10 Most Notoriously Nightmarish Film Shoots

7. The Island Of Dr Moreau

New Line CinemaNew Line CinemaConditions on The Island of Dr Moreau were so terrible that actress Fairuza Balk tried to run away from the project, but was caught at the airport and brought back. You know you have a genuinely horrible film shoot when actors are literally trying to escape the set. The failure of this film can largely be chalked up to a group of people thrown together who, due to personal crises of some kind or another, had no business making a film. Original director Richard Stanley spent four years developing this project based on the famous novel by HG Wells, only to be fired from the production after four days on set. He somehow managed to convince the makeup crew to turn him into one of the background mutants so he could keep an eye on the production without anyone else knowing. John Frankenheimer was hired to replace him, and immediately clashed with pretty much everyone. Marlon Brando, reeling from his daughter's suicide, was unprepared for the role, and had to wear a receiver to feed him lines (and would occasionally pick up signals from other radios, further confusing the process). Val Kilmer reported to set late without having done any research for the role, and would soon be preoccupied by an ugly divorce. Anything that could have gone wrong on this set could be depended upon to go wrong.
Contributor
Contributor

Audrey Fox is an ex-film student, which means that she prefers to spend her days in the dark, watching movies and pondering the director's use of diegetic sound. She currently works as an entertainment writer, joyfully rambling about all things film and television related. Add her on Twitter at @audonamission and check out her film blog at 1001moviesandbeyond.com.