10 Unexpected Reasons Behind Awesome Horror Movie Moments
4. Emily's Contortions Were Done For Real By Jennifer Carpenter - The Exorcism Of Emily Rose
The Exorcism of Emily Rose sees Jennifer Carpenter give a brilliantly committed performance in the role of the possessed title character, who among other things suffers horrifying muscle spasms and bodily contortions in the middle of the night.
During pre-production, director Scott Derrickson understandably expected to use dummies for Emily's contortion scenes, given the reasonable presumption that Carpenter wouldn't be able to assume those positions herself - or it wouldn't be safe for her to do so.
However, before shooting the infamous dorm room scene where Emily is twisted into a horrifyingly awkward position, Carpenter told the director that she was incredibly flexible and could attempt the positions herself.
That she did, and so for this sequence the intended dummy was never in fact used, because Derrickson ultimately felt that Carpenter's contortions were far more unsettling than the result generated by the dummy.
According to Derrickson is took Carpenter about 20 minutes to pretzel her body into the necessary position, but by god she did it, and the deeply unnerving end result speaks for itself.