Stories

    These terrifying tales transpired off-camera on the sets of your favorite cinematic nightmares.

    Ken W. Hanley
    by Ken W. Hanley

    BuzzFeed Contributor

    If you're a horror movie fan, the phrase "based on a true story" is one you've probably heard over and over in conjunction with your favorite fright flicks.

    Hallmark Releasing

    But sometimes, the scariest stories associated with on-screen scare fare come from their respective sets, from macabre mishaps to chilling happenings that just can't be explained.

    BBC

    With this in mind, I've assembled 18 true nightmares that you'll be shocked to hear actually transpired behind-the-scenes of various horror films.

    Blumhouse Productions

    Ready? Here we go:

    1. A catastrophic nightmare on-set of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Part 4: The Dream Master:

    A crying woman's face emerges from a fleshy wall covered in faces
    New Line Cinema / A7A Collection / Photo 12 / Alamy

    On any film set, the safety of the cast and crew is priority number one, as any tragic accident can (and will) mar a film's legacy and spell disaster for all involved. However, one particularly heart-stopping close call came on the set of The Dream Master, the fourth installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, during a sequence inside of a latex "torso of souls" filled with stunt performers and extras. While the scene had unfolded relatively normally for the most part, it came to a shocking halt when the rig holding up the sheet-like wall came crashing down, sending the wall itself down upon the actors within — which included scream queen Linnea Quigley. Luckily, no one was seriously harmed, and a condensed version of the sequence remains in the film, but the accident itself is absolutely jaw-dropping and can be seen unfolding in real time in the lengthy franchise documentary, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy.

    2. Director Ti West's unsettling experiences at the Yankee Pedlar Inn during The House of the Devil inspired The Innkeepers:

    A blood covered woman leans against a large wooden door
    MAGNOLIA HOME ENTERTAINMENT / Cinematic Collection / Alamy

    Ti West may have rejuvenated his career as a modern horror maestro with the one-two punch of X and Pearl last year, but he's no stranger to horrifying happenings in the real world following his experiences on his breakout films, The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers. During the production of the first film, the cast and crew stayed at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, one of Connecticut's most famously haunted properties, and — while West himself does not believe in ghosts — he did recount to CTInsider that the inexplicably creepy moments (like doors opening and shutting seemingly on their own) he experienced there would inform the subject matter for the latter flick. Of course, West would film at the property for The Innkeepers, and once again bunked the cast at the haunted hotel, where the film's lead Sara Paxton would encounter her own brushes with potentially paranormal activity.

    3. A creepy crawler nearly derailed Sinister II:

    A group of creepy children stand in a decrepit hallway
    AUTOMATIK ENT/BLUMHOUSE PRO/ENT ONE/IM GLOBAL/TANK CATERPILL / Album / Alamy

    There's a little irony in something scary happening on the site of a Sinister film, a franchise built around a demon that inspires his victims to commit murders on film. Nonetheless, the scariest moment of filming Sinister II came about off-screen, and it wasn't Bughuul's doing, but rather the work of a small, eight-legged menace. Speaking to FANGORIA, Sinister II director Ciaran Foy found himself in the hospital shortly after filming commenced on the sordid sequel after being bitten by a brown recluse, one of the most dangerous spiders in North America, in a cornfield, and nearly lost his leg as a result of its necrotic venom. Even more ironic is that Foy was actually filming with a wolf spider earlier in the day, yet the performing arachnid was luckily a consummate professional.

    4. Is The Exorcist a cursed film franchise? Many seem to believe so:

    A man with a hat and briefcase basks in a light outside of a home at night
    WARNER BROS. / Allstar Picture Library Ltd / Alamy

    Much has been written about the alleged curse that has plagued the Exorcist film franchise, one that some attribute to being responsible for Ellen Burstyn's grueling back injury, the shocking death of Jack MacGowran during production, and various technical troubles that feel too pointed to be coincidental. Oddly enough, this potentially supernatural bad luck streak has extended to the franchise as a whole: Exorcist II was rife with cast and crew facing terrible illnesses and production issues, Exorcist III put filmmaker (and The Exorcist novel author) William Peter Blatty through a living hell when Morgan Creek demanded extensive last-minute reshoots, The Exorcist: The Beginning was literally scrapped upon its completion and nearly reshot in full, and the upcoming Exorcist reboot faced unexpected production issues that halted filmmaking abruptly late last year.

    5. The truly ghastly incident on-set of Incident in a Ghostland:

    Two distressed young women embrace in a rustic home
    5656 Films / Radar Films / Lifestyle pictures / Alamy

    Incident in a Ghostland is one of those movies you've probably seen floating around various streamers over the past several years, as the film from Martyrs filmmaker Pascal Laugier failed to make much of an impression with audiences or critics upon its release in 2018. Sadly, the most disturbing thing about this fright flick was an on-set accident that sent young performer Taylor Hickson head-first through broken glass, receiving facial injuries that required 70 stitches and left permanent scarring. Hickson would thankfully continue working on shows like Deadly Class and Motherland: Fort Salem following this accident, but launched a lawsuit against Incident Productions shortly after the film's release over their failure to ensure her safety.

