Book Of Random Facts

Facts about horror movies (Part 2)

4. It took about a year to get the iconic shot in where blood pours out of the elevator in The Shining right, but only three days to film.

5. Friday the 13th villain, Jason, was originally to be named "Josh."

6. Rather than risk breaking continuity, Sissy Spacek slept in bloody clothes for three days while filming the prom scene in Carrie.

8. A few homages to Alfred Hitchcock are hidden in John Carpenter's Halloween. Carpenter cast Psycho star Janet Leigh's daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in the lead role, and named another main character, Dr. Sam Loomis, after the object of Janet Leigh's affection in Psycho.

9. The Candyman, played by Tony Todd, had to put real bees into his mouth to film the movie's climax.

10. Because he was so young Danny Lloyd, the kid who played Danny in The Shining, was not told he was making a horror film. He thought it was going to be a drama.

11. Everyone's favorite kid's movie was almost THAT much better. Leonardo DiCapprio was offered the lead in Hocus Pocus, originally.

12. In the original Scream, the high school janitor is named "Fred" and wears red and green shirt, an allusion to Nightmare on Elm Street, also directed by Wes Craven. The janitor is played by Craven himself.
7. Of the infamous "virginity rule" exemplified by John Carpenter's Halloween series:

13. Nightmare on Elm Street explores questions in epistemology, the study of what we can know. Wes Craven was equipped to do this because he has a degree in philosophy.

14. Jack Nicholson had worked as a volunteer firefighter, so when he tore down the bathroom door in The Shining, he decimated the prop door too easily and had to use a real door.

15. Heather Donahue, an actor in The Blair Witch Project, was worried the director planned to make a snuff film.

16. The original title thought of for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was 'Head Cheese.'

17. Stephen King's son, Joe, plays a little boy in Creepshow.

18. In order to film the premonition scene in Final Destination 3, the actors had to ride the actual roller coaster 26 times.

19. Kevin Williamson was inspired to write Scream after a real life incident in which he discovered an open window in the house he was staying at.

20. The true story behind The Conjuring:

:::Eight generations of families lived and died in the house before the Perrons moved in. Andrea Perron suggests that some of the spirits from the families never left. Deaths include two documented suicides, a poisoning death, the rape and murder of an 11-year old girl, two drownings, and the passing of four men who froze to death. Most deaths occurred within the Arnold family from which Bathsheba Sherman was descended.