50 Little-Known Pieces Of Horror Trivia Every Die Hard Fan Should Know

By Chrissy Stockton,
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1. “When Laurence R. Harvey auditioned, director Tom Six asked him to “rape” a chair, which he did.”

2. “Stephen King based Carrie White on two girls he knew while at school, both were social outcasts from deeply religious families and both died while still in their twenties.”

3. “If you take the first letters of the main characters David, Eric, Mia, Olivia and Natalie, the letters spell out DEMON.”

4. “Of ‘Se7en’, David Fincher told Kevin Spacey and Brad Pitt “this is not going to be the movie that you’re remembered for, but it may be a movie you’re incredibly proud of.'”

5. “Millie Bobby Brown had to shave most of her hair off for the show. As can be expected of any 11 year old girl, it was a terrifying prospect. The Duffers showed her how cool Charlize Theron looked in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), after which Millie agreed to it.”

6. “The Chucky films have always been accused of inspiring violence in children. One case linked to the series was a gang in Manchester kidnapping and murdering a 16-year-old girl. While they tortured her, they forced her to listen to recordings of the gang leader repeating the catchphrase “I’m Chucky, wanna play?” Director Tom Holland has always defended the first film from these accusations, stating that viewers of horror movies could only be influenced by their content if they were unbalanced to begin with.”

7. “Victor Salva wrote the main characters as brother and sister in order to eliminate any sexual tension and keep them focused on escaping the Creeper.”

8. “While on set, Robert Rodriguez would play the soundtracks from Escape from New York (1981) and The Thing (1982) to set the mood for the movie.”

9. “Steve McQueen was playing a teenage high-school student, but he was actually 27 years old.”

10. “Misery was almost turned into a Broadway play with Julia Roberts as Annie Wilkes. King vetoed the idea because Annie is (in his words) “a brawny woman who can sling a guy around, not a pixie.'”

11. “Shelley Duvall suffered from nervous exhaustion throughout filming, including physical illness and hair loss.”

12. “John Landis had to avoid filming any full-frontal nudity of David Naughton during the transformation scene and dream sequences after Naughton informed Landis that he was not circumcised, even though his role, David Kessler, was written as being Jewish.”

13. “The house used for this film was loaned to the filmmakers by the owner, who planned to demolish it anyway, thereby ensuring that they could do whatever they wanted to the house.”

14. “Tom Cruise wanted a private set, and hence tunnels were built to escort the actors to and from the set. This was done so that the vampire’s makeup effects would remain a secret.”

15. “Alex Garland and Danny Boyle felt that the notion of the living dead wanting to eat peoples’ brains was outdated. One of the original factors behind zombie movies was a fear of nuclear power and its possible effects on people. Garland and Boyle concluded that one of the biggest fears in modern society is fear of disease, especially a viral apocalypse, such as Ebola or Marburg. Garland and Boyle were specifically inspired by such incidents as anthrax and bio-terrorism scares in London and the spread of mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease in the UK.”

16. “Christopher Collet, who played Paul, had a latex version of his head created for the final scene. Someone on the set took the head.”

17. “It was Jeffrey Combs who suggested the Adolf Hitler-inspired haircut for his character, to show Milton Dammers’ extreme sense of nationalism after serving his country for so long. Combs also suggested two ear appliances, which made his ears stick out quite comically, and several of Dammers’ chest tattoos.”

18. “When composer John Williams originally played the score for Steven Spielberg, Spielberg laughed and said, “That’s funny, John, really; but what did you really have in mind for the theme of Jaws (1975)?” Spielberg later stated that without Williams’s score, the movie would only have been half as successful and according to Williams, it jumpstarted his career.”

19. “In the movie the words “Beep beep, Richie” are often used. In the novel it is explained that this phrase is meant to get Richie to shut up.”

20. “When Dutch sees the prisoner get shot he is looking through the wrong end of the binoculars. He does this twice.”

21. “Rosario Dawson originally had a small part as a nurse in the film. Her character was cut out of the theatrical release for Rob Zombie’s decision of not having any Dr. Satan in the film. Her character was killed off within forty seconds of her debut to the film.”

22. “During the scene where Ash is about to cut up his girlfriend with a chainsaw, Bruce Campbell actually had to use a real chainsaw and hold it up to the actress’s chest. You can see on the close-up of Linda’s neck (looking at the necklace) that her pulse is racing.”

23. “The blue laser lights that were used in the alien ship’s egg chamber were borrowed from The Who. The band was testing out the lasers for their stage show in the soundstage next door.”

24. “Lawrence is supposed to be a surgical doctor, yet he never notices the body in the middle of the room didn’t turn yellow, and its blood never turns black.”

25. “The scenes of the child vampires floating outside of their victims’ windows was partly filmed in reverse to give it a more eerie effect. Additionally, the actors performed on a boom crane rather than being suspended on wires.”

26. “Count Orlok is only seen blinking one time on screen (near the end of part 1).”

27. “Was originally given an “R” rating by the MPAA not for violence but for language; the film included as many as 20 f-bombs. As an appeal, producers removed all utterances of the “f” word, with the exception of two. Many of the swears were dubbed over with other words, including “can you fly you sucker?”, “we killed that motherhumper,” and “what the s***” when Val is overlooking the dead sheep.”

28. “During all the horrors that proceeded while filming Poltergeist (1982), only one scene really scared Heather O’Rourke: that in which she had to hold onto the headboard, while a wind machine blew toys into the closet behind her. She fell apart; Steven Spielberg stopped everything, took her in his arms, and said that she would not have to do that scene again.”

