(un)Common Facts About Horror Movies

Horror movies have been popular for years. Everyone loves to be scared so long as they know it isn’t real. Something about it excites us as humans. And if you are in the horror fandom, there are certain things that you just know, that everyone knows. Maybe that fact is that Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining. Or maybe that there are curses surrounding some movies like Poltergeist and The Exorcist.

Though, what’s the point of reading about things you already know about? Let’s take a look into some fun facts that you probably never knew about the horror genre.

1. Michael Meyers’ mask in the Halloween franchise was actually a William Shatner mask.

Yeah, you read that right. The infamous disguise was once a Shatner mask; they just happened to paint it white. When it was brought up to the actor, William Shatner said that he liked that they used his face mask (for lack of a better term) in such a creative way in the films.

2. To stay in character while filming Carrie, Sissy Spacek slept in bloody clothes for three days.

Sounds very uncomfortable, if you ask me. But I think it also allowed Spacek to provide us with the best Carrie White ever. And it just goes to show just how dedicated Sissy Spacek was to the role.

3. The Exorcist was based on true events.

The event in question was an exorcism of an anonymous little boy named Roland Doe. William Peter Blatty, the author of the book, took inspiration when he read the available documents on the case. In my brief research on this particular topic, it seems like Roland grew up to live a long and happy laugh after he was exorcised.

4. Jason Voorhees’ first name was originally going to be Josh.

Yeah, “Josh Voorhees” doesn’t seem to flow as much as “Jason Voorhees.” They made a good call changing it.

5. Psycho was the first American film to show a flushing toilet.

There is a first for everything, right? And Alfred Hitchcock seemed to push the boundaries during his time, so it makes sense that one of his films was the first to feature this. Today, we don’t give it a second thought, but it must’ve been pretty notable back then.

6. The first horror films created were from the late 1890s.

Yes, there are scary flicks that old! Several of the first ones were created by a director named, Georges Melies, his most famous being Le Manio du Diable (1896) or The House of the Devil in English.

7. The actor who played Danny in The Shining didn’t know it was going to be horror.

Stanley Kubrick shielded Danny Lloyd from the scary aspects of the film that Lloyd didn’t know the genre until years later. Kubrick told the kid the project was going to be a drama, but it wasn’t until years later that he learned the truth. This had led Danny to give up acting altogether. And honestly, I don’t blame him.

8. Count Orlock, the famous vampire from Nosferatu, only blinked once.

He only had nine total minutes of screen time in a movie that was one hour and thirty minutes long, but just knowing he blinks once? It just makes the character all the much more creepy. Plus, even for nine minutes, that seems like a long ass time to not blink at all. I wonder if his eyes ever got dry during filming?

There are so many facts about the horror genre that this is barely scratching the surface. And if you decide to look into more yourself, be prepared to go down a rabbit hole!