    6. The horror of making The Texas Chain Saw Massacre:

    A masked man with a chainsaw runs at a truck
    Bryanston Distributing / Pictorial Press Ltd. / Alamy

    If you think independent filmmaking is difficult in this day and age, try making an independent film in the early 1970s — especially one in the brutal Texas heat such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Plenty has been written about the unforgiving and terrible conditions of filming the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre, including in Leatherface actor Gunnar Hansen's book Chain Saw Confidential, but perhaps the most terrifying anecdote from this classic creepshow comes from pioneering scream queen Marilyn Burns, whose realistic cries during the hand cutting scene are so effective because Hansen actually sliced her hand with the razor during that infamous take.

    7. And was there really a haunting on the set of The Possession? The evidence appears to point to yes:

    A man holds an ornate Hebrew ceremonial box and device at his dinner table.
    Ghost House Pictures / Album / Alamy

    This dybbuk box horror film was a sleeper hit in the late summer of 2012, but few might remember the fairly generic scare scenes in this eerie offering. Nevertheless, actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan is not likely to forget his on-set experience on The Possession, recalling some unexplained (and possibly paranormal) environmental phenomena while filming the flick to the Hollywood Reporter. Luckily, Morgan was not scared off of the horror genre, performing in Fall, The Unholy, and The Walking Dead in the years that followed.

    8. Cost-cutting creepiness brought an eerie authenticity to Poltergeist:

    A woman pops up in a muddy pool of water next to multiple skeletons
    MGM / United Artists / Album / Alamy

    You could go off all day on the devastating tragedies that affected the cast and crew of the Poltergeist films, but most of them don't fall under the "spooky" umbrella as much as they're mostly just upsetting. But that doesn't mean the Steven Spielberg-produced horror movie doesn't have its own sordid on-set happenings, particularly with the pool full of skeletons terrifying JoBeth Williams in the film's climactic set piece that were actual human remains, which were more affordable and easier to obtain than prop skeletons.

    9. Life imitated art on the set of the Friday the 13th remake:

    Platinum Dunes

    Derek Mears has accrued a wealth of mind-blowing stories from his extensive career in the genre space over the years, including his experience as DC's Swamp Thing and Platinum Dunes' Jason Voorhees in the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th. In the latter role, Mears shared with the I Was There Too podcast that he had a near-death experience on the set of the film after drowning during an underwater stunt. However, the story goes from shocking to flat-out bonkers once you hear that the drowning was actually Mears's idea, knowing they needed more time underwater to nail a particular shot and reportedly agreed after asking the crew's emergency medical team, "You can bring me back, right?"

    10. The Amityville Horror remake was plagued by creepy coincidences:

    Lights blare from an upstairs room at the infamous Lutz House in Amityville
    MGM / Maximum Film / Alamy

    Speaking of Platinum Dunes' remakes, the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror had a much more spooky atmosphere on its set thanks to a series of bizarre coincidences during production. The first and most morbid of the coincidences came in the form of an actual human body, which washed up on the shore of the lake of where the film had been filming and caused a brief production shutdown as a result. Yet the creepier of the coincidences surrounds "3:15 a.m.," a time which various members of the cast and crew would wake up without reason or explanation, but is also known as the exact time that Ron DeFeo Jr. killed his family in the real Amityville tragedy.

    11. Bad omens raised hell on-set of The Omen:

    Gregory Peck and David Warner on the Set of "The Omen"
    20th Century Fox Film / ScreenProd / Photononstop / Alamy

    Richard Donner's The Omen is frequently cited as one of the most cursed films ever made, with some even believing that the heretic nature of the film's subject matter fueled their legendary bad luck streak. From producers and performers having close calls with freak lightning strikes to IRA bombings of London hotels hosting the filmmakers to the tragic deaths of the film's special effects assistant and animal handlers shortly after filming, the film's alleged curse bled to the film's 2006 remake when a catastrophic processing error destroyed thousands of feet of film, including the scene in which Damien's "mark of the beast" is revealed.

    12. Annabelle Comes Home had a myriad of macabre mysteries:

    McKenna Grace prays in a dark, creepy room with 1960s decor.
    Warner Brothers / Moviestore Collection Ltd. / Alamy

    There have been various stories of goosebump-inducing eeriness pervading the productions of the Conjuring universe films, but none have nearly the petrifying pedigree as Annabelle Comes Home. Star Mckenna Grace told the Wrap about strange lighting phenomena, unexplained nose bleeds, items moving around in locked rooms seemingly by themselves, and bizarre photographic glitches, but perhaps the spookiest element of the threequel’s shoot came in the form of an unexplained and unexpected appearance from the titular character while filming an unrelated scene, which was preceded by a trio of strange knocks on a nearby door. Could it be the work of pranksters on the crew? Or was something supernatural at work? We might never know!

