Just in time for Halloween, here are 31 fun, fascinating facts about your favorite horror movies! Feel free to use them at your Halloween party to impress your friends:
1. The Exorcist is the first horror movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
2. The color red is present in almost every shot of The Shining.
3. While filming Scream, the actors were never allowed to see the man who voices Ghostface (Roger L. Jackson). Director Wes Craven thought it would make their performances more realistic, and Jackson would hide on set and actually make the phone calls during scenes.
4. While shooting the climax in Candyman, Tony Todd had live bees put in his mouth, with only a mouth guard to keep them from going down his throat.
5. Sissy Spacek slept in her bloody clothes for three days while filming the Carrie prom scene in order to keep continuity.
6. The original title for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was Head Cheese.
7. In the original Scream, Skeet Ulrich accidentally dropped the phone on Matthew Lillard's head. So Stu's reaction is genuine, and Wes Craven liked it so much he left it in the final cut.
8. While filming the opening scene in Final Destination 2, the actors had to ride the roller coaster 26 times.
9. The blood used in Night of the Living Dead is chocolate syrup.
10. Due to his experience as a volunteer firefighter, Jack Nicholson took down the prop door with the ax in The Shining too quickly. They had to switch it with a real door for that scene.
11. The original title for Halloween? The Babysitter Murders. It was changed so the movie could take place in one day.
12. Church the cat in Pet Cemetery is played by seven different cats.
13. Eddie Murphy had been considered to star in Candyman.
14. Sarah Michelle Gellar auditioned for the lead role of Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt) in I Know What You Did Last Summer.
15. The story for Final Destination was actually an abandoned idea for an X-Files episode.
16. Janeane Garofalo turned down the role of Gale Weathers (played by Courteney Cox) in Scream.
17. Not one actor or actress in Carrie who was portraying a high school student was actually a teenager.
18. The actor who plays Leatherface, Gunnar Hansen, had to wear three-inch heels so he would tower over everyone in the cast, which made chase scenes a little more challenging for him to film.
19. Originally, when Regan (Linda Blair) vomits on Father Karras (Jason Miller) in The Exorcist, the vomit was supposed to hit him in the chest. But due to a misfire with the tube, the actor was hit in the face. The look of disgust as Miller wipes off the vomit is genuine.
20. It only took eight days to film The Blair Witch Project.
21. Crewmembers were so creeped out by Tim Curry's performance as Pennywise in It that most people avoided him during filming.
22. Psycho is not only one of the most iconic horror films of all time, it's also the first time a toilet is seen being flushed in an American film.
23. Molly Ringwald was offered the lead role in Scream.
24. Oren Peli changed the ending of Paranormal Activity because Stephen Spielberg told him to.
25. The vomit used in The Exorcist consists mostly of pea soup.
26. Contrary to popular belief, the iconic noises in Friday the 13th are not "chi, chi, chi; ha, ha, ha." It's actually "ki, ki, ki; ma, ma, ma" which is supposed to resemble Jason whispering: "Kill, kill, kill; mom, mom, mom!"
27. To make the tension between the actors authentic on The Blair Witch Project, the directors gave them less and less food each day.
28. Stephen King has said that the only book he has written that truly scared him was Pet Cemetery.
29. Michael Myers' mask in Halloween is actually a William Shatner mask modified and painted.
30. Jennifer Love Hewitt was offered the lead role in The Ring.
31. Saw was filmed in only 18 days. There are no exterior shots in the film because production couldn't afford them.
What's your favorite scary movie?!