Horror Movies That Made Actors Physically Ill
Horror movies are often intense experiences, sometimes not just for the audience but also for the cast and crew making them behind-the-scenes. From maintaining raw emotions on high for effective performances to less than ideal filming conditions, making a horror movie can be grueling work, to the point that some actors occasionally regret starring in them.
On top of the heightened rigors of the job, the attention to gruesome detail in capturing such visceral material can literally make the actors on set sick to their stomachs. There are numerous horror movies that went so hard that they made the actors involved physically ill during the production. This ranges from the physical extremes of method acting and abusively megalomaniacal directors to actors becoming severely sick during filming. However, no matter the ailment, the show must go on, often with those afflicted actors' performances in the final film. Here are the biggest horror movies that made their respective actors sick in real-life during filming.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Of all the slasher movie franchises to endure for decades, none have quite the same visceral and lo-fi appeal as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movies. The original 1974 classic, stylishly titled "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," has a group of young adults terrorized by the cannibalistic Sawyer family while stopping for gas. The Sawyers' home is adorned with furniture and other decor made from the bones of their victims, making for a macabre living area. The carcasses of other dead creatures litter the yard and basement, making the house feel more like a slaughterhouse than country home.
"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was an especially low-budget affair, with a reported production budget of $140,000. To give the Sawyer house its fetid appearance, the production reportedly used real dead animals and cheese, which gave off a putrid odor. This was made even worse by the temperature on set during filming, which rose to 115 degrees, with a particularly oppressive humidity. With the heat and stench so unbearable, the cast would periodically have to take breaks to vomit outside in between filming.
The Shining
Adapting the Stephen King novel of the same name, 1980's "The Shining" is widely acclaimed as a cross-audience horror movie classic. The movie follows the Torrance family, who take residence at the remote Overlook Hotel while the resort is in the wintry off-season. Family patriarch Jack is possessed by malevolent ghosts lurking in the hotel, menacing his wife Wendy ( and young son Danny. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the movie centers on the deterioration of Jack's sanity before dialing up the mounting tension into sheer terror.
Kubrick's obsessive and perfectionist nature made for a particularly grueling shoot for "The Shining" stars Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. Kubrick was especially cruel to Duvall during production, constantly berating and belittling her on set and making her redo numerous takes as Wendy. The prolonged and extreme stress levels took a visible toll on Duvall's health, including causing her hair to fall out in clumps. Duvall would experience anxiety attacks on set, fueled by the abuse that Kubrick leveled at her, severely traumatizing her just to make a movie.
Halloween II (1981)
Following up the 1978 seminal slasher movie "Halloween" was no easy task, with 1981's "Halloween II" upping the violence considerably to meet expectations. Among the vicious murders committed by the masked killer Michael Myers is the death of Nurse Karen Bailey (Pamela Susan Shoop). The Shape forcibly shoves Karen face-first into a scalding hot therapy tub at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, drowning her. However, the actual water in the tub wasn't hot at all, to the chagrin of Shoop and her co-star Leo Rossi.
In an interview in the 2004 nonfiction book "Assault of the Killer B's" by Jason Paul Collum, Shoop recalls the water in the tub was ice-cold and dirty. While having to appear like the water was hot in their love scene together, Shoop recalled the conditions were "absolutely freezing" and her and Rossi's "teeth were chattering." After having her head repeatedly stuck into the filthy water filming her death scene, Shoop developed an ear infection. Even Michael Myers himself didn't walk away unscathed, with actor Dick Warlock injured filming the sequel's fiery finale.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
"Halloween II" is far from the only film in the long-running slasher franchise to have its actors feeling under the weather during production. 1989's "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers" featured Michael Myers stalking his niece Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) on Halloween night. One of the more memorable scenes in the sequel has Myers chasing Jamie across an open field in a police car that he commandeered. The sequence was particularly taxing for Harris, not because of the nature of the scene, but because of her own physical ailment at the time.
In a 2009 interview with Channel Guide, Harris recalled that while filming the chase sequence, she was suffering from acute food poisoning at the time. Harris managed to keep it together while the cameras were rolling but, between takes, she would stop to vomit. Harris credited her professional commitment, despite the circumstances, to her excitement getting to work with Michael Myers again. Unfortunately, this still doesn't make up for the baffling cliffhanger ending to "Halloween 5" that continues to confuse fans.
Audition (1999)
One of the most infamous movies to come out of Japan is 1999's "Audition," directed by prolific filmmaker Takashi Miike. The film has widower Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) decide to begin dating again, auditioning his prospective girlfriends under the guise of being a film producer. Charmed by the young Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina), Shigeharu begins dating her, unaware she has dark secrets, including feeding a captive man with her vomit. Feeling that Shigeharu is deceiving her, Asami decides to extract painful, torturous vengeance on him.
There are plenty of disturbing moments in "Audition," but one of the earliest is Asami vomiting into a pet food bowl to feed her captive. For the filming of this particular scene, Shiina insisted on actually vomiting for the take in the movie. Shiina described herself as being a method actor and her own puke helped add to the verisimilitude of the scene. This, along with the extended torture scene in the climax, helps make "Audition" one of the greatest Japanese horror movies of all time.
Saw II
After the enormous success of 2004's "Saw," a sequel was fast-tracked into production, with a separate movie idea being reworked into a direct follow-up. Coming out the following year, "Saw II" ups the ante by having a group of former convicts trapped in a house filled by deadly traps by the mastermind killer Jigsaw. Among the victims is corrupt cop Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) whose teenage son Daniel (Erik Knudsen) was also abducted by Jigsaw for this cruel gauntlet. The group is exposed to a lethal nerve agent planted in the house and have to race against time before they fully succumb to its effects.
