Actress suffered a disfiguring injury filming Pascal Laugier’s Ghostland

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

GHOSTLAND (a.k.a. INCIDENT IN A GHOST LAND), the new film from MARTYRS director Pascal Laugier, is set to have its premiere party in Paris on March 14th, but one person involved with the movie who will not be attending is actress Taylor Hickson, who has filed a lawsuit against the production company, Incident Productions.

Co-starring Mylene Farmer, Crystal Reed, Anastasia Philipps, and Emilia Jones, GHOSTLAND tells the story of

 
a mother of two who inherits a home from her Aunt. On the first night in the new home, she is confronted with murderous intruders and fights for her daughter’s lives. Sixteen years later when the daughters reunite at the house, and that is when things get strange…

One of the endangered girls in the film is played by Hickson, and she has filed the lawsuit over a disfiguring injury she sustained while shooting "an emotionally charged scene" for the film, one which required her to pound on a pane of glass with her face right next to it. According to her suit, 

…the director [Pascal Laugier], consistently told [Hickson] to pound harder on the glass with her fists. At one point during the filming of the scene, and after being asked to increase the strength with which [she] pounded on the glass, [she] asked one of the producers and the director if it was safe to do so. That producer and the director both replied in the affirmative.

…The glass shattered, causing [her] head and upper body to fall through the door and shards of glass. As a result of the incident, [she] badly cut the left side of her face” and was rushed to the hospital, where she received about 70 stitches.

…She has since undergone treatment including laser treatment and silicone treatment, but over one year post-incident, has been left with permanent scarring on the left side of her fae. It is unknown at this time if any further treatment, including plastic surgery, would reduce the visual appearance of the injury."

The suit accuses Incident Productions of failing to take reasonable steps to meet industry safety standards, including using safety glass and/or stunt doubles as appropriate. Hickson has lost income due to the injury, both due to the recovery time and the fact that her face is now visibly scarred.

The Deadline report on the lawsuit includes graphic photos of her injury, and it was pretty horrible. There should definitely never be any chance of something like that happening on a set.