10 TV Moments More Terrifying When You Know The Truth

10. That Jump Scare Caught The Actors By Surprise Too - The Haunting Of Hill House

Forcing just about every single fright-fan on the planet to bolt up out of their seats back in 2018, the visual of Victoria Pedretti's ghostly Nell suddenly firing up between Theo and Shirley mid-drive was the stuff of TV nightmares.

In truth, though, it wasn't just fans taking in the Netflix slice of horror that were deeply disturbed by the shocking arrival. The actors on-set and the folks behind the monitor all crapped their pants, too.

That's because, according to showrunner Mike Flanagan, Victoria was under strict orders to pop up much earlier in the scene than castmates Kate Siegel and Elizabeth Reaser thought she would. In fact, those two assumed they had another half a page of lines to go before Victoria would break up the conversation.

However, during the first take of the sequence, Pedretti very much caught the two by surprise and the resulting reactions were "genuine." Hell, Flanagan would even confess that the folks behind the monitor were all aware it was coming, but still couldn't stop themselves from jumping in their seats at the horrifying early interruption.

You know you've done something right if a scare you're fully expecting still catches you completely off-guard.