8 Props That Were Originally Designed For Other Movies

One of the many disturbing scenes in Steven Soderbergh's now-horrifyingly prescient pandemic thriller Contagion sees an autopsy being performed on Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow), patient zero of the virus.

Though it'd be reasonable to assume a realistic cast of Paltrow's head was purpose-made for the grisly scene, it was actually a 16-year-old prop dusted off for the movie.

The head prop was originally made for David Fincher's 1995 masterpiece Se7en, for the sequence in which Detective Mills' (Brad Pitt) wife's severed head is revealed to have been placed inside a box by serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey).

However, the film's climax was heavily contested between Fincher, Pitt, and the producers, with Pitt arguing that it'd actually be more effective to not show Tracy's head inside the box, focusing instead on Mills' horrified reaction.

Pitt won out and was absolutely right - it's a decision that helped the scene become as iconic as it did. And best of all, the prop still got to live on years later, repurposed for Contagion's nauseatingly realistic autopsy scene.