10 Movies Scenes That Genuinely Terrified Actors

Is this one really a surprise to anyone? Tobe Hooper’s classic horror is drenched in a fetid atmosphere so overbearing it’s hard to imagine anything in the film is staged. Despite the finished product looking like a slightly artier remix of a snuff film, Hooper did actually go to great lengths to keep his cast and crew comfortable during shooting.

It was an admirable effort which must have helped with the emotionally intense, traumatic material of murder, cannibalism, and implied incest that the film explores. However, Hooper’s best attempts couldn’t contend with the challenges provided by shooting in the height of summer in the eponymous state.

Unable to afford air conditioning, the production suffered from piles of meat going rancid onset during the dinner scene, actual cuts and scrapes in place of malfunctioning squibs, and exhaustion due to the climbing temperatures and punishing shooting schedule.

Infamously, the design of Gunnar Hansen’s iconic villain Leatherface was withheld from the cast until they encountered him onscreen, prompting screams of genuine horror. Not least during the scene when Hansen, stoned for the first time after unknowingly ingesting weed-laced brownies, couldn’t see through his mask and had to run at the actors half-blind.