If Knudsen's performance as Daniel when he is poisoned in the movie seems convincing, there are additional reasons for this. In a 2012 interview, Knudsen observed that he was suffering from the flu while filming "Saw II." However, with filming only lasting 21 days, even with shooting taking up to 16 hours each day, the production didn't have time for any significant delays. Looking back, Knudsen felt that being sick helped his performance in "Saw II," especially when his character was poisoned.
Buried
Though Ryan Reynolds may be best known for his comedic roles, including the wise-cracking superhero Deadpool, he's had the chance to showcase his acting chops in other genres before. One Reynolds' most underrated and overlooked roles is in the 2010 Sundance-selected thriller "Buried," which is deadly serious in its premise and performance. Reynolds plays Paul Conroy, an American contractor working in Iraq who is ambushed and buried alive in a wooden coffin. Armed with only a handful of items, Paul scrambles to contact help as he's taunted by his captors over a mobile phone.
"Buried" plays out like a macabre chamber play, with Reynolds as the only actor physically seen on-screen in the movie, placed in a single, claustrophobic setting. The action plays out largely as if filmed in one continuous take, save for the occasional cut. According to Reynolds, in an interview with David Letterman on the Netflix series "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction," these cuts were for the moments during filming when he passed out. Reynolds noted that breathing hard with nowhere to move to accommodate blood flow caused the loss in consciousness. To assist with this, Reynolds resorted to breathing heavily into a paper bag before filming resumed.
Black Swan
Though many of filmmaker Darren Aronofsky's movies have an unsettling quality to them, none veer into psychological horror as much as 2010's "Black Swan." The movie follows a production of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" by the New York Ballet Company, led by ballerinas Nina (Natalie Portman) and Lily (Mila Kunis). As the commitment to the ballet and rivalry between Nina and Lily intensifies, Nina begins to rapidly lose her grasp of reality. As the premiere approaches, Nina's hallucinations become more violent, causing her to grow increasingly murderous as the film's ending unfurls.
In order to achieve the petite physique of classical ballerina body types, Portman and Kunis both lost a significant amount of weight for their roles. Portman and Kunis were already consistently slim prior to working on "Black Swan," but Kunis recalled dropping 20 pounds, ultimately reaching a gaunt 95 pounds during filming. Two years after the movie's release, Kunis claimed that her body still hadn't recovered from the experience. Portman also lost 20 pounds for the role, growing sickly and afraid that she "literally was going to die" during the production.
Doctor Sleep
Though "Doctor Sleep," the 2019 sequel to Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," had a much more amiable filmmaker at the helm in Mike Flanagan, it still provided its cast with a harrowing experience. Expanding the universe of Stephen King's novels, the movie introduces a sinister cult that prolongs their lives by feasting on the psychic energy of children around the world. In the film's most thoroughly unpleasant sequence, the cult tortures a young boy to death to release his raw psychic energy for their latest meal.
Played by Jacob Tremblay, the boy is mocked and stabbed by the cult's leader Rose the Hat, played by Rebecca Ferguson, and her lover Crow Daddy, played by Zahn McClarnon. The two adult actors were unprepared for how gut-wrenching and authentic Tremblay played his death scene. Ferguson and McClarnon became deeply emotionally distraught as Tremblay acted like he was in genuine pain and terror, desperately pleading for his life between wails. Both Ferguson and McClarnon were reduced to tears, with McClarnon leaving the set, while Tremblay happily enjoyed a snack after filming stopped.
Terrifier 2
The 2022 indie horror sequel "Terrifier 2" became a sleeper hit, earning over $15 million on a production budget of $250,000. The splatterfest has supernatural slasher Art the Clown stalk teenager Sienna Shaw, butchering her friends. As Sienna learns more about Art and the mysterious girl accompanying him, she scrambles to find a way to stop him for good before she becomes his next victim. This culminates in an intense and bloody ending, setting the stage for an even more unhinged sequel.
"Terrifer 2" quickly gained a reputation for being one of the most sickeningly gory movies to ever get a wide theatrical release in the United States. Reports surfaced that the film's graphic content not only made some viewers walk out of screenings, but caused others to vomit or faint while watching it. To achieve this gruesome notoriety, the production employed plenty of gross ingredients around the set to depict its grisly kills. Prolific wrestler and actor Chris Jericho, who plays a nurse in the film, almost puked filming the mid-credits scene eating its disgusting props.
Beau Is Afraid
Filmmaker Ari Aster has become a celebrated name in horror cinema for his acclaimed movies "Hereditary" and "Midsommar." Aster's most surreal film to date is 2023's "Beau Is Afraid," starring Joaquin Phoenix as the titular protagonist, who travels to visit his mother. As Beau begins his cross-country odyssey, all of his anxieties surface in the face of the unusual characters he meets along the way. For Phoenix, his world-weary and nerve-ridden performance as Beau Wasserman wasn't entirely made up for the cameras.
For all of its bizarre staging and presentation, "Beau Is Afraid" constantly has its protagonist on an emotional edge and undergoing several shocking scenes. This, coupled with Phoenix doing some of his own stunts, wore on the actor during the production. In the middle of an intense scene, Phoenix reportedly fainted in the middle of filming a take as his exhaustion finally overwhelmed him. Aster was initially annoyed by this, before realizing how serious the incident was given the extent Phoenix's condition.