10 Famous Horror Movie Moments That Were Completely Improvised

There are horrors where lines or moments of action are improvised on the spot, but a horror that's almost entirely improvised? That's a whole lot rarer. Still, that's just one way in which, love it or hate it, Blair Witch changed the game for horror cinema.

The production began with just a 35-page outline, no regular script and no dialogue. From the interviews with locals that begin the movie (real unscripted conversations with the actual townspeople of Burkittsville, Maryland) to the chilling final shots, huge amounts of the actual content of Blair Witch were made up on the fly.

The three lead actors really were just sent into the woods with cameras and, each morning, they would receive an outline of what their character should do. Beyond that, all their dialogue and actions were improvised. It all gave a sense of authenticity and genuine tension, especially as tempers frayed and it became increasingly difficult to tell how much of the fraught arguments between the trio were simply improvised acting.

For that famous ending, directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez hadn't actually decided what to do when the shoot began. By the time it came to film the climax, actor Michael C. Williams was just told to abandon terrified co-star Heather Donahue and run into the creepy house. Then a producer tackled him to the floor and shoved him into the basement corner just in time for Heather and her camera to stumble into the unexpected scene and give a natural reaction.

Plenty of later horrors tried to recapture what made Blair Witch such a hit, with varying degrees of success. Few, though, committed quite so much to the sense of naturally occurring fear that comes from almost total improvisation.