This article was originally published on 24/7Mirror
Some horror movies are filled with easter eggs and self-referential winks and nods to other franchises. Others feature gruesome facts and are surrounded by spooky stories almost too crazy to be believed. From curses that actually kill off actors to paranormal on-set accidents, we're going to delve deep into our favorite blood-curdling, blink-and-you-miss-them horror movie facts and easter eggs. Just promise us you won't have nightmares!
Silent Hill - The School References Village Of The Damned
As a general rule, video game adaptations don't usually cut the mustard, but Silent Hill (2006) is an exception. Written by Quentin Tarantino's early collaborator, Roger Avary, the film tells the tale of a woman searching for her daughter in the strange, desolate, and permanently misty eponymous town. Once she makes her way through the dense fog, she visits the town's school, which is named Midwich Preparatory School.
The school's name is a reference to Village of the Damned (1960), which was based on John Wyndham's 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos. The book sees mothers of a small English village give birth to blonde-haired, angelic-looking children but are really aliens.
The Shining - Heeeeere's Johnny!
Perhaps the most famous scene in The Shining (1980) is Jack Nicholson smashing through the bathroom door with an ax and shouting: "Here's Johnny!" To warm up, before the cameras rolled, the actor took a couple of practice swings without realizing a crewmember was standing directly behind him. Jack nearly clocked him with the ax, but fortunately, the crewmember managed to duck out of the way just in the nick of time.
Stanley Kubrick's beloved horror film is already controversial enough, and an on-set death would have made it even more scandalous.
The Mist - The Gunslinger
If you haven't seen Frank Darabont's brilliant adaptation of Stephen King's The Mist, make sure you do ASAP. The story tells the tale of an artist trying to protect his family as he and the rest of the town hole up in a supermarket to hide from a supernatural mist. Anyway, right at the start, he's painting a picture for a fictional movie, and that movie was also based on a Stephen King novel.
The character he's painted is Roland Deschain, aka The Gunslinger, the hero of King's The Dark Tower series. The movie was eventually made in 2017, starring Idris Elba as Deschain and Matthew McConaughey as Randall Flagg.
Scream - Do You Like Scary Movies?
The cast of Scream was almost very different. Originally, Drew Barrymore was down to play the lead role of Sidney Prescott. However, she turned it down in favor of the character who gets murdered in the film's opening scene, believing the audience would be more shocked by her early death. Other actresses up for the lead role were Molly Ringwald, Brittany Murphy, and Reese Witherspoon, believe it or not!
Eventually, the role went to Party of Five's Neve Campbell, who portrayed Sidney in all four of the original films and the recently rebooted Scream (2022).
The Rocky Horror Picture Show - The Original Easter Egg?
While such a fact is near-impossible to prove, it is thought that Richard O'Brien's camp musical-comedy horror movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) may feature cinema's first-ever Easter Egg. Actors Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Meat Loaf, and the rest of the cast had been searching the set for hidden eggs in a real-life Easter treasure hunt, but one egg got away and made it into the final cut!
So, is this particular unfound treasure hunt item the reason we call filmmakers' hidden details "easter eggs" to this day? To find out, you'll have to ask the Easter Bunny... if you can catch him!
Shaun Of The Dead - Spooky Fish Restuarant
In one scene in Edgar Wright's debut feature film, Shaun of the Dead (2004), the titular character tells Liz he's going to take her to "the place that does all the fish." When he looks for the restaurant's number in the phone book––because 2004––the restaurant is named Fulci's in homage to Italian director Lucio Fulci who made horror and Italian Giallo movies.
Did you know that Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg planned a sequel called From Dusk Til Shaun? Sadly, they canned the idea saying too many characters died in the original.
Jason Goes to Hell - The Necronomicon
The spooky goings-on in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series all come about because some college kids find an ancient book in a cabin in the woods. Of course, the book turns out to be The Book of the Dead, and all hell breaks loose when they read out an ancient incantation. But did you know that Jason Voorhees encounters the same book when he goes to hell? And no, that's not a spoiler; it's literally the film's title!
