Movie scenes where the actors were actually terrified

Horror films are supposed to scare us—heck, it's right there in the name of the genre, after all. The whole reason we line up to watch horror movies is to experience the safe thrill of being rattled, startled, and occasionally even downright terrified by fictional objects on a screen. It's all totally fake, of course—that's a big part of the fun—but that feeling of fright is very real. In fact, even from the comfort of a well-lit set making it perfectly clear that what's going on is just being orchestrated for the entertainment of millions, there have been times when horror movie scares have even managed to frighten the actors and actresses bringing them to life. Let's pay tribute to these brave souls by taking a fond look back at some of the times directors engineered scenes that actually scared the crap out of their performers for the sake of cinema.

The Fear of God, a documentary on the making of William Friedkin's The Exorcist, brought to light the filming antics of this director. His sadistic and entertaining ability to extract honest portrayals of horror and surprise from his actors includes refrigerating the exorcism room to make shivering and cold breath more believable or randomly shooting guns on set to keep the actors alert. But it doesn't end there; the infamous vomit scene was a surprise to the actor Jason Miller. He knew there was vomit involved as the demonic young girl had tubes around her face to projectile her breakfast in bed in his general direction. He was told it would be aimed at his chest, but as we know, his face was blasted with lukewarm green pea soup. To the credit of Jason Miller, he finished the scene in one take but spent the rest of the day pissed. He doesn't like pea soup.

In The Blair Witch Project, the entire film seems to have been planned as an elaborate scheme to more slowly work the cast into the reality of a camping trip with friends that turns into a massive mistake ending in death. The directors gave the three cast members cameras, supplies for survival, and a rendezvous; from there, the three were left alone in the woods. A few scenes from the movie are from when they were actually lost trying to find the next meet up point. Often times the directors would secretly follow the cast and break sticks or throw rocks around the unknowing campers. Worse yet, the directors gave them less food everyday to make them ragged, angry, and more on edge. Then, when they fell asleep, they would sneak up to their tents and play recordings of children laughing and then intensely shake their tents. After eight days of filming, the cast no longer enjoys walks in the woods.

Whenever Jack Nicholson plays a bad guy, you know you're in for a pretty scary ride. That's doubly true for any actors sharing the screen with this cinematic legend. Nicholson has been described as "a force of nature," and while working on Martin Scorsese's gangster drama The Departed, he did a particularly good job of keeping his co-workers on their toes. Evidently, the man was improvising like a demonically possessed Robin Williams, and according to Leonardo DiCaprio, all of that ad-libbing "makes you terrified as an actor, and it ups the stakes."

Especially when he starts pulling out weapons.

During one intense moment in the movie, DiCaprio's undercover cop is confronted by Nicholson's mob boss. However, filming the scene was actually kind of difficult. Nicholson supposedly felt that DiCaprio wasn't scared enough, and Scorsese seemed to agree. So the director encouraged Nicholson to do anything that would "put [DiCaprio] on edge." With Scorsese's permission to go nuts, Nicholson assembled a crazy collection of props, including a fire extinguisher, a whisky bottle, matches, and a pistol. Now, while a prop man warned DiCaprio that Nicholson was armed and dangerous, it didn't make him feel any better when the veteran actor shoved a handgun in his face, and DiCaprio's look of alarm is genuine. "Leo's reaction is in real time," Scorsese confirmed, and as DiCaprio elaborated, Nicholson's stunt "changed the whole dynamic of the scene." But hey, that's just a normal day in the office when you're working with Jack Nicholson. Spend a time memorizing your lines, do a little acting, and hope he doesn't shoot you in the face.

Believe it or not, some of the very best scenes in The Godfather happened in the spur of the moment. For example, remember Vito Corleone's cat? Well, Francis Ford Coppola just found that feline wandering around the studio and decided to put it in the scene. And according to Vanity Fair, when Clemenza quips, "Take the cannoli," the actor made that up on the spot. Marlon Brando was also thinking on his feet, as well. When Vito slaps Johnny Fontane across the face, that was Brando trying to shake up actor Al Martino and put some life into the scene.

The legendary method actor was also doing a little improv in his dramatic death scene. Moments before Vito Corleone drops dead, he's playing with his grandson, Anthony. The 3-year-old was played by Anthony Gounaris, and obviously, toddlers aren't exactly natural actors. Since Brando was totally in charge of the scene and needed to connect with the kid, he famously put an orange peel in his mouth and began growling like a monster. But this didn't sit well with poor Anthony. The traumatized boy immediately started to cry, forcing Brando to drop the game and comfort the kid. It's a nice touch to a sad little scene, a unique moment of improvisation that makes The Godfather one of the all-time greats.

There's an old adage in Hollywood: "Never work with animals or children." And while that proverb might be true for lesser directors, Steven Spielberg doesn't give it the time of day, especially when it comes to kids. Spielberg has gotten some truly great performances from child actors in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Empire of the Sun, and The BFG. And then, of course, there's his very first alien flick, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While Richard Dreyfuss is the main character of Close Encounters, Cary Guffey steals the scene every time he shows up. The adorable 4-year-old played the part of Barry Guiler, the little boy who's abducted by aliens, and all his reactions seem so genuine … and that's because they are. Throughout shooting, Spielberg was constantly coming up with ways to encourage Guffey's performance. For example, in the scene where the boy is smiling out the window at the UFOs, Spielberg is off-screen, unwrapping presents for Guffey. Later on, when Barry tearfully tells his alien friends goodbye, he's really crying because Spielberg told him to imagine his friends leaving forever.

But perhaps Spielberg's most ingenious ploy comes earlier in the film, when Barry runs into his kitchen and spots the alien rummaging through his refrigerator. The space invaders are kept off-camera, and the whole scene plays off Barry's face. In a matter of seconds, we see the boy go from fright to joy, but what is he actually looking at? Well, Spielberg had makeup man Bob Westmoreland dress up as a gorilla and hide behind a cardboard partition. When Guffey ran into the room, the partition was pulled away and he was face-to-face with a scary ape. Spielberg described Guffey as "a deer caught in the car headlights," but then the director told Westmoreland to take off his mask. Suddenly, Guffey recognized the makeup man and broke out into a big smile. "Even though it was a trick," Spielberg said, "the reaction was pure and honest," which really, is a phrase you could use to describe almost every Spielberg film ever made.