9 Horror Movie Roles That Messed Up With The Actors' Head & Made Them Lose Their Minds

When you think of horror movies, you think of the scares that land on one side of the camera. But what of the actors who played these roles? Some of these roles listed below messed them up pretty bad, and this list might just change the way you think of the subject.

1. The Shining

Actress Shelley Duvall, who played deranged Jack Torrance's wife in The Shining, said that filming for the movie was "almost unbearable." "Stanley pushed me and prodded me further than I'd ever been pushed before. It's the most difficult role I've ever had to play," she reportedly said in one interview. Movie legend has it that she showed Stanley Kubrick the fallen clumps of her hair to prove to him how stressed she was.

2. Alien

The infamous 'chestbuster' scene from the Alien sure elicited screams from the audience, but the screams in the scene itself were pretty real too. Actress Veronica Cartwright who played one of the crew members allegedly screamed in pure shock before finally passing out because the actors didn't know till the very end that a creature would come bursting out from their fellow actor's chest.

3. The Exorcist

A child actor at the time when the movie was shot, Linda Blair probably suffered the worst of the lot. For Blair, who played the role of the 12-year-old possessed child Regan in The Exorcist, there was a lot of pressure from the audience and the press. Evidence of how the expectations were came in the form of an instant disapproval once the audience learned that it wasn't just Regan in the film, there's was a voice actor who recorded the demonic voice and a stunt dummy that was used for eight seconds. The press, meanwhile, forced a 13-year-old girl to think about and answer questions on Catholicism and the Devil. The child actor even received death threats from critics who thought the film glorified Satan.

4. The Omen

The 1976 film The Omen allegedly paid in blood while it was being made. The sets were said to be cursed from the very moment filming began. In the case of lead actor Gregory Peck, the curse played out a little before that. Two months before the film's shooting began, Peck's son Jonathan shot himself. Peck's plane was also struck by lightening. The executive producer of the movie was dealt a similar fate; not to leave out the special effects assistant who was beheaded in a car crash next to a sign that read Omen 666.

5. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Gunnar Hansen who played Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre reportedly said in an interview: "The whole dinner scene is burned in my memory. I think just because of the misery of it. At that point we were really just on the verge of mental collapse." One fact that will totally drive the viewer nuts, too, is how director Tobe Hooper didn't reveal the identity of the actor playing Leatherface until filming began.

6. The Blair Witch Project

Except for a daily huddle, there was reportedly zero interaction between the cast and crew. What tipped the scales was the fact that as the days progressed, the cast was given less and less food to get their angst to translate on-screen. That, plus zero human contact, gave this found footage-style film a raw edge over all others, even today.

7. The Birds

It is said that the birds seen attacking actress Tippi Hedren in the film left her bleeding and bruised and even a little mentally stressed given that she wasn't aware that real birds would be used in the film until the very end. And on top of all this, the film's director Alfred Hitchcock even manipulated and harassed the actress both on-screen and of-screen. So, there you have it: plenty of emotional and physical hurt.

8. Rosemary's Baby

Actress Mia Farrow paid quite the price for starring in Roman Polanski's American film debut, Rosemary's Baby. Farrow, a hardcore vegetarian, couldn't come to grips with the countless times she was forced to eat raw chicken liver during repeated takes for one scene. Add to that the trying moment she was served divorce papers from her then-husband Frank Sinatra in front of everyone.

9. Psycho

According to movie legend, actress Janet Leigh was a changed woman after playing the role of Marion Crane in Psycho. The famous shower scene that still gives us the chills, was apparently too much for her, and Leigh developed a fear of taking showers. She would stick to baths from that point on.

I can literally feel the shivers down my spine!