The skin-bound Necronomicon makes an appearance in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) just before... you guessed it, Jason goes to hell. But, unfortunately, it wasn't the final Friday as the hockey mask-wearing madman came back in Jason X (2002) and Freddy vs. Jason (2003).
Scream - Where's Wes?
Catching easter eggs is sometimes a bit like playing Where's Waldo? And if you watched the original Scream (1996), you might have spotted a grumpy-looking janitor a stripey sweater for one blink-and-you-miss-it scene at Woodsboro High School. But that wasn't any old janitor nor any old sweatshirt. Instead, this particular Waldo happened to be the film's director Wes Craven, and he was wearing Freddy Krueger's famous red and green sweater and hat.
Horror fans will immediately realize that Wes Craven created Freddy Krueger and wrote and directed A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994), the post-modern, self-aware Freddy movie that paved the way for the Scream franchise.
Psycho - Hitchcock's Cameo
Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearances in just about all his films, and his iconic thriller Psycho (1960) is no exception. Just before Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) decides to make a run with the stolen money, the Master of Suspense can be seen ominously looming outside her office. Hitch's appearance was a sign of things to come, a harbinger of doom for Marion as her next stop would be Bates Motel. Dun-dun-derrrr!
As mentioned, Hitchcock appeared in nearly all his films, but how did he cram in a cameo into Lifeboat (1944), which only featured two men in a boat? Well, the portly director's photo appears in a newspaper advert for the Reduco Obesity Slayer weight loss system!
Halloween H20 - Janet Leigh's Car
Michael Myers first plagued Haddonfield, Illinois, in John Carpenter's excellent slasher movie Halloween (1978). Now, Jamie Lee Curtis played protagonist Laurie Strode in the original movie, and her real-life mom, Janet Leigh, shows up in Halloween H2O: Twenty Years Later. Janet, of course, appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's all-time great, Psycho (1960) but did you know that she drives the same 1957 Ford Custom 300 Fordor sedan in Halloween H2O as she did in Psycho? Now you do!
And her car isn't the film's only reference to Psycho. Janet Leigh's character name is Norma, a homage to the earlier film's main character, Norman Bates.
The Amityville Horror - Spooky Wake Up Call
The Amityville Horror (2005) remake featured its share of spooky moments. We'll let Ryan Reynolds explain: "I think a lot of people make that stuff up to sell their movie, but there was some weird stuff that happened. A lot of the crew were waking up at 3:15 in the morning, which was when all these atrocities in the house took place each time. I think it was a subconscious thing. You read the script and suddenly pop awake at 3:15 in the morning."
But that's not the only supernatural event that surrounded the film. The real occupant of the famous haunted house, Kathy Lutz, died while the movie was being made. She was only 58 years old!
Candyman - Sweet Tooth
Back before the 2021 remake, Candyman (1992) had a whole generation of 90s kids daring themselves to say his name five times in front of a mirror. In one of the film's most famous scenes, the boogeyman opens his mouth, and hundreds of bees swarm out. Now, since this was bee-fore CGI, the only way to film the scene was by filling actor Todd Terry's mouth with real bees!
Todd had a mouthguard to stop the bees from crawling down his throat, but he did end up getting stung several times. All in the name of art!
Alien - Chestburster Scene
Ever wondered why the chestburster scene in Alien (1979) is so effective? Well, the actors had no idea what was coming. All it said in the script was, "This thing emerges." But when the baby xenomorph bursts out of John Hurt's chest, the actors are visibly shaken to the core, and when the blood hit her, actress Veronica Cartwright––who played Lambert––was so shocked, she actually passed out!
Producer Dan O'Bannon explained: "This jet of blood, about three feet long, caught her smack in the kisser," while in the aftermath, Yaphet Kotto was so upset, he went to his trailer and wouldn't talk to anybody!
