Stars Who Got Injured Filming Scary Movies

Horror movies are designed to look dangerous.

Usually, that danger is controlled through stunt teams, camera tricks, makeup effects, fake blood, breakaway glass, harnesses, padding, and careful planning. But scary movies can still become physically demanding, especially when actors are running, falling, fighting, screaming, being pulled by wires, working with animals, or repeating intense scenes for hours.

Some injuries were minor. Some caused long-term pain. Some led to lawsuits. Others became part of horror history because the real reaction ended up in the final film.

This list focuses on actors and performers who were publicly reported to have been injured, physically affected, or put through unusually painful conditions while filming horror, thriller, or horror-adjacent movies.

Linda Blair

Linda Blair was only a teenager when she played Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, one of the most famous horror performances ever filmed.

The role required her to be strapped to a mechanical bed for possession scenes. During one violent bed sequence, Blair suffered a back injury that has been widely reported as a lower-spine fracture. Later accounts have connected the injury to long-term back problems and scoliosis.

Ellen Burstyn

Linda Blair was not the only major cast member injured while making The Exorcist.

Ellen Burstyn, who played Regan’s mother Chris MacNeil, hurt her back during a wire stunt. In the scene, her character is thrown backward by Regan’s supernatural force. Burstyn later said she warned that the pull was too hard before being yanked to the floor. The Guardian reported that she underwent treatment during the rest of production, while other accounts noted that the injury remained a physical memory for her decades later.

Taylor Hickson

Taylor Hickson’s injury on Ghostland is one of the most serious modern horror-set injury stories.

While filming the 2018 horror film, Hickson was shooting an emotional scene involving a glass door. According to her lawsuit, she was instructed to pound harder on the glass after being assured the scene was safe. The glass shattered, and she suffered a severe facial injury.

Jamie Lee Curtis

Jamie Lee Curtis returned to Laurie Strode in 2018’s Halloween with a much more physical version of the character.

The film’s final confrontation with Michael Myers required fights, falls, and intense movement. Curtis later said she cracked a rib while shooting those final sequences and that the shoot left her bruised and cut.

Kyle Richards

Kyle Richards returned to the Halloween franchise decades after playing Lindsey Wallace as a child in the 1978 original.

During filming for Halloween Kills, Richards broke her nose while shooting a fight scene. She worked through the pain and even worried that telling the crew might cause her to be replaced by a stunt double for the sequence.

Halle Berry

Halle Berry suffered a broken arm while filming the supernatural thriller Gothika.

The injury happened during a scene with Robert Downey Jr. in which he was supposed to restrain her. Reports at the time confirmed that Berry broke her arm on the Montreal set, and later accounts described the production having to work around her absence while she recovered.

Tippi Hedren

Tippi Hedren’s experience on Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds remains one of the most discussed difficult shoots in horror-thriller history.

For the famous attic attack sequence, Hedren worked with live birds tied to her costume. In an excerpt from her memoir, she recalled a bird pecking dangerously close to her eye after hours of filming. People also reported on her account of being pecked and physically overwhelmed during the scene.

Bruce Campbell

Bruce Campbell’s work as Ash Williams in The Evil Dead helped define low-budget horror endurance.

The production was famously rough, with freezing conditions, sticky fake blood, awkward effects, and a young crew pushing through difficult circumstances. Accounts of the shoot describe Campbell injuring his leg while running down a hill, along with other physically punishing moments during filming.

Joey King

Joey King’s experience on The Conjuring was unusual because her issue was not a stunt injury in the traditional sense.

King later said she developed unexplained bruises while filming the movie and was diagnosed with ITP, a blood-thinning condition. People reported her comments from Howard Stern, where she described being physically affected during production and joked that the movie “messed” her up because of how frightening the experience was.

Vera Farmiga

Vera Farmiga spent more than a decade playing Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring franchise, and the physical side of the role followed her into the final chapter.

In 2025, Farmiga told E! News that she gets “battered” during these films and shared a photo of a cross-shaped bruise that appeared on her leg while filming The Conjuring: Last Rites. She described the bruising as something that tends to happen when she works on the franchise.

Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain did not suffer a widely reported injury on It Chapter Two, but one of her horror scenes was physically intense enough to deserve mention.

The bathroom blood scene required her to be submerged in thousands of gallons of fake blood. Chastain described the sequence as a demanding shoot that involved two takes and long hours in a thick, sticky mixture.

Dakota Johnson

Dakota Johnson’s experience on Suspiria was described more in emotional and psychological terms than as a single physical injury.

The 2018 remake required intense dance training, disturbing imagery, and a heavy atmosphere. Johnson said filming the movie affected her so strongly that she went to therapy afterward.

Harry Crosby

Harry Crosby’s injury on the original Friday the 13th is one of the lesser-known horror-set accident stories.

Crosby played Bill, one of the camp counselors in the 1980 slasher. During the preparation for his death scene, a makeup-effects mishap reportedly led to a serious eye injury that temporarily blinded him for months.