Terrifying footage of Jack Nicholson preparing for iconic The Shining scene is absolute nightmare fuel

If you’re a fan of the cult classic, The Shining film, you’ll, of course, know the ‘Hereeeees Johnny’ scene, but what about the prep work behind it?

Despite it's slightly abysmal box office takings of $45 million and author Stephen King's mixed response, the Stanley Kubrick movie is often lauded by film-lovers as one of the greatest movies of all time - with The Guardian even naming it the fifth 'Best Horror Film of All Time'.

Based on King’s 1977 novel of the same name, The Shining tells the tale of writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), who becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his writer's block.

He brings along his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd), however, their stay soon turns into a nightmare.

Jack becomes more and more different as the hotel takes over him and it reaches a pivotal point when Jack attempts to murder his poor wife in their bathroom.

It’s a crazy scene which sees Nicholson axing down the door before sticking his face inside of the makeshift hole to a terrified Duvall, who only has a knife to protect herself - leading him to utter the classic line: "Here's Johnny!"

Everyone knows this scene, right? (Warner Brothers/Getty Images)

Now, considering Kubrick didn’t cast Robert De Niro was psychotic enough to take on the role, it provides a greater understanding of why Nicholson was cast in the end.

That’s because his acting technique when preparing for the scary scene was next level.

Shown in a video uploaded to YouTube, fans were able to get an inside look into the production of the horror flick, and the way in which the actor tried to get into the mindset of an axe murderer.

In the clip, you can see Nicholson and Duvall pass each other as they begin to get into the role of their respective characters.

Nicholson had to break down the door with an axe in the scene (Warner Bros)

While Duvall goes into the backroom, Nicholson begins to jump up and down and shake out his hands while repeating the phrase: “Come one…axe murderer…aha.”

He was pretty unintelligible throughout his preparations, but then when he grabbed hold of the axe (a real axe, by the way) from the bed, it began to take a turn.

Nicholson had to break down the door in real-life, and so he began to chop into the door after mocking his on-screen wife, who was inside and terrified that he would come and kill her.

With no way to escape, she was stuck as he forcefully entered the room.

For fans who have now seen the prep work, they think it’s even more 'scarier than the actual scene'.

One person wrote: “The ‘prepping’ was scarier than the actual scene.”

Another said: “He prepped for this? I always assumed that they accidently [sic] filmed Jack having a bad day on set.”

Meanwhile, someone else commented: “I like how everyone just acts normal and pays no attention to his antics.”