10 Actors Tricked Into Doing Famous Movie Scenes

9. The Blair Witch Project - Actors Were Regularly Spooked By The Crew

Basic Instinct
Artisan Entertainment

In order to create a film capable of genuinely terrifying audiences on a measly initial shooting budget of just $60,000, the directors of found-footage smash hit The Blair Witch Project, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, had to find unorthodox ways to legitimately instil fear into their cast when they least expected it.

On top of camouflaging themselves in the woods and randomly performing the various surreal noises the characters hear at certain points in the movie, the directors opted to suddenly shake their tent and play frightening sounds of children playing outside of it in the middle of the night to abruptly frighten the actors/characters of Heather, Mike, and Josh.

Though the cast were well aware they were shooting a highly improvised movie, they genuinely weren't expecting most of the director-orchestrated paranormal activity to go down at the times it did, leading to a number of shockingly authentic reactions which left audiences initially wondering whether they were actually watching a fictional event take place.

Needless to say, these unorthodox tactics worked a treat in the end as The Blair Witch Project went on to be a horror smash hit, earning nearly $250million at the box office.

Contributor
Contributor

Lifts rubber and metal. Watches people flip in spandex and pretends to be other individuals from time to time...