29. “In this movie, we’re told that a werewolf is “a human being who becomes a wolf at certain times of the year … ‘when the wolf-bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright,'” and the moon is never depicted in the film. This is the only one of the Universal series of Wolf Man films in which the full moon is never shown. In the sequel, the folklore is changed to “when the moon is full and bright.'”

30. “Jay and Kelly’s mother’s face is never clearly shown. In the first scene in which she appears in the film she is seen talking on the phone in the kitchen with her face completely covered by her hair. In every other scene her face is either out of focus or partially cut by the frame.”

31. “In M. Night Shyamalan’s early drafts of the script, the Bruce Willis character was a crime scene photographer, not a child psychologist.”

32. “In 2005, 12 years after the accidental shooting of Brandon Lee, Michael Massee (who fired the gun) claimed to still have nightmares of the incident.”

33. “Some of the presents Jack delivers to the kids are nods to Tim Burton films. The snake looks like a Sandworm from Beetlejuice (1988),and the shrunken head is from the afterlife waiting room in the same film. The Cat and Duck are both featured in Batman Returns (1992) – the Cat as the mascot for Shreck’s department store, the duck resembling a vehicle driven by the Penguin”

34. “Corey Feldman, who plays Edgar Frog foreshadows how each of the vampires die: “No two vamps die the same way, some yell and scream, some go quietly, some explode, some implode…'”

35. “The actual house is the same used in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), which can be viewed during Universal Studio’s tram ride. However, during filming, Universal refused to cease the tram tours, which delayed filming during many scenes.”

36. “The poster for the film featuring a Ghoulie popping out of a toilet reportedly cause several angry mothers to write letters to the studio saying that their kids were too scared to use the bathroom after seeing the poster.”

37. “This took director Christophe Gans five years to obtain the rights to make the film. He was given the rights after he sent Konami a video of an interview describing how much Silent Hill meant to him. Along with the interview, he sent scenes that he filmed on his own dollar cut up and overlayed with music from the games.”

38. “The entire story is meant to be seen through Edward’s eyes, which is why the neighborhood looks so “fantastical.'”

39. “The idea behind the glove was a practical one on Wes Craven’s part, as he wanted to give the character a unique weapon, but also something that could be made cheaply and wouldn’t be difficult to use or transport. At the time, he was studying primal fears embedded in the subconscious of people of all cultures and discovered that one of those fears is attack by animal claws. Around the same time, he saw his cat unsheathe its claws, and the two concepts merged, although in the original script the blades were fishing knives, not steak knives as in the finished film. ”

40. “According to Bryan Bertino and Liv Tyler, the finale had much more interaction and dialog between the victims and the strangers in the original script. It was cut to keep the intruders mysterious and eerie.”

41. “John Carpenter and Debra Hill have stated many times over the years that they did not consciously set out to depict virginity as a way of defeating a rampaging killer. The reason why the horny teens all die is simply that they’re so preoccupied with getting laid that they don’t notice that there’s a killer at large. Laurie Strode, on the other hand, spends a lot of time on her own and is therefore more alert.”

42. “During the exorcism, Regan is lying on the bed with her head to one side while green vomit is pouring from her mouth onto the bed. When she turns her head to the other side, the tube that pumps this “vomit” is visible on the back of her cheek, just under her ear, which in turn is shown devoid of make-up after the pressure from the pump tube lifts the prosthetic mask away from her neck.”

43. “The two zombie children who attack Peter in the airport chart house are played by Donna Savini and Mike Savini, the real-life niece and nephew of Tom Savini. These are the only zombies in all of George A. Romero’s “Dead” films that spontaneously run and never do the trademark “Zombie shuffle”.”

44. “Zach Galligan recounted in an interview that when the movie was made there was no CGI so all the Gremlins were animatronics, each costing between $30,000 and $40,000. So when everyone left the lot for the day, security would have everyone pop the trunks on their cars to make sure they weren’t stolen.”

45. “After watching the first cut of Rob Reiner ‘s Stand by Me (1986), he was said to be crying and stated it was the closest adaptation to one of his novels he’d ever seen.”

46. “The name Wednesday is a reference to the line in the Mother Goose poem that goes, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe.'”

47. “The name of the high school is Bates High, a reference to Norman Bates from Psycho (1960). In addition, the four note violin theme from Psycho is used over and over in the film.”

48. “Both Joe Swanberg and Ti West, who play eldest brother Drake and Aimee’s underground director boyfriend Tariq are two prominent mumblegore directors, a horror genre in which You’re Next (2011) is also included.”

49. “The Satanic Temple has endorsed this movie and hosted several screenings of the film. Their spokesperson, Jex Blackmore, addressed the film as “an impressive presentation of Satanic insight that will inform contemporary discussion of religious experience.'”

50. “(At around 1h 17 mins) — according to Corey Feldman, the screams he made when Jason (Ted White) grabs him through the window were genuine, as he was truly terrified.”

Chrissy Stockton

Chrissy Stockton

Chrissy is the author of What I Didn't Post On Instagram and a poetry book, We Are All Just A Collection of Cords.

This guided journal will help you move on.

This guided journal will help you move on.

Your Heart Will Heal—A Gentle Guided Journal For Getting Over Anyone, by Chrissy Stockton, will help you uncover inner peace and the strength to move on. Process every stage of your breakup: shock, denial, grief, sadness, insecurity, and anger while feeling supported and loved through your pain. Make this guided journal your trusted friend during your journey to feeling whole again.

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