Filming
The film was shot on location for seven days in New York City, as well as Long Island, followed by shoots in rural locations outside of Westport, Connecticut. While filming in Connecticut, the cast and crew spent much time at producer Cunningham's family's home. According to Craven, the lake sequence was shot in the town reservoir of Weston, Connecticut. Craven sought a "documentary"-style appearance for the film, marked by close-up shots and single-cut takes.
Cunningham later described the film shoot as being "guerrilla-style", with the crew spontaneously filming at locations and being forced to leave due to lack of permits; in retrospect, Lincoln said that "nobody knew what [they] were doing". Much of the special effects in the film were achieved practically, some at Lincoln's suggestion. For example, for the sequence in which Phyllis is disemboweled, Lincoln helped craft fake intestines with condoms filled with fake blood and sand. For the murder sequence of Sadie in the swimming pool, Rain had a pouch full of fake blood attached underneath her shirt, as well as blood capsules in her mouth, which she manually punctured. Grantham recalled that during the scene in which Hess's character tells her to "piss her pants", she in fact urinated in her jeans. Steve Miner, who would later become a director himself, served as a production assistant on the film.
Hess recalled that much of the cast bonded closely during filming, since they were mostly inexperienced actors. In the 2003 documentary Celluloid Crime of the Century, Lincoln, Rain, and Sheffler recalled similar memories which recounted the making of the film. However, both Hess and director Craven recalled that the on-set relationship between Hess and Peabody was turbulent. Craven recalled that Peabody "often wasn't acting" her fear during filming. Sheffler admitted that during a one-on-one sequence with Peabody, he had threatened to push her over a cliff if she failed to hit her marks. In a 2008 Vanity Fair article, Hess also admitted threatening Peabody, telling writer Jason Zinoman: "I was very mean to the girls, so when it came to the rape scene, [Peabody] didn't have to act. I told her, 'I'm really going to fuck you if you don't behave yourself. They'll just let the camera run. I'm going to devastate you.' I don't think she was too happy about that."
Speaking for a making-of book in 2000, Hess revealed that he "may have frightened her a few times" by being "pretty physical" with Peabody during the filming of the rape scene, and that she "couldn't back off" when the camera was running. In the same book, assistant director Yvonne Hannemann described the scene as "really quite upsetting", with Peabody having to be consoled because it had become "very rough". Craven noted that Peabody had told him afterward, "My God... I had the feeling they really hated me", but her only direct contribution about the rape scene in her own interview was "No comment."
Peabody stated that she was genuinely upset during filming as she felt unprepared: "I was upset because I'm an emotional person, and I reacted to what was going on as if it were real. I had a really hard time with some of the scenes, because I had come out of American Playhouse, where it was all about preparation, and everything had to be real. I ended up doing a horrible job in the film. I was very upset, and I felt like I should have channeled that, but I couldn't... I was a young actress, and I was still learning to balance any emotions I had from outside of the film into my scene work."
Peabody recalled, "One of the characters was a method actor, so he was trying to live his part... he'd come after us with a knife at night, trying to freak us out. This was the guy with the dark curly hair [David Hess] - he tried to play his role on and off the set. It was like, 'Lock your doors and windows at night, you don't want him to come get you!' I was scared; I thought this guy had been a killer at some point in his past!" Peabody stated that although she was unsure how many of the scenes would turn out, she trusted Craven and Cunningham's vision for the film.
