10 Famous Horror Movie Moments That Were Completely Improvised

Infamously unpopular with writer Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick's film version of The Shining has nevertheless gained iconic horror status, in part due to Jack Nicholson's manic lead performance.

King may have resented that the actor's full-on take on the completely cracked Jack Torrance lacked his novel's sense of a decent man slowly unravelling, but what do you expect when you hire Jack Nicholson?

Nicholson certainly put a lot of himself and his own ideas into that other Jack, not least what remains the character's signature moment: hacking a gash in a locked door with a huge axe, thrusting his madly grinning face through the splinters and shouting a catchphrase from a long-running chat show.

Nicholson randomly exclaiming "Heeere's Johnny!" was taken from the introduction for Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, which had run since the early 1960s. But it was just one of several things that the actor tried during three days of takes for the notoriously perfectionist Kubrick (smashing around 60 doors in the process).

The director, not exactly a big chat show viewer, reportedly didn't even get the reference, but put it in the movie anyway. Kubrick wasn't the only one, as the line would develop a life of its own beyond its origin, appealing to people who had never even heard of Carson. These days a "Here's Johnny" reference is far more likely paying tribute to Nicholson's moment of improv than to the Tonight Show.