Predator 2 - Guess We Had the Answer All Along
Everybody knows Predator (1987) and Arnold Schwarzenegger's shouts of "Get to de chopper!" but not so many people saw the sequel. For some bizarre reason, Predator 2 is set in Los Angeles and features an average cop trying to hunt down the impossible-to-kill alien. But once you get past the fact that the cop is Lethal Weapon's Danny Glover, it's not as bad as it sounds and is worth seeing for one easter egg alone!
If you've ever wondered who would win in a fight between an Alien and a Predator, well, this movie contains the answer. In one of the final scenes, the Predator boards its spaceship, and hanging on the walls are all the species he has killed... including an Alien skull.
Poltergeist - The Real Thing
The Steven Spielberg-produced, Tobe Hooper-directed horror movie Poltergeist (1982) scared the bejesus out of a whole generation of eighties kids. In fact, it was so scary; it turned their hair bleach-blonde overnight! Of course, the fact that the filmmakers used real skellingtons meant the audience weren't the only ones literally scared out of their skins––the actors were, too! Well, those actors that didn't die of a curse. Wait, what?
They used real skeletons for one memorable scary scene as it was cheaper than creating fake ones. Actress JoBeth Williams wasn't told her bony buddies were genuine until after "Cut!" was called.
Poltergeist - Spielberg Saved A Kid's Life
In one Poltergeist scene, a possessed clown chokes the kid Robbie. But the mechanical doll's arms clamped so tightly around child actor Oliver Robins' neck, he blurted out he couldn't breathe. Steven Spielberg and the crew thought the kid was improvising, but when Robins' face started to go blue, Spielberg realized he definitely wasn't acting. So he ran across the set and pried off the mechanical clown's arms away, saving Oliver's life.
Spielberg's quick thinking saved the boy's life, but not all the Poltergeist actors would be lucky enough to escape the film's curse.
Poltergeist - Was The Film Really Cursed?
While Oliver Robins was lucky to escape with his life, others were not so lucky. First, Dominique Dunne, who played the older sister in the first movie, was strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend months after the film was released. Next, Heather O'Rourke, who played the little girl Carol Anne in the first three movies, died just four months before Poltergeist III was released in 1988. She was just 12 years old.
Actor Lou Perryman was hacked to death by an escaped felon with an ax in 1992. The same year, fellow actor Richard Lawson was involved in a terrifying plane crash but survived.
The Exorcist - Spawned A Serial Killer
Another film that was said to be cursed was The Exorcist (1973). Paul Bateson was a radiographer who landed a bit-part as an X-ray technician in the revered horror movie. Then, in 1979, Bateson was convicted of murdering film industry journalist Addison Verrill and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Prior to Bateson's trial, he was implicated in a series of unsolved slayings of gay men in New York.
Bateson had allegedly boasted about these murders while in jail and brought them up at his sentencing. The Exorcist director, William Friedkin, went on to make Cruising (1980) about a serial killer who targets gay men.
The Birds - Real Haunted House
Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) focuses on a series of inexplicable bird attacks on the people of Bodega Bay, California. But would you believe the schoolhouse that features prominently in the film is a real-life haunted house? Tippi Hedren, who played Melanie in The Birds, famously talked about how "the building was immensely populated... but there was nobody there." The building's current occupants have reported hearing footsteps and children laughing.
Did you know true events inspired the film? In 1961, flocks of birds attacked the seaside town of Capitola, California, and residents woke to scenes straight out of a horror movie. Apparently, hordes of seabirds dive-bombed their homes, crashed into cars, and spewed half-digested anchovies onto lawns!
The Silence Of The Lambs - That's Not Clarice
Can you imagine anyone else apart from Jodie Foster playing Clarice Starling? Nope, us neither. But before the pint-sized actress won the role as the FBI Behavioral Science Unit trainee, an abundance of actresses were offered the role in Jonathan Demme's near-perfect 1991 psychological horror movie The Silence of the Lambs. The actresses who perhaps couldn't quite pull off Clarice's charming Appalachian accent were Meg Ryan, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Laura Dern.
