10 Horror Movie Scenes That Broke The Camera
When the real horror is the insurance payout.
No matter how much planning goes into a movie shoot, things are always going to go wrong, because it's impossible for even the most talented cast and crew to anticipate every single possible variable on a film set. There are just too many moving parts. And there are few things more crucial to the creation of a movie than the camera itself - the glorious, basically magical device that captures images for our entertainment.
If a camera ends up getting broken, the set comes to a standstill until it can be fixed or replaced, in turn costing the studio a pretty penny for every hour of crew downtime. And so, following up our recent article on camera-breaking scenes in general movies outside of the horror genre, here's a horror-centric sequel.
The following ten horror movie scenes, from the outrageous to the shockingly ordinary, all resulted in damaged cameras that were either destroyed beyond further use or, in the very least, needed some extensive repairs.
In some cases, the end result clearly justified the destruction, while in others you have to wonder what the filmmakers were thinking at all...
10. The Hospital Explosion - Halloween II
Halloween II's fiery climax sees Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) trigger a gas explosion in Haddonfield Memorial Hospital which seemingly kills both himself and Michael Myers (Dick Warlock). But as confirmed by director Rick Rosenthal on the movie's DVD commentary, this cinematic inferno ended up burning wildly out of control for real.
Rosenthal said the crew "had a hard time putting that fire out," with the flames still active even after every fire extinguisher on hand had been used. Though the fire was eventually taken care of, it ended up causing unexpected damage to one of the cameras shooting coverage for the scene.
There's a shot in the sequence where the hospital room's ceiling appears to be collapsing due to the heat, but Rosenthal confirmed that this was actually the matte box attached to the camera, which had melted due to the intense heat and slid in front of the lens, causing it to get captured on film.
Needless to say, no Hollywood studio these days is going to let filmmakers put camera equipment this close to a real fire.