10 Horror Movie Props You Didn't Know Were Reused

8. Starship Troopers' Armour Was Used In Planet Of The Apes

Child's Play Tales from the Crypt Chucky Crypt Keeper
TriStar Pictures/20th Century Fox

Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers may have received largely negative reviews upon its release in 1997, but the picture has gone on to become quite the cult favourite.

That film famously saw a future where the Mobile Infantry military unit were in an intergalactic war with the insectoid Arachnids. And in a fun piece of trivia, the helmets used by Casper Van Dien and his cohorts would be given a lick of paint and some modifications to be used four years later in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes.

While realising that the Starship Troopers and Planet of the Apes headgear is the same prop is something that isn't immediately noticeable, that's not the case where Firefly was concerned.

Josh Whedon's beloved one-season TV series is another project that used the Starship Troopers gear. Here, though, it's a lot clearer to see that the Alliance has borrowed their uniforms from that 1997 movie. As Whedon has explained in the years since, a lack of budget saw the Starship Troopers outfits rented rather than having the show splash out on creating new designs.

On the flip side of all of this, of course, Starship Troopers is a movie that reused several sets from 1990's Total Recall.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.