Remember the shot of 5'2" Jodie Foster being dwarfed by FBI agents in the elevator? It really does paint a thousand words. Jodie deservedly won 1992's Best Actress Oscar, but you can't fake how tall you are... unless you're Tom Cruise standing on a box.
The Silence Of The Lambs - Hannibal Was Real
Did you know that Hannibal Lecter was based on a real-life serial killer? When researching and writing his book, Thomas Harris met Dr. Alfredo Ballí Treviño at a jail in Mexico. At first, the author believed eloquent, snappily dressed Treviño was the prison's doctor, but he was actually in jail for killing his lover, draining him of his blood before dismembering him, and burying the pieces in "a surprisingly small box."
The murderer was nicknamed the Werewolf of Nuevo León, and his favorite meal was fava beans and a nice chianti. Okay, we made that last part up, but Anthony Hopkins did mimick Treviño's mannerisms in The Silence of the Lambs.
Halloween - Leaves Us Alone!
As you know, the original Halloween was set in a fictional Illinois town. But since the movie-making business is all smoke, mirrors, and make-believe, the slasher flick was actually filmed in West Hollywood and Pasadena. So in order to turn almost always-sunny Los Angeles into Illinois in the fall, exteriors were strewn with fake leaves, and every single one had to be painstakingly collected by hand after every scene!
If you watch the events of that fateful night play out really closely, you may even spot a few of Los Angeles' famous palm trees in the background of several shots.
The Shining - That Maze Isn't As Amaze-Ing As You Think
To begin with, Stanley Kubrick was worried that the hedge maze which appears in The Shining's dramatic finale was just too easy to solve. So, before making the labyrinth more labyrinthine, the crew issued their difficult director with an ultimatum. "Okay, Mr. Fancypants, if it's so easy, you solve it," they almost certainly did not say. So he threw down the gauntlet, wandered into the maze, proceeded to get himself unfathomably lost.
He wasn't the only one; crew members kept getting lost and needed walkie-talkies to find their way out. It's no wonder the scene where Jack chases Danny through the hedges took a month to shoot!
A Nightmare On Elm Street - Neighborhood Witch
Like Halloween was set in Illinois, A Nightmare on Elm Street was set in the fictional town of Springwood, Ohio. But in fact, the exterior shots for Nancy's house were filmed at 1428 Genessee Avenue, West Hollywood, just a hop and a skip from Pasadena along the 101 passed the L.A. Dodgers' stadium. So, in other words, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers were kinda neighbors.
Do you think Wes Craven and his crew had to make Ohio look autumnal as well? If so, Freddy's spiked gloves would have come in very handy as leaf picker-uppers!
Paranormal Activity - Too Scary For Night Time
Director Oren Peli made his indie horror movie Paranormal Activity (2009) for just $15,000! But when he sold it to Paramount, the studio wanted to remake his movie with A-Listers. And we have one very famous director to thank for the studio not recasting and reshooting it. One night, Steven Spielberg watched a screener of the film, but he was so frightened he had to pause the movie and finish watching it during daylight!
Spielberg persuaded the studio to release the film as it was because its unknown actors added to the realism. And he was right. Paranormal Activity spawned five sequels, which earned a whopping $890 million dollars.
The Blair Witch Project - Fruit Baskets
Another indie horror that was famously filmed for next to nothing was found footage film The Blair Witch Project (1999). It was produced for $60,000 and grossed a staggering $248 million at the global box office, making it the most profitable film of all time. So, you'd think the studio would pay the film's three main actors, Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams, a fair wage, right? Well... think again!
The three actors initially made $1,000 each for the six-day shoot but, according to the film's female lead Heather Donahue, the studio sent her a fruit basket. Welcome to Hollywood!
