Horror movies have the ability to scare and exhilarate us in equal measure. Whether it’s a jump scare that leaves your heart pounding or the sight of something so disturbing it’ll give you sleepless nights, horror’s ability to present us with the most depraved aspects of humanity is what makes the genre so captivating.

However, no matter how traumatic the things we are seeing on screen, we can rest easy in the knowledge that no one in these movies is actually being harmed or in distress. Or so we’d like to think…

Throughout the history of cinema, filmmakers and actors have attempted to push themselves to the absolute limit in order to realise their vision. When it comes to horror, that can often mean raising the bar too far, leaving cast members emotionally devastated and struggling in their lives away from cameras.

Here are 16 horror movies so scary that even the actors in them were traumatised…

• Psycho (1960)
• Midsommar (2019)
• Halloween (1978)
• Possession (1981)
• The Birds (1963)
• Hereditary (2018)
• The Shining (1980)
• It Chapter Two (2019)
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Alien (1979)
• Suspiria (2018)
• Martyrs (2008)
• Poltergeist (1982)
• The Amityville Horror (2005)