10 Horror Movie Moments More Terrifying When You Know The Truth

As embattled protagonist Justine, Lorenza Izzo sure gets put through the physical wringer in Eli Roth's Cannibal Holocaust homage The Green Inferno, but somehow the experience was even worse than it looks.

Near the end of the film, Justine is swept down a river while trying to escape her cannibal captors, and while you might assume that Izzo had a stunt double for the scene or the stunt was at least performed under extremely controlled circumstances, that wasn't quite the case.

Izzo did indeed perform the scene herself and, per the untameable nature of the very real river, was simply at nature's mercy to the extent that she very nearly drowned. In an interview with Yahoo, director Roth confirmed this:

"Lorenza Izzo almost drowned in the river during a take - and yes, we used it in the film. We had a safe word for her to yell, but it was so loud [that when] she was screaming it at the top of her lungs, none of us heard her. When you see her clinging to the rock screaming, that's real."

Outside of this context it's certainly a believably terrified performance, and now we know why. Ironically despite this - or perhaps because of it - Roth and Izzo became romantically involved following the shoot and were married from 2014 to 2019.

Nothing bonds people together like lax safety precautions causing a near-death experience, right?