The Conjuring - How About You Conjure Up A Better Name?
The Conjuring (2013) told one of paranormal investigators, clairvoyants, and authors Ed and Lorraine Warren's many tall tales. The couple's purportedly real-life reports inspired The Amityville Horror story and film franchise. In recent years, writer-director-producer James Wan has brought a whole Conjuring universe to life with sequels and spin-offs, but the franchise may not have gotten off the ground if they stuck with their original title.
The film's original title was going to be the rather unimaginative The Warren Files. But after filming wrapped, the studio came to their senses and conjured up the title we know and love today.
It - Worth Every Pennywise
New Line Cinema and Waner Bros. took a gamble when filming Stephen King's It (2017). Tommy Lee Wallace had famously tried to capture the magic of the coming-of-age drama before with a TV miniseries, which garnered a mixed response. So the studios pumped the relatively small sum of $35 million into making it and hoped for the best. And boy, did It not disappoint! The film became the highest-grossing horror movie in history... if you don't adjust for inflation.
Factor in the $437 million that It: Chapter Two (2019) took at the box office, and King's saga is one of only two horror franchises to cross the coveted billion-dollar mark. The other is Alien.
The Exorcist - Halloween Mashup
Were you aware that Jamie Lee Curtis almost played the role of Regan in The Exorcist? She would have, but her parents, actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis stepped in to forbid the 14-year-old from playing the girl who gets possessed by a demon. The role eventually went to Linda Blair, one of many who worked on the film that was affected by the Exorcist Curse. Good job you stayed away, Jamie!
Jamie Lee Curtis went on to find fame after appearing in Halloween when she was 19. After a lifetime in the movies, she recently reprised her role in two Halloween outings.
The Conjuring - The Curse Of The Mosquito Bite
The Conjuring actress Vera Farmiga revealed: “There were some weird things that happened on the set ... “One girl, in particular, experienced the very thing that physically happens to the Carolyn character in the film.” She continued: “Fire alarms would go off. And these weird things would happen to me. It was always a claw scenario." After the very first day of filming, Vera found three unexplained claw marks on her thigh.
She was so spooked, she took a picture and sent it to her co-star, Patrick Wilson. The only logical explanation she could offer was that she maybe "had a mosquito bite and I scratched it with three fingers.”
Evil Dead - Sam Raimi's Time-Traveling Car
Did you know Sam Raimi's 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 has appeared in all his Evil Dead movies? It was the car Bruce Campbell drove to the cabin in the woods and the vehicle which joined him in medieval times in Army of Darkness (1992). But that's not all, folks! The car has appeared in almost all of Raimi's films since then, from Crimewave (1985) to Darkman (1990) and A Simple Plan (1998).
This century, the car has been seen in The Gift (2000), all three of Tobey Maguire's Spider-man outings, Drag Me to Hell (2009), and Fede Álvarez's 2013 Evil Dead remake, which Raimi produced.
Rosemary's Baby - Who's Ya Daddy?
Roman Polanski made some fine movies before the Manson Family murdered his wife and before he was found out to be a monster. Rosemary's Baby (1968) is one of his best. Mia Farrow played Rosemary Woodhouse, while Robert Redford was originally in line to play her husband, stage actor Guy. But when Redford couldn't take on the role due to scheduling conflicts, other actors lined up to take the part.
Among them was a young Jack Nicholson. He screen-tested for the Guy Woodhouse role before it eventually went to John Cassavetes.
The Shining - All Work And No Play
Remember that Jack Torrence had been typing the same words, "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy" over and over again when we all thought he was writing his magnum opus? Well, someone actually had to type all those pages out on an old typewriter. According to Vivian Kubrick's "making of" documentary, the unenviable task fell to her perfectionist husband's secretary, who spent weeks hand-typing the 500 pages.
And that's not even the worst part. Knowing that the film would be released on the international scene, she then had to recreate those 500 pages in five other languages!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Mind Your Fingers!
