Tragic coincidence or curse? Call it what you will; the fact that all of these films turned into real life horror fests is worthy of an eyebrow raise.
So read on if you daaaaaare! Or if you’d just like to find out what kind of sunglasses God wears, because that’s totally in here too.
5. Twilight Zone: The Movie
The original Twilight Zone was one of the greatest shows ever created. Rod Serling eloquently smoked his way into our black and white nightmares, and America ate it up. In 1982, it was announced that filming would begin on a Twilight Zone movie. Fans were elated (and enraged), and a classic was to be reintroduced to a new generation.
However, things didn’t quite go as planned…
John Landis was charged with filming a segment of the film titled ‘Time Out’. In the usual vein of Twilight Zone lore, it was to be about a man learning a lesson about racism and prejudice by being forced to live the lives of those he showed hatred toward. He was to be a Jew in occupied France during WWII, an African-American in the rural south being lynched by the Ku Klux Klan, and finally a Vietnamese man during the Vietnam war.
Actor Vic Morrow was cast to play the main character, with Myca Din-Le and Renee Shin-Yi playing two Vietnamese children that he is attempting to save from the warfare. At 2:20am on July 23, 1982, the scene began filming in the dark in Ventura County, CA.
Morrow was to carry the children across a river while a helicopter flew toward them, with explosions going off all around them. Landis told the helicopter pilot to fly lower and lower until the helicopter hovered just about 20 feet above the water. Two giant controlled explosions went off and somehow the pilot lost control. Chaos ensued, the crew began to flee, Morrow lost his grip on Renee who was in turn crushed by the helicopter. Then, the blades of the helicopter decapitated Morrow and young Myca.
After Landis realized what had happened, an announcement was made:
"“Leave your equipment where it is. Everyone go home. Please, everyone go home!”"
The cameras had been rolling the entire time. The film has since been destroyed. The only remaining is the above picture of the crime scene.
What makes this tragedy even eerier is that, early on in his career, Morrow was in a movie called ‘Dirty Mary Crazy Larry’. In the film, his character is asked to fly a helicopter. His reply:
"“I’m not getting up in the helicopter, I have a premonition that I’m going to get killed in a helicopter crash.”"
4. Rosemary’s Baby
Rosemary’s Baby was a film by notorious rapist–oops I mean director–Roman Polanski. It told the story of Rosemary and husband moving into a new home, and hubby is an aspiring actor who is willing to sell his wife’s womb to Satan in order to be successful.
During filming, a few things happened that were more, “that totally sucks,” worthy, than curse worthy. For instance, Mia Farrow was served with divorce papers from Frank Sinatra while on set. Also, Farrow was a vegetarian, but was forced by Polanski to eat raw liver on camera.
Once the film wrapped, however, there seemed to be some evil still hanging around the cast and crew. Producer William Castle, who claimed the movie was cursed from the beginning, was plagued with terrible gallstones. The composer, Kryzystof Komeda, died of a brain clot. The same way one of the characters dies in the movie.
The most famous reason the film is thought to be cursed is, of course, the famous Manson Family Murders. Polanski’s beautiful and pregnant wife, Sharon Tate was hosting some friends at their home in the Hollywood Hills. Polanksi was in London at the time. It was the night of August 9, 1969 that Tate and four other victims were brutally murdered.
Music producer Terry Melcher had previously resided at the residence. He had made an enemy in Manson when Melcher refused to collaborate on an album with him. Some believe that Manson, believing he still lived there, was actually targeting Melcher that night, and it was just a terrible coincidence (or curse?!) that Tate and Polanski had recently purchased the home.
If you want some even weirder curse stuff, check this out from MNN.com:
"And here’s a string on creepy coincides tied to “Rosemary’s Baby”: Manson was famously obsessed with the Beatles’ “White Album” and went as far to blame the record for his psychotic behavior. John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman at the Dakota, the iconic Manhattan apartment building where Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse reside in “Rosemary’s Baby.” And the subject of the Beatles’ “White Album” hit, “Dear Prudence,” was in fact Mia Farrow’s younger sister, Prudence Farrow, who the band had met while on a spiritual retreat in India."
Maybe curses do exist…
3. Poltergeist
You can’t have a list like this without Poltergeist. Everyone has heard someone say, “Dude, that movie is totally cursed.”
That’s because, dude, it totally is.
First of all, it’s been rumored that real skeletons were used in the famous pool scene. I’ve actually had a few people in the biz confirm this. However, they claim it’s because the foam latex used to make the skeletons look aged needed to be baked. Fake bones melt in the ovens, so scientifically donated skeletons were used since real bones held up against high heat. So there you go, throw that in someones face when they bring it up at Halloween.
This, however, is nothing compared to the many deaths associated with the trilogy.
The first was when Dominique Dunne, who played the Freeling’s teenage daughter, was strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend. Dunne was only 22 at the time.
Dunne’s on screen little sister, the infamous Carol Anne (played by Heather O’Rourke ) also died tragically. O’Rourke had an undiagnosed intestinal blockage that caused septic shock and cardiac arrest. She was twelve when she died, and the third Poltergeist film was released after her death.
Will Sampson, a real life Native American shaman, actually tried to exorcise ‘alien spirits’ from the set of the second film. He died soon after due to complications from a kidney transplant. Julian Beck also starred in the second film and quickly succumbed to stomach cancer.
Oliver Robbins, who played the other Freeling sibling in the first film, was almost killed when the possessed clown malfunctioned on set.
So tell me, why the freaking hell would they want to remake these hell spawned movies? Why??’
2. The Exorcist
Movie buffs are well aware that the Exorcist was one of the most grueling movies to shoot. Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn suffered permanent damage to their backs, the cast was forced to work in freezing temperatures, and director William Friedkin went around slapping people (okay, just one person, but still). The set constantly caught fire, and Friedkin had a priest come pray for the crew and bless the set with holy water.
Approximately nine deaths are linked to the movie (this number has often been debated down to four). Ellen Burstyn confirmed these nine deaths in her 2006 autobiography, and is convinced that the movie was cursed.
Apart from the apparent deaths that took place, there was no mistaking the mass hysteria the film caused. Reports of people fainting, vomiting, having heart attacks, and even one miscarriage came in from all over the world. In Italy a 400-year-old cross was struck by lightening during the premiere. People’s violent reactions to the film were so severe that it was banned in several countries, including England, until recently.
Like Poltergeist, even the sequels weren’t spared. The original director of The Exorcist: The Beginning (my second favorite in the franchise) died before filming even began. The movie was spoken against by the Catholic church, and had to be rewritten.
Seems like someone didn’t want this movie to be made….
1. The Omen
Even if you don’t believe in curses by now, after reading about The Omen, you may start Googling about where to buy sage in bulk to smudge your house of evil spirits.
So for starters, for starters, Gregory Peck, scriptwriter David Seltzer, and producer Mace Neufeld were each in planes on separate occasions during filming that were struck by freaking lightening.
God was like, “Dude, didn’t you guys get the point after the first two? No? Well, bam, there’s number three, now stop making this movie.” And they were all, “You know what God, we’re just going to keep making the movie.” And God goes, “Just get ready, bitches.” Then he put on his wayfarers and lit a cigarette, because it was