30 Shocking Secrets From Your Favorite Horror Films

We all like one scary movie or another. It's always interesting to read about stuff you didn't know. Here are some untold, shocking secrets behind your favorite horror films.

1. The Wicker Man

-Summary: A police sergeant, strong devout in his faith, arrives in a Scottish village to look for a missing girl. The locals, who practice Pagan ways, claim the girl never existed

-Sir Christopher Lee paid for his own press circuit, taking interviews with anyone interested. He made sure that no matter the size of the crowd, anyone interested would get a word or two from him

2. Scream

-Summary: A year after her mother was murdered, a teenaged girl finds herself the victim of a masked stalker who targets her and her friends as part of a life or death game

-The cast and crew referred to the party scene towards the end of the film as "The longest night in horror history". It took 21 days between sunrise and sunset to get all the right shots

3. American Psycho

-Summary: A New York City investment banker named Patrick Bateman hides his psychotic ego from coworkers and friends as he gets into deeper touch with his violent fantasies

-Some said that this film was too realistic. Christian Bale followed the same bizarre morning routine as his character. Christian Bale spent all morning as Patrick Bateman, to get into the right frame of mind. It worked.

4. Get Out

-Summary: a young black man visits his white girlfriend's parents for a weekend and he starts getting an uneasy feeling about their feelings about him until it reaches a boiling point

-Some would say this movie is an example of what it's like to live as a young black man in America. The racial divide. The feelings of "black and white" couples together and how their parents would receive them. What makes it scary is that some people could be like that. Racism still runs deep in parts of America. When it's something that could actually happen, that's what makes it scary. Jordan Peele, the director, has scored a good one with this movie.

-"He cinematically articulated an experience that millions of people go through and they are made to feel crazy for going through that."

5. Hereditary

-Summary: a family is grieving the loss of a loved one and starts experiencing tragic and disturbing things

-Toni Collette told her agent she didn't want to do any more dark films, but she made an exception for this one after reading the script

6. Midsommar

-Summary: When a couple travel to Northern Europe to visit a Swedish mid-summer festival, it goes from being a calming, idyllic vacation to being a violently bizarre competition with a Pagan cult responsible for it

-Swedish audiences actually laughed during screenings because they thought it was a black comedy (dark, tragic situations shown in a humorous way)

7. Split

-Summary: When three girls are kidnapped. they discover this man has multiple personality disorder. He has 23 distinct personalities and they must escape before they discover his frightful 24th personality emerging

-James McAvoy was angry that he didn't do a scene right. In anger, he hit a door he thought was fake. It was actually made of metal

8. 28 Days Later

-Summary: A zombie-like virus invades the UK and four weeks later, survivors are in search of sanctuary

-Every morning, traffic had to be stopped for an hour to film scenes for the movie. Filming occurred in and around actual streets and various parts of London

9. Jennifer's Body

-Summary: A high school cheerleader is transformed into a succubus (female demon who specializes in having sexual intercourse with sleeping men) with a specialty in killing male classmates and her classmates must stop her to stop the killing

-The first mistake for marketing this movie was having an all male marketing department. When this movie was coming out, the all male marketing department came up with such an offensive campaign for the film the director begged them not to even mention it to the lead actress, Megan Fox. This "campaign" involved doing spontaneous interviews and chats on pornographic sites

10. Martyrs

-Summary: A young woman who was kidnapped and abused as a child leads both her and a friend who suffered the same fate on a path of revenge

-One day on set, Morjana Alaoui broke three bones and was in bed for six weeks

11. Event Horizon

-Summary: A crew of rescue astronauts is on a mission to rescue a ship that has disappeared into a black hole and now returned with a suspicious new addition on board

-When the original cut of the film was released, it was so violent that the studio or test audiences couldn't watch it without getting sick. The film had to be scaled down significantly on the violence and gore before it got the green light to debut

12. The Purge

-Summary: A rich family is held hostage for holding captive a member of a murderous organization during a time known as The Purge, a 24 hour grace period where all crime is legal

-The director, James DeMonaco, based this film off of an actual experience. He and his wife were out one night when a drunk driver cut them off and nearly killed them in a crash. His wife came up with the idea of there being a day where people could get away with crime and it sparked an idea for DeMonaco

13. Antichrist

-Summary: A couple, hoping to salvage their marriage, go to a cabin in the woods, but instead things go from bad to worse

-Willem Dafoe couldn't film any nude scenes himself because the director said he was too "well endowed". A body double had to come in place of Dafoe so as not to distract viewers from the other scenes

14. An American Werewolf in London

-Summary: Two American college students on a backpacking walking tour of the UK ignore the warning of locals to "stay off the moors" and are attacked by a werewolf the locals won't admit to existing

-The British government didn't want to give work permits to actor Griffin Dunne, but when production threatened to move to Paris, the government changed their minds. The thinking was "If the UK didn't want American actors from the States shooting a film then France probably would."

15. Insidious

-Summary: Evil spirits are looking to entrap a couple's son into a realm called The Further

-Often the scariest movies are based on real life events and are things that could actually happen.

