10 Unexpected Inspirations Behind Movie Scenes

10. The Writer's Crohn's Disease Inspired The Chestburster Scene - Alien

Alien's chestburster scene is one of the most unforgettable moments in cinema history, when poor Kane (John Hurt) learns the hard way that he's been impregnated with a xenomorph - which promptly explodes out of his chest at dinner.

Though the scene feels horrifyingly otherworldly, it's also so viscerally disturbing that it almost feels as though it had to be inspired by something tangible, right?

And that's absolutely the case, as Alien writer Dan O'Bannon mentioned numerous times that the chestburster scene was written as an homage of-sorts to his experiences of living with Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel condition.

O'Bannon suffered with his then-undiagnosed illness while writing Alien, and later described the digestion process as "something bubbling inside... struggling to get out."

And so, O'Bannon's real-life gastrointestinal discomfort laid the groundwork for one of the most brilliantly horrific scenes we've ever seen. Sadly, complications from Crohn's disease claimed O'Bannon's life in 2009.