Nancy Allen claims she never realized her character in Carrie was going to be so evil until she saw the finished film. She thought she and John Travolta were playing such self-centered, bickering morons that they were there for comic relief.
Piper Laurie also thought the character of Margaret White was so over the top that the film had to be a comedy.
Read more fun facts at IMDB Trivia: Carrie (1976).
There’s one shot in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho that you might have paused and pointed to as proof that Hitchcock showed a knife penetrating skin (or fake skin). You even see blood as the knife goes in. In reality it didn’t go in. “They put a little blood on the tip,” says filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe, “and then put it against her belly button, and then shot it in reverse. That’s as close as it gets. But there’s never any actual special effect needed to show an actual wound. The body remains immaculate throughout the entire sequence.”
Incidentally, this was how Hitchcock bypassed the censors’ scissors. “It’s exactly what Hitchcock told them: No, you didn’t see this. You thought you did but you didn’t. I didn’t do the things you told me not to do. I was a good boy.”
Read more interesting facts about the shower scene in Psycho at the BFI’s 10 Things You (Probably) Never Knew About the Shower Scene in Psycho.
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald, a member of the MGM writing department at the time Freaks was in production, did not quite feel at home with all the movie stars and powerful moguls, so he often dined with the sideshow attractions during his lunch hour.
Fact from Horror Movie Freaks by Don Sumner, Krause Publications, 2010.
Browning, Tod. Freaks, MGM, 1932.
Wes Craven had nothing to do with the first sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), as he didn’t believe that Elm Street was capable of spawning a franchise. The success of the second film, outgrossing the original, convinced him otherwise. (From https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093629/trivia)
According to Mia Farrow, the scenes where Rosemary walks in front of traffic were spontaneous and genuine. Roman Polanski is reported to have told her that “nobody will hit a pregnant woman.” The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it.
Read more trivia facts about Rosemary’s Baby on IMDB.
When the zombies are eating the bodies in the burnt-out truck they were actually eating roast ham covered in chocolate sauce. The filmmakers joked that it was so nausea inducing that it was almost a waste of time putting the makeup on the zombies as they ended up looking pale and sick anyway.
From IMDB: Trivia
Director John Carpenter originally intended to call his movie The Babysitter Murders, but producer Irwin Yablans suggested that the story may be more significant if it were based around a specific holiday, so the title was changed to Halloween. Carpenter and co-screenwriter Debra Hill wrote the original script in just 10 days.
Find more Halloween trivia at 15 Terrifying Facts About John Carpenter’s Halloween.
According to actress Shelley Duvall, the infamous “Here’s Johnny!” scene took three days to film and the use of 60 doors.
From IMDB’s Horror Movie Facts You May Not Know
The scene where Barbara crashes the car into the tree wasn’t scripted originally; an accident that put a large dent in the car before the scene was shot prompted George Romero to re-write the scene in such a way that the dent is justified.
“With Poltergeist‘s success came a creepy mystique that the classic film is shrouded in real-life tragedies that some interpret as a curse.
“The majority of the fuel for the alleged curse stems from the deaths of multiple cast members. In total, four cast members died during and soon after the filming of the series. Two of these tragic deaths were highly unexpected and puzzling, leading many fans to speculate on the trilogy’s eerie implications.
“Carol Anne Freeling, the young focal point of the series, was played by Heather O’Rourke. Only six years old when the first Poltergeist film was released, O’Rourke captivated audiences with her stark blond hair, doll-like appearance, and big, inquisitive eyes. Sadly, however, she was misdiagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in 1987. The following year, O’Rourke fell ill again, and her symptoms were casually attributed to the flu. A day later, she collapsed and suffered a cardiac arrest. After being airlifted to a children’s hospital in San Diego, O’Rourke died during an operation to correct a bowel obstruction, and it was later believed that she had been suffering from a congenital intestinal abnormality. She will be, and has been, missed by fans around the world.
“Dominique Dunne, who played the original older sister Dana Freeling, met an equally tragic and unforeseen fate. In 1982 Dunne separated from her partner, John Sweeney. In November of that year, he showed up at Dunne’s house, pleading for her to take him back. When she refused, Sweeney grabbed Dunne’s neck, choked her until she was unconscious, and left her to die in her Hollywood home’s driveway. Sweeney was sentenced to six and a half years in prison but was released after three years and seven months.
“The other two cast member deaths, while unfortunate, were not as unpredictable or mysterious. The evil preacher Kane from Poltergeist II was played by Julian Beck. In 1983, Beck had been diagnosed with stomach cancer, which took his life soon after he finished work on the second installment of the series. The same film was met with further tragedy, after Will Sampson, who played Taylor the Native American shaman, died after undergoing a heart-lung transplant, which had a very slim survival rate.”
The Devil's Muse 