4

Elysium Filmed in a Real Garbage Dump Full of Poop

TriStar Pictures

Neill Blomkamp makes entertaining sci-fi commentaries on social issues, and they're not exactly subtle. In Elysium, the big-budget follow-up to District 9, he presents a dystopian future where the 99 percent scrape together an impoverished existence in the giant slum that is the entire Earth, while the rich orbit the planet in a tastefully appointed space station. But obviously those settings are the result of elaborate sets and CGI -- they didn't really send Jodie Foster into space, and obviously they wouldn't have sent Matt Damon running around a real garbage dump.

YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images "Not unless we're sure Ben Affleck would follow, then it might be worth the sacrifice."

The Terrible Reality

Sometimes being Matt Damon means wading through a sea of garbage, and we're not just talking about The Adjustment Bureau. Blomkamp filmed large parts of Elysium in Mexico City's Bordo Poniente, the world's second-largest dump. The landfill covers 975 acres and holds 76 million tons of trash.

YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty ImagesSo, not the best place to lose your retainer.

The fear of illness was very real: Damon had to discard his clothes at the end of every shooting day. Here's one location that the cast and crew affectionately nicknamed "Poo River."

Christian Palma/Associated Press River? That's a poo brook at best.

3

The Zombies in Night of the Living Dead Were Eating Ham, Animal Organs, and Chocolate Syrup ... Together

The Walter Reade Organization

Night of the Living Dead, the movie that kicked off a love affair with zombies so long-lasting that we grew resentful and distant from one another, initially shocked audiences with its realistic depiction of cannibalism. Even though it was shot in black and white and mostly in the dark, so George Romero probably could've skated by with chocolate syrup for blood, ham for flesh, and a bunch of animal organs that the butcher shop threw away.

The Terrible Reality

Actually, that's exactly what he did. The cannibal effects were mostly achieved by having the actors eat butcher shop leavings and ham off of fake human body parts. It's not like it was rancid ham or rotten beef hearts or anything. The blood effects were achieved with chocolate syrup. That's not too bad either. But they had to eat those things together:

The Walter Reade Organization "Needs salt."

And this isn't "gourmet chocolate bar with caramelized bacon" or "liver with a cocoa powder reduction." This was cheap, room temperature roast ham, pig intestines, and Bosco.

The Walter Reade Organization "You should see craft services."

2

The Actors in Les Miserables Were Surrounded by Rotting Fish

Universal Studios

Les Miserables is about a bunch of people who suffer horribly for trying to do the right thing (there's a reason it's not called Les Happy Fun Times). And none of the characters suffer as much as Fantine, a young woman trying to support her daughter who loses her job for spurning her boss' advances, sells her hair and teeth, and ultimately goes full prostitute. Then she dies of tuberculosis. Then she probably goes to Hell. Like, the ghetto of Hell. And in the 2012 film, the set designers wanted to make sure the actors had every bit as bad a time as the audience.

Universal Studios "You know, The Hobbit is playing in this theater, too. Why exactly are we here?"

The Terrible Reality

According to production designer Eve Stewart, they brought in real seaweed and barrels of decomposing fish to decorate the set, which slowly turned rank under the studio lights. Rotting seafood really helps contribute to that 19th-century seaside prostitute vibe. To make matters worse, this is the same set where Anne Hathaway, who plays Fantine, recorded the four-minute, single-shot take of "I Dreamed a Dream," which took eight hours to film.

And yet the version of the song used in the movie was nailed on the fourth take, which was shot in only 20 minutes. But Hathaway insisted that she could do it even better and went on to try again and again and again for another seven and a half hours, during which time she and the rest of the cast and crew stewed in an aerosolized brine of rotting fish.

1

The Snow in The Wizard of Oz Was Toxic Asbestos

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Before CGI, studios needed to come up with a convincing practical effects method for faking snow, just in case the producer couldn't control the weather with sheer willpower and contempt. The most common trick was to blow wispy little cotton balls around. It worked pretty well, but it was missing a certain je ne sais quoi (that's French for "air poison").

The Terrible Reality

When a firefighter pointed out that cotton is incredibly flammable, the filmmakers behind The Wizard of Oz made a bold decision in the name of health and safety: they swapped out cotton for asbestos. The on-set OHS officers promptly died of irony poisoning.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Not that Munchkinland safety codes were all that strict to begin with.

That scene in which Glinda the Good Witch sends a gentle snowstorm to wake Dorothy from the magic poppy fields? Yeah, she was actually blowing bucketloads of deadly, cancerous asbestos right in Dorothy's face. Maybe her name is supposed to be ironic, like calling a big man tiny.