If you’re a horror film buff, watching how a movie pulled off its tricks can deepen your appreciation for it. If you’re horror-averse, on the other hand, a peek behind the curtain might mitigate your fear by reminding you that it’s all just pretend. And if you have no strong feelings for the genre in either direction, the video above is still a fascinating look at movie magic in general.
Insider compiled production footage from eight recent horror movies, starting with 2020’s The Invisible Man starring Elisabeth Moss—a modern retelling of H.G. Wells’s classic 1897 sci-fi novel. It’s a little harder to be scared of the titular invisible man when you know that bringing him to life involved a stunt person clad in a green spandex onesie. It also makes it more impressive that the performers were able to convey terror with such goofy scene partners. The same can be said for Madison Curry in Jordan Peele’s 2019 film Us: In one scene, she had to act against a green cup on a stick.
Sound designers used unorthodox tactics to develop the chilling creature noises in 2018’s A Quiet Place. They twisted crab legs for footsteps; and celery and lettuce got crunched to make the sound of their ears opening. And for those echolocation clicks? They took a stun gun to grapes, and then edited and slowed down the track.
Watch the full video to learn more secrets behind horror films (and meet the real-life cats featured in 2019’s Pet Sematary).