Famous (And Famously Nude) Horror Stars Dish On Their Memorable Death Scenes

Horror films have but one ace up their sleeve; One way to separate themselves from the pack and stand out amongst the countless horror films made every year. They need great and memorable death scenes, and many can't even muster that much. Thankfully a handful of iconic death scenes more than make up for the dearth of them found elsewhere, and the actors and actresses involved in some of the most memorable shared their thoughts on their place in history with Vulture (link below).

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Halloween star P.J. Soles talked about director John Carpenter's ability to coax her out of her clothes, as well as how much she misses her smaller breasts.

[Director] John Carpenter said, because it was a bedroom scene, "Would you be comfortable with just a flash?" He asked me very gently, "If you don't want to do it, that's fine, I understand, but if we could get some, get something ..." I don't think they needed [nudity], I think he just thought it might add to my character and be kind of cute, you know? So it seemed okay to do that, and of course my parents were horrified [laughs], but it seemed okay. Looking back on it now, it's okay, because, wow, that's what I used to look like! I don't know what happened to my boobs. They got bigger and bigger, and now I look like my aunt. I don't know what happened! [Laughs.]

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Rose McGowan might not have done an actual nude scene in 1996's sleeper hit Scream, but we'll never forget how well she nipped out in that yellow sweater. Her nipples are but part of the story surrounding her famous garage door death scene...

That was me in the garage door, up about six-and-a-half feet, just hanging. Going up and down in the real garage door. The stunt woman they hired was about 30 pounds heavier than me. You can almost usually tell, and this one was specifically focused on the butt. I had bruises from chest to waist. But it was great fun, and I never noticed in the meantime when I’m being hurt.

It was a real garage door that I was actually going up and down in. It was my second film, and I thought every set was going to be like that. Wes Craven is so lovely. He used to be a professor, and he’s professorial. I had to throw a beer bottle at the bad guy. I have bad aim. I shattered the film lens and the camera, so I set them back about five hours. 

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For the most famous scene in the entire franchise, Final Destination 3 stars Crystal Lowe and Chelan Simmons relive their horrifically hot tanning bed death (no pun intended)...

Simmons: The glass shattering, it was candied glass. They used prosthetics to create skin, and they glued the glass on [and] added burn makeup. It was pretty wild. I couldn’t look in the mirror because it was grossing me out. Especially at lunchtime, I couldn’t be near any mirrors because I’d start gagging. Also, fake blood is mostly sugar, so you attract bugs.

Lowe: Something that [director] Glen [Morgan] wanted was, I remember, the hope in our minds that we could get out, and to play that: Oh my God, if I just keep punching and screaming and kicking enough, I might be able to get out of this, I might be able to get out of there. So that’s the thought process that was put in our brains when we were doing it. And then it was really just remembering how the fire was lit when we saw it on the stunt girls, how the fire works, and that it would kind of be burning slowly and then bubbling and our skin would be bubbling, and that would be happening, and what it would feel like. It wasn’t a quick process. It was a slow death, which was brutal. My goggles get burned into my head. And Chelan has the glass shatter all over her face.

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Finally, who could forget Eron Tabor's famous bathtub castration at the hands of Camille Keaton in I Spit On Your Grave? Certainly not Tabor, who now goes by his real name, Ron Shetler...

They had a pump that was attached down under my body, and then they had a knife that was dulled, and they shot it such that it looked like she could be fondling me, but wasn’t even close to it. The blood was from a squeegee thing, and as I rose up in horror, you’ll notice my one hand is behind me and I’m squeezing it to make the blood squirt out. Very primitive!

The thing that I didn’t realize, and my hat is off to the actors who play these incredibly menacing and awful characters, is that it takes a toll on your psyche to do a character like this. After I did it, I just didn’t want to be a part of that, and that’s all I was being offered at that point in time.. That’s what I was identified with, and I said, "I really don’t want to do this." It created a scar on me mentally. So I chose to back away from it and go a different route. I was a singer, I have a degree in voice. I was on a full-tuition scholarship at the University of Redlands to sing opera. So I chose to go back to that. It’s been years since I’ve seen the film, and I forbade my kids to see it. They're now 22 and 24. When they got to 18, I said, "Okay, if you want to," and they both chose not to.

Via Vulture