10 Movie Stunts That Went Very Wrong (But Are Still In The Film)
5. Jim Caviezel Gets Flogged For Real When His Back Guard Slips - The Passion Of The Christ
Love it or hate it, by far the most memorable sequence in The Passion of the Christ is the flogging scene - a nauseatingly prolonged scene in which Jesus Christ (Jim Caviezel) is whipped until his back is a bloody mess.
The scene was pulled off by having Jim Caviezel wear a back guard while he was whipped, with gory makeup and sound design intended to do most of the heavy lifting.
However, Caviezel was accidentally flogged for real when the back guard slipped, resulting in his back being whipped twice with a real flogger, causing a 14-inch gash on his back. Caviezel said of the very real agony he felt in that moment:
"[It] hit me with such a velocity that I couldn't breathe... It's like getting the wind knocked out of you. The stinging is so horrific that you can't get air."
Gibson consequently decided to use the gruelling take, which if nothing else only adds to the visceral discomfort of an already deeply unsettling scene.