10 Famous Horror Movie Moments That Were Completely Improvised

"You're gonna need a bigger boat" rapidly entered the pop culture lexicon after it was Police Chief Brody's understated response to his first proper sight of the full scale of Jaws's gigantic great white shark. Before that, though, the line had already been a sort of memetic in-joke among the movie's cast and crew.

On top of all the other problems that made filming at sea such a nightmare shoot, Jaws's stingy producers would only stump up the cash for a tiny support boat. This had led to "you're gonna need a bigger boat" becoming an on-set catchphrase whenever the latest crisis hit.

Lead actor Roy Scheider was a particular fan of the phrase and tried frequently to insert it into the dialogue of different scenes throughout the movie.

We could have heard those famous words instead, then, when Scheider's Brody first boards the fishing boat the Orca. Would the exact same line have had the same impact then, though? Probably not.

This credit for this moment of improvisation becoming a classic movie moment, therefore, must go as much to the movie's Oscar-winning editor Verna Field as to Scheider. She was the one to spot the perfect alignment of the actor's favourite ad-lib and the best possible place for it in the movie. Proof that even the best moments of on-the-spot brilliance still need some post-production assistance.