Blood. Death. Violence. On television and in movies, all gore is just special effects – right?
Although telling yourself “it’s not real” when watching horror movies is comforting, this statement is not always true. In fact, according to Poltergeist’s special effects and makeup supervisor Craig Reardon, it is actually not unusual for old and/or low-budget horror films to use real dead bodies and skeletons as props. Why? It’s simple: because they’re cheaper.
However, the use of real human remains in the production of movies has long been a topic of moral controversy. On the one hand, many people find that such images, when coupled with the knowledge that they’re real depictions of real cadavers, are extremely triggering, traumatizing, or emotionally draining for those watching. On the other hand, directors, producers, and set designers will argue that added authenticity is the point. In addition, there are questions about the legality surrounding using corpses as art, as well as whether their use is disrespectful to those who have passed away. Either way, listed below are seven movies that used real human remains in their production, either intentionally or by total accident.
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7 Apocalypse Now
United Artists
In addition to its creepy association with corpses, Apocalypse Now was incredibly difficult to film for everyone involved. It was initially projected to take 14 weeks to film, and this duration quickly turned into 16 months. The filming kept getting interrupted by events such as having to survive in the heady Philippian jungle, battling a typhoon, and the lead actor showing up to the set completely unprepared. It was made even more difficult by the crazy antics of the set designers who, in the spirit of attempting to be creative and create an “atmosphere of authenticity” to get actors into the mindset of war, scattered dead rats around the set to “create the smell of death.” When Producer Gray Frederickson confronted the production designer and prop crew about the health risk posed by the dead rats, he overheard one of the crew muttering, “wait until he hears about the dead bodies.”
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This led to the horrifying discovery of several dead bodies being kept behind the tent where everyone ate, and the plot to string them from the trees to further this “spirit of authenticity.” This, however, was not the craziest bit. It eventually came out that the man who had sold the set designers the corpses – who had originally claimed to be a man who sold cadavers to hospitals for student use – was actually a grave robber who had dug up and stolen the bodies. The entire cast and crew was arrested until they were able to prove they had nothing to do with it, and none of the bodies were included in the final cut of the film.
6 Poltergeist
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Although one of the most well-known movies to use real human remains, Poltergeist’s usage was still somewhat tame compared to some of the other examples on this list. Poltergeist had a virulent filming session that led to the unfortunate and completely accidental deaths of several of the cast and crew, leading many to believe that the set was cursed because of the film’s use of real skeletons.
In one famous scene, the lead actress, JoBeth Williams, falls into a pool of muddy water and is immediately set upon by angry, demonic skeletons. Williams did not have any idea that the skeletons had once been inside a living human body, which is arguably the worst part of all of it. Craig Reardon, the special effects supervisor, actually does not like hearing rumors about the film being cursed, and claims that Poltergeist was certainly not the first “low-budget horror film” to use real human remains – and nor would it be the last.
5 Men Behind the Sun
Sil-Metropole Organisation
When it comes to mind-numbing horror and gruesome scenes, Men Behind the Sun takes the award for first place. This documentary-style part-fiction horror film fixated on telling the stories of real experiments conducted, and real war crimes committed by Japanese soldiers during World War 2, primarily towards Chinese prisoners of war. The director, who stated that he wrote the film with the purpose of bringing awareness to the crimes committed against the Chinese people, intentionally upped the ante on scenes to add shock value, and it’s since been banned in several countries.
Most of the gore, although incredibly disturbing, was completely fabricated. There were a couple of scenes, however, that did depict real footage of actual human remains. One scene in particular that was described as being “largely unwatchable” depicted a young boy who was put to sleep and had his organs removed while he was still alive, and this scene was filmed using footage from a real child’s autopsy.
4 Dawn of the Dead (1978)
United Film Distribution Company
Unlike several of the other movie examples, Dawn of the Dead brought human remains on set entirely by accident. The movie depicts a small, ragtag group of survivors picking their way through the zombie apocalypse as they hide out in an abandoned shopping mall. The only real corpse shown in the movie was that of a prop skeleton featured in one of the early beginning scenes. The skeleton, which can be seen sitting up in the hallway of an apartment building wrapped in a sheet, was borrowed from a prop collector who initially thought it was fake.
After the movie was filmed, the skeleton was sold to a woman who owned a shop, and it was displayed in the window as a decoration. When reports were filed about the skeleton looking “too convincing,” police confiscated the “prop” and conducted an autopsy – well, as good of an autopsy as one can perform on a skeleton, anyway – and determined that the bones were actually the remains of a 35-year-old woman who had passed away over 100 years ago. Her remains were laid to rest in an unmarked grave in 1982, and fans of the movie paid for her headstone.
3 Unrest (2006)
Lionsgate
Unrest is a horror film set in a medical training hospital, and it told the story of medical students who learned how to become doctors by regularly practicing on cadavers. One cadaver in particular was cursed, and it brings “misfortune” to anyone who comes into contact with it was unique in that everyone was aware that the film used real bodies – and everyone involved was okay with it.
In fact, this fact was one of the film’s major selling points (mostly because it wasn’t particularly unique in any other respect). The film also took place in an actual morgue, and actual autopsies were performed on actual bodies, which were filmed and cut into the movie. The director – who was a former physician himself – believed that, contrary to popular opinion, featuring the bodies in the film was actually “respectful” to the corpses as it helped people to “really understand human anatomy and what death means.”
2 Thriller: A Cruel Picture
Blumhouse Productions
The movie Thriller: A Cruel Picture tells the action-packed story of a young girl named Madeleine who is forced into prostitution by a pimp who kidnaps her and hooks her on heroin. After suffering for years at the hands of her abusers, Madeleine begins plotting her escape. Once she witnesses the death of her only friend at the hands of the man who kidnapped her, she takes off on a killing spree and epic police chase where she tracks down and brutally murders all the people who have abused her over the years.
The scene in particular that features real human remains is often cited as the most gruesome scene in the movie. After the young Madeleine attacks the first client who attempts to assault her, her pimp, Tony, gouges out her eye with a knife. The scene was filmed using the real human eye of an actual cadaver to enhance its authenticity and realism. This scene, along with other gory scenes in the movie, eventually led most of the cast and crew to conclude that the director was psycho.
1 Faces of Death
Aquarius Releasing
Similarly to Men Behind the Sun, Faces of Death is a documentary-style movie that is considered to be extremely gruesome and disturbing. The film has essentially no plot, and is just a series of dramatic and horribly gruesome deaths with some musings on death and humanity sprinkled in. Although it received mostly negative reviews, it eventually gained something of a cult following and grossed $35 million at the box office.
Although a good portion of the deaths depicted in Faces of Death were entirely fabricated for the plot, many of the scenes in the film were entirely real and were clipped from actual footage of real-life deaths and featured genuine human remains. The most iconic portion of the movie took place at the end: during filming, an unplanned dead body washed up on the beach. The body was completely unrelated to the movie, but was considered to be “good timing” for the plot of the film.
