It's a funny business frightening people: Hilarious pictures show actors fooling about on the sets of classic horror movies

The most famous horror movies scare the living daylights out of the audience with spine tingling scenes that live long in the memory - especially when the lights go out.



No matter how many times we are told that it is simply a film, a piece of entertainment, classic chiller's like Jaws can stop us getting into the water or in the case of Stephen King's 'It' make children's clown's petrifying.



However, the terror is only committed onto film and when the camera's stop rolling as these behind-the-scenes pictures show, the film stars and their crew relax and joke in unexpected and hilarious ways.

Open Wide: Director Steven Spielberg sits in the mouth of the great white shark from his 1975 movie 'Jaws'. The film was his first summer blockbuster and the highest grossing film of all time (at that time). It was #1 at the box office for 14 consecutive weeks and the first film to gross more than $100 million (eventually grossing over $470 million)

So while it is normal to be terrified by Anthony Hopkin's Hannibal Lector or the murderous rage of Sissy Spacek as Carrie, it is unusual to see photographs of Steven Spielberg languishing with a smile inside the mouth of the great white shark from Jaws.

Indeed, seeing the cast members of 'The Birds' chat normally instead of scanning the skies for avian threats reduces the visceral fear of the classic Hitchcock movie, as does seeing the eponymous Alien sitting on a create, bored between takes.

Stanley Kubrick (left) is about to set the camera rolling on the set of 'The Shining'. Perhaps the most famous moment of the film, when Jack yells 'here’s Johnny!' was completely ad-libbed by Nicholson. The line was an imitation of Ed McMahon’s introduction of Johnny Carson on the tonight show. Due to the film’s fame, Carson once used that sound bite from the film as his introduction for the show.



A funny outtake from 1978's 'Halloween'. The cost of producing Halloween was about $320,000 and the thriller was shot in 21 days. In the United States it grossed $47 million, and it took in $60 million worldwide. Those numbers seem small by 2012 standards, but adjusting for inflation since 1978, those totals equal about $205 million, making it one of the most profitable independent productions of all time.



Sissy Spacek (right) covered in blood for the final scene of the 1976 horror 'Carrie'. The horror film is directed by Brian De Palma and written by Lawrence D. Cohen, based on the novel Carrie by Stephen King. The film and the novel deal with a socially outcast teenage girl, Carrie White, who discovers she possesses psionic power.



Anthony Hopkins takes a moment between takes during the filming of 1991's 'Silence of the Lambs'. Lecter's infamous slurping noise was a spontaneous invention of Anthony Hopkins' during filming



Bolaji Badejo, a Nigerian design student who wore the eponymous 'Alien' suit sits down for a rest during filming of the 1979 movie. The success of Alien spawned a media franchise of novels, comic books, video games, and toys, as well as three sequel and two prequel films.



Robert Englund rips the mask of Freddy Kreuger off his face during the filming of 1984's 'Nightmare on Elm Street'. Freddy Kruger was designed by director Wes Craven to be the typical 'silent' serial killer such as Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. But in the sequels Freddy developed a cheeky persona that enabled him to be the black humored villain.



Tim Curry relaxes on the set of Stephen King's 'It' in 1990. The story revolves around an inter-dimensional predatory life-form, which has the ability to transform itself into its prey's worst fears allowing it to exploit the phobias of its victims. It mostly takes the form of a sadistic, wisecracking clown called 'Pennywise the Dancing Clown'.



Linda Blair has her make-up touched up during the filming of 1973's 'The Exorcist'. The film has had a significant influence on popular culture.It was named the scariest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly and Movies.com and by viewers of AMC in 2006, and was No. 3 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments



Alfred Hitchcock speak to the stars of 1963's 'The Birds'. According to Hitchcock’s daughter Patricia, the director had trouble locating his next project; following the success of Psycho, he felt everyone expected so much of him. Hitchcock finally found The Birds, written by Daphne du Maurier, the same author who penned Rebecca and Jamaica Inn.



Leonardo DiCaprio (left) and a prop from 'Critters 3' in 1991. It is the third installment of the Critters series, the sequel to Critters and Critters 2 and Leonardo DiCaprio's film debut



Boris Karloff in 1970s 'Frankenstein' . This independent film was directed by Howard W. Koch; its alternative titles during pre-production included Frankenstein's Castle, Frankenstein 1960, and Frankenstein 1975. Shot in a mere eight days on a modest budget, the film was finally titled Frankenstein 1970 for an appropriately futuristic touch.

