Vince Vaughn Reveals The Movie That Terrified Him Into A Childhood Injury

The mark of a perfect, un-remake-able scary movie is its ability to frighten the viewer to the point that they actually believe they're in some kind of danger. Seeing A Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger or The Shining's Jack Torrance evokes a sense of dread for those aware of who they are and what they're capable of, despite their fictitious nature. It's all intended for entertainment purposes and to sell audiences on the horror of the movie itself, without actually harming them. However, in specific cases, not only can this kind of movie inspire fear, but it can also inadvertently inflict legitimate pain on the viewer.

Someone who's experienced this infrequent phenomenon is traditionally comedic actor Vince Vaughn, who got candid about his personal ties to a horror movie during this year's digital New York Comic Con. The big-screen veteran was a part of the panel for the upcoming Blumhouse slasher comedy Freaky, in which his character, a serial killer known as the Blissfield Butcher, accidentally swaps bodies with 17-year old Millie Kessler (Kathryn Newton). Early on in the discussion, the cast went around and talked about their earliest exposures to horror flicks. It was then that Vaughn dropped an anecdote about how Sam Raimi's 1981 classic Evil Dead caused his younger self some unintended bodily injury.

As Vaughn revealed, when he was a child, he was fully prepared to throw caution and parental warnings to the wind. He told NYCC panel viewers and his co-stars that, in his youthful hubris, "I dared myself to watch [Evil Dead] in my house by myself when my parents weren't home." Vaughn's bravery turned out to be in short supply, and he admitted that he "only lasted about 30 minutes" before Evil Dead got the best of him and scared him off. 

Of course, the story of his attempted lights-off horror screening doesn't quite end there, taking an unexpected turn for the worst. "I was terrified, and when I went to go run to turn on the light, I ran into a pole that was in my basement," Vaughn shared, reflecting on the moment that added injury to insult.

Now 50 years old and a seasoned member of the film industry, Vaughn is aware of the craftsmanship that went into making Evil Dead such a success. During that NYCC panel for Freaky, he noted the importance of Evil Dead's largely forested setting to upping its scare-factor, and added that the way Raimi shot the film contributed to its magnetism as well. 

"It was the POV of the camera — you never actually got to see what the creature was," said Vaughn, giving some much-deserved praise to the director and his magnum opus (aside from his Spider-Man trilogy, of course).

Freaky is set to hit theaters on November 13, 2020 before going to video-on-demand platforms on December 4, 2020.