Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures / Larry Marano/Getty Images
Topics: Horror, Film and TV
Callum Jones
Topics: Horror, Film and TV
While we often don't get an insight into the makings of a blockbuster, behind-the-scenes footage released does provide some indication.
Of course, film is fiction - so them saucy sex scenes are not exactly real. Heck, a clip of how sex scenes are actually filmed in movies recently left people stunned.
Accidents can occur on a film set too, and a perfect example of such an event involves Linda Blair.
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The now 65-year-old starred as 13-year-old Regan MacNeil in the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist, that is very much still talked about to this day.
For those who have seen the terrifying flick that still gives people nightmares to this day, then you'll know how young Regan was thrashed and thrown around the room as the demon took ahold of her.
Well, if the film was made today, then CGI would just simply be used - but back in the 1970s, that was not possible.
So, the trashing you saw on screen was certainly the real deal.
Blair was rigged to the bed, which moved mechanically, creating the effect we saw in the movie. However, one day on set of the horror movie, the stunt went horribly wrong.
Speaking in an episode of Cursed Films, Blair said: "In this particular take, the lacing came loose.
"I'm crying, I'm screaming, they think I'm acting up a storm. It fractured my lower spine. No, they didn't send me to the doctor, it is the footage that's in the movie."
The injury left the actor in pain for years before her condition eventually developed into scoliosis.
"I had a lot of difficulty living with the aftermath of The Exorcist. The back injury was far more serious than I ever imagined and really affected my health negatively for a long time," she previously said.
Blair's back injury was actually not the injury to happen during filming.
Actor Ellen Burstyn, who played Blair’s onscreen mum Chris MacNeil, ended up with an injury to her coccyx that left her with permanent injuries and requiring the use of crutches for two weeks while she was involved in filming for the horror film.
Speaking about the injury in an interview with the Guardian back in 2018, she said: “I said, ‘He’s pulling me too hard.’ Billy [Friedkin, the film’s director] said, ‘Well, it has to look real.’
“I said, ‘I know it has to look real but I’m telling you, I could get hurt.’ So, Billy said, ‘OK, don’t pull her so hard,’ and as I turned away, I felt him signal the guy and he smashed me on the floor.
“I expected Billy to yell cut. Instead, I saw him touch the cameraman’s arm to move the camera closer and I was screaming at the top of my lungs.
"Through my screams, I said, ‘Turn the f**king camera off.’”