With the exception of some copyrighted music they had the rights to, the soundtrack of 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre contains no sounds from musical instruments. Instead, they used sounds an animal would hear inside a slaughterhouse.
Category: horror cinema trivia
-
Horror Cinema Trivia: The Birds (1963)
Alfred Hitchcock would constantly make puns and double-entendres on the set of The Birds. The last straw came when Suzanne Pleshette asked if she could add a line, and he replied, “You mean, Sweet Adeline?” She then reacted by tackling the director, dictating, “If you continue this, you are gonna pay the price.” According to Suzanne in a 2006 interview with Stephen J. Abramson, “People were SHITTING” when they saw her run him down.
Find more facts about the 1963 classic at IMDb Trivia: The Birds (1963).
-
Horror Cinema Trivia: The Changeling (1980)
The house seen in the movie in real life does not and never actually did exist. The film-makers could not find a suitable mansion to use for the film so, at a cost of around $200,000, the production had a Victorian gothic mansion façade attached to the front of a much more modern dwelling in a Vancouver street. This construction was used for the filming of all the exteriors of the movie’s Carmichael Mansion. The interiors of the haunted house were an elaborate group of interconnecting sets built inside a film studio in Vancouver.
-
Horror Cinema Trivia: Night of the Living Dead
One of the original script ideas called for Barbara to be a very strong, charismatic character. Instead, George A. Romero and the producers loved Judith O’Dea’s portrayal as a terrified young girl much better, and edited the script to accommodate the part.
The idea of Barbara being a strong, central character was revisited in Night of the Living Dead (1990).
Find more behind-the-scenes facts about this zombie classic at IMDb Trivia: Night of the Living Dead (1968).
-
Horror Cinema Trivia: Pet Sematary (1989)
The role of Zelda, Rachel’s terminally ill sister, was played by a man. Director Mary Lambert wanted Zelda and her scenes to frighten the audience but did not believe that a 13-year old girl was scary so she cast Andrew Hubatsek in the role to make something be “off about Zelda.”
Read more about this casting choice at Bloody Disgusting: [It Came From the ’80s] The Traumatic Nightmare of Zelda in ‘Pet Sematary’.
Find more behind-the-scenes facts at IMDb Trivia: Pet Sematary (1989).
-
Horror Cinema Trivia: Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Dawn of the Dead was intentionally more comedic than Night of the Living Dead (1968) because George A. Romero wanted it filmed in the style of a comic book.
Image from Retro Review: Dawn of the Dead (1978) More behind-the-scenes facts at IMDb Trivia: Dawn of the Dead (1978).
-
Horror Cinema Trivia: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
At the first cast meeting called by producer and director Francis Ford Coppola, he got all of the principal actors and actresses to read the entire Bram Stoker novel out loud to get a feel for the story. According to Sir Anthony Hopkins, it took two days to complete.
Gary Oldman said that when he first read the script, he decided it would be worth doing the movie just so he could feel what it would be like to say, “I’ve crossed oceans of time to find you” to someone.
In August 2018, Winona Ryder expressed concern that she might be legally married to Keanu Reeves. Apparently, Coppola wasn’t happy with their wedding scenes in the movie and, to achieve greater authenticity, he re-shot the sequence with a real priest.
Learn more about the making of Coppola’s adaptation of Dracula at IMDb Trivia: Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
-
Horror Cinema Trivia: Black Christmas (1974)
In 1986, Olivia Hussey met producers for the film Roxanne (1987), since they were interested in casting her for the title role. Roxanne co-star Steve Martin met her and said, “Oh my God, Olivia, you were in one of my all-time favorite films.” Thinking it was Romeo and Juliet (1968), Olivia was surprised to find out it was actually Black Christmas (1974). Steve Martin claimed he had seen it around 27 times.
Read more facts about 1974’s Black Christmas at IMDb: Black Christmas (1974) – Trivia. -
Horror Cinema Trivia: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
The basic premise of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare—Freddy invading the real world and haunting the actors and crew responsible for the Nightmare on Elm Street films—was originally intended to be used for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), but the idea was rejected by the studio at the time.
In the movie’s ending credits, Freddy Krueger is credited as himself, even though Robert Englund reprises the role.
Read more interesting facts about the sixth installment of the Freddy franchise at IMDb: Wes Craven’s New Nightmare Trivia.
-
Horror Cinema Trivia: Halloween (1978)
The original script for 1978’s Halloween was titled “The Babysitter Murders.” In it, the events took place over several days. The script was changed to have everything happen on the same day as a budgetary decision. It reduced the number of costume changes and locations required. It was decided that Halloween, the scariest night of the year, was the perfect night for this to happen.
Of the female leads (who were all supposed to be in high school), only Jamie Lee Curtis was actually a teenager at the time of shooting.
Discover more behind-the-scenes facts at IMDb: Halloween (1978) Trivia.
The Devil's Muse 