    13. Odd radio silence (or lack thereof) on-set of The Exorcism of Emily Rose:

    A scared young woman stares down a dimly lit hallway
    Screen Gems / AJ Pics / Alamy

    The Exorcism of Emily Rose is one of the most ironic entries on this list, given the film itself revolves around the skepticism of the supernatural. Alas, longstanding reports of unusual and spontaneous radio activity during the production of the film in the rooms of stars Jennifer Carpenter and Laura Linney were confirmed by director Scott Derrickson himself, including the repeated broadcasts of Pearl Jam’s “Alive” when the radios would allegedly turn on-and-off by themselves.

    14. The set of The Shining met a fiery demise:

    Jack Nicholson and Stanley Kubrick hang out by the monitor during the filming of "The Shining"
    Moviestore Collection Ltd / Alamy

    In the original novel of The Shining, the story concludes with Jack Torrance overheating the boiler for the Overlook Hotel, which explodes and burns down the property. Even though Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation never mirrors this finale, something disquietingly similar happened on the set of the film, as an overheated light caused a fire to break out at Elstree Studios, burning down the massive lounge set where Jack chased Wendy up the stairs. The film had wrapped filming on the set by that point, and no one appeared to have been harmed; in fact, Kubrick himself was photographed by the charred remains by the film’s still photographer. Nevertheless, it still remains a creepy capper on a production that is already considered controversial due to Kubrick’s own extreme and tyrannical on-set behavior.

    15. They used real witchcraft for a fictional deity in The Craft:

    Four young women attempt to conjure magic on a beach
    Columbia Pictures / AJ Pics / Alamy

    The Craft is often considered to be one of the definitive horror films of the 1990s, and one of the reasons it has that reputation is that there was a level of authenticity to the flick that feels undeniable, even if it was complete hogwash.  The truth lies somewhere in the macabre middle thanks to the film's consultant, a Dianic Elder Priestess named Pat Devin, who helped the film become as accurate to her practices as possible, even if the deity of Manon was itself fake. Yet despite the false entity, The Craft was still creeped out by strange happenings on the set, including an incident during the famous "Call the Corners" scene where the high tide waves would far surpass the point they were supposed to go and wiped out the set in full as soon as the women began their incantations.

    16. Wes Craven struck real fear into Miko Hughes on-set of New Nightmare:

    A demonic variation of Freddy Krueger poses menacingly.
    New Line Cinema / Photo 12 / Alamy

    For what it's worth, the late, great Wes Craven was often considered to be one of the warmest and most welcoming presences on his film sets, regardless of their frequently morbid subject matter or even the tumultuous nature of the shoot (yes, we're looking at you, The Serpent and the Rainbow). But according to the aforementioned Never Sleep Again documentary, Craven did once find himself resorting to terrifying trickery to pull an authentic performance out of child actor and Pet Sematary star Miko Hughes on the set of Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Needing the young performer to be genuinely scared of Robert Englund's Freddy Krueger, Craven pulled a bait-and-switch during a scene where he is supposedly running from the character, secretly hiding Englund in full make-up behind a corner of the set and instructing him to jump out unexpectedly mid-take. Craven got the result that he wanted and ultimately used the take in the film itself, where you can see the young actor nearly jump out of his shoes when Englund, in his own words, "really turns it up." Luckily, Hughes looks upon the event with rose-colored glasses these days, as it remains a favorite story of his to tell at conventions and panel discussions.

    17. Was there a ghostly presence on-set of The Lords of Salem? It sure sounds like it:

    A woman in creepy make-up and a long worn-out sweater stands in an ornate ballroom
    AUTOMATIK ENTERTAINMENT / Album / Alamy

    The Lords of Salem remains one of Rob Zombie's more ambitious projects, trading his trademark brutality for something far more unnerving and psychological in nature. But the most chilling moments happened on-set according to some of the crew members, as shooting on-location in some of Los Angeles' creepiest venues, including the abandoned Linda Vista Hospital, elicited some terrifying reactions, from alleged ghost spottings and random room buzzings in wings without anyone on site to strange coincidences that turned heads in the most eerie way possible.

    18. And finally — the cast and crew of The Pope's Exorcist witnessed a firsthand fright:

    Russell Crowe stares intensely as a demon-battling priest
    Jonathan Hession / Sony Pictures / PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy

    In the most recent entry on this list, The Pope's Exorcist hit theaters mere weeks ago, but its production was not without its own frightening moment. According to the Daily Mail and star Russell Crowe himself, the actor returned to his lodgings after completing filming for the day to discover someone (or something) had left a dead bird on his doorstep. Crowe remains adamant that the act was the result of a local animal during the Ireland-based production, but referenced alleged cursed sets in other horror productions with similar subject matters as another potential explanation for his expired visitor.

    Do you know any creepy on-set movie stories? Let us know in the comments below!