-The spirit in the film, known as "The Long Haired Friend", was not just fiction, it was based on a real supernatural encounter. The director revealed that, according to a friend of his, the monster was real. He mentioned how his friend woke up in the middle of the night to see a man in a long trench coat pacing outside his room

16. Friday the 13th

-Summary: Camp counselors try to open a closed camp called Crystal Lake and, in the process, are murdered by a mysterious killer stalking the camp

-Betsy Palmer, who played Pamela Vorhees, only did this film because she needed money to buy a new car

17. Night of the Living Dead

-Summary: A group of Pennsylvania citizens hole up in an old farmhouse to escape a horde of flesh-eating zombies taking over the East Coast of the US

-This is one of those cult classic scary movies that have inspired scores of scary movies down the road, in the future. It might have been 1968, but the special effects were way ahead of its time

-The people playing the zombies had to eat roast ham covered in chocolate sauce, which had the unfortunately bonus effect of making them sick, making them look even more like zombies

18. Eraserhead

-Summary: Henry Spencer is just trying to survive the industrial environment he calls home, his girlfriend, who is angry all of the time and the screams of his newly born child, who is a mutant

-This is one of those cult classics that look as though it was made under the influence of LSD.

-Jack Nance, the lead actor, said "I don't take it all that seriously. It's only a movie."

19. The Omen

-Summary: An American ambassador in Europe with his pregnant wife start experiencing mysterious occurrences. It finally dawns on him that he and his wife might be raising the Antichrist

-Harvey Stephens, who played Damien, attacked the director so viciously during the audition he was cast on the spot for the role of the Antichrist. He even had to be physically removed

20. Dawn of the Dead

-Summary: A worldwide plague of flesh-eating zombies is ravaging the world and survivors, including a nurse, a policeman, a young couple recently married and others, hole up inside a Midwestern mega shopping mall

-Extras on set were paid $1, a donut and T-shirt. And this was on the original Dawn of the Dead film from 1978, not the newer remake

21. Hellraiser

-Summary: Based on a book called The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker, a young woman encounters a strange, mysterious puzzle box while overcoming addiction. What she doesn't know is this mysterious puzzle box, called the Lament Configuration, has the power to summon the Cenobites, a group of ghastly creatures who derive pleasure from extreme pain

-Clare Higgins, who played Julia, hates horror movies and refused to watch the film. During the premier, she got up to leave because it scared her so much

22. The Others

-Summary: A woman living in an old family house slowly but surely is convinced the house is haunted after her two extremely sensitive children are affected

-While on set, the director played scary music to keep the child actors looking terrified

23. Tremors

-Summary: Members of an isolated desert town called Perfection fight back against a massive underground creature who kills them, one by one

-Kevin Bacon only took a role in this movie because he needed money to pay for a wedding. He even states "I was very depressed and at a low point in my my life."

24. House of 1000 Corpses

-Summary: Two young couples are travelling through Texas as part of researching urban legends. They end as prisoners of a bizarre and sadistic family of serial killers

-Erin Daniels, who plays Denise, almost died in one scene. While trying to avoid the axe swings of The Professor, she had barely missed the blade each time. The actor in the mask couldn't see what he was doing or who he was swinging the axe at

25. Poltergeist

-Summary: A family moves into a new home, not realizing until it's too late, that the entire house was built on a former cemetery where the headstones were moved, but not the bodies and are now plagued by demonic spirits

-During the premier, James Karen was the spokesperson for the Pathmark chain of supermarkets. After the film was released, he received hate mail because his character was a real estate agent that failed to remove the bodies from the cemetery in which the house was built on. People thought he was a villain like that in real life

26. The Conjuring

-Summary: Legendary paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren investigate a family terrorized by dark forces in their farmhouse

-The film was considered one of the most scary films ever released because everything seemed so real, in fact, some thought the evil forces were around and followed those who watched it

-During screenings in The Philippines, Catholic priests were on hand to bless viewers because some people claimed this film gave them a "negative presence"

27. The Shining

-Summary: A family heads to the Overlook Hotel to manage it during the off season. While there, a sinister presence haunts them and pushes the father to violence while the clairvoyant son sees horrible warnings and events from the past and future

-To ensure that Jack Nicholson reached the right level of anger and insanity, the director put him on a diet of cheese sandwiches and only cheese sandwiches for two weeks. And even when the cameras weren't rolling, Nicholson was kept in an agitated and nearly rabid state in case a last minute change or reshoot was required

28. Vertigo

-Summary: A San Francisco cop is trying to battle his demons slowly becoming obsessed with a beautiful woman who may have demons of her own

-Alfred Hitchcock blamed the commercial failure of this film on the lead actor, James Stewart, for looking "too old".

29. The Lighthouse

-Summary: Two lighthouse keepers in the 1890s try to maintain their sanity while living and maintaing a lighthouse on a mysterious New England island

-While the cast stayed in a hotel, Willem Dafoe chose to stay in a small fisherman's cottage for the duration of filming

30. The Menu

-Summary: A young couple, who are both foodies (people with interest in gourmet food), go to a remote island where it's rumored a legendary and exclusive restaurant resides. They quickly find the chef, who is known for preparing excellent food, has a few surprises of his own

-John Leguizamo based his character George on an actor he hated, Steven Seagal. The reason behind his hate for the action movie star is on the set of the film Executive Decision, there were a lot of problems between Leguizamo and Seagal