10 Extreme Movie Scenes That Left Stars Scarred

One of the most infamous shoots in the history of horror, filming future Poltergeist director Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre was as muggy, overheated, and almost as traumatic an experience as the finished film itself. The intense horror masterpiece was shot on the fly in the height of a Texas summer, meaning fake blood dried too fast and the animal carcasses used as set dressing rotted at an unprecedented rate.

Eventually star Marilyn Burns was so frustrated by one malfunctioning prop wound that she offered to actually be cut with a razor and use her real blood for the sequence, with the resultant take being used in the film. But whilst that moment may have left her with a physical scar, it was another scene that left the actor shook mentally.

Leatherface actor Gunnar Hansen is by all accounts a sweetheart in reality, and the cast were charmed by the authentically southern good old boy. But his inexperience meant the actor hadn’t come across cannabis before filming the movie, and tucked into a platter of brownies one crew member brought onset without a second thought to their clandestine contents.

Cut to Burns being chased by a stoned, heat-stroke suffering lumbering actor wielding a genuine, functioning chainsaw.