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) shocked the world. Many US theaters refused to show Tobe Hooper's film after complaints about its violence, and it was even banned in several countries. The splatterfest tells the tale of a group of students who encounter a chainsaw-wielding psychopath named Leatherface. And the actor who played him, giant Icelandic-American actor Gunnar Hansen did something that led to real blood being spilled on set!
Filming the dinner scene, the fake blood wouldn’t come out of the tube hidden behind the blade. So, Hansen removed the tube and actress Marilyn Burns moved her hand so the blade would actually cut her finger. So the cut we see in the film was real!
Land of the Dead - Famous Zombie Fans
Shaun of the Dead featured several blink-and-you miss cameos, from Peter Jackson and Cate Blanchett to Martin Freeman and Coldplay's Chris Martin. But did you know that Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright played two undead in George A. Romero's 2005 post-apocalyptic horror film, Land of the Dead? Billed as Photo Booth Zombies, Romero offered the pair minor roles after the success of their zombie film. Romero loved their rom-zom and was impressed by their hard work.
However, instead of plying the minor characters that they were offered, Simon and Edgar insisted on playing zombies in the horror-maestro's film.
Alien - Skull And Bones Club
With all the male and female symbolism that makes up the xenomorph from the Alien movies, we all know the man who designed the monster, H.R. Giger, had to be a pretty messed-up boy. But did you know that his first model of the iconic Alien creature featured a real human skull inside it? When one interviewer asked him about the skull, the artist––who died in 2014––said, "Don't ask me where I got it!"
The Swiss artist and painter also told Time Out magazine: "When I was a young boy, I was obsessed with skulls and mummies." Yes, many young boys were, buddy, but that didn't turn them into grave robbers!
The Exorcist - Disarming Acting Techniques
While on the set of The Exorcist, actress Ellen Burstyn needed to be propelled across the room by her demon-possessed daughter. So, guerrilla director William Friedkin told the guy in charge of pulling the wire to “really let Burstyn have it. “ Her resulting scream of pain which you see in the movie was 100% genuine, and Ellen Burstyn ended up suffering a permanent spinal injury as a result.
But that's not all he would do. Freaky Friedkin would randomly fire shotgun blanks to elicit more authentic reactions from his actors!
The Thing - Howl On Earth Did You Guess The Ending?
There's a little-known screenwriting phrase: "The Beginning Is The End." It means that the start of a movie often demonstrates how it will end, and this has never been more true than in John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). The film opens with a Norwegian exploration team trying to shoot and kill a husky running through the Antarctic snow. The American team stops them, but if they - or indeed the audience - could understand Norwegian, the movie would have been ruined in the first scene.
You see, the Norwegian team was actually shouting, "Get the hell away! It's not a dog! It's imitating a dog! It's not real! Get away, idiots!"
The Shining - Buckets Of Blood
The Shining fans will remember the famous scene in which the elevator doors open and a veritable ocean of blood spills out. However, did you know the famous scene took a whole year to shoot? Kubrick may have filmed other scenes more than 100 times until he was happy (or, more likely to exhaust the actors), but the crew eventually managed to shoot the blood bath in just three shots.
The planning, logistics, and set-ups took almost eleven months. Then the elevator shot required nine days to clean up the hallway and fill the elevator with blood again!
Bride of Chucky - The Daddy Of All Horror Easter Eggs
The police evidence locker in Bride of Chucky (1998) is so chock full with iconic horror movie props that it must be the daddy of all horror easter eggs. As the camera slowly pans over the locker, knowing horror fans can see Michael Myers' mask from Halloween, Freddy Krueger's glove from A Nightmare on Elm Street, Jason Voorhees' hockey mask from Friday the Thirteenth, and finally Leatherface's chainsaw from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974).
Fun fact of the day: Michael Myers' mask was actually an old Captain Kirk mask. That means the boogeyman is really William Shatner. Which you'd already know if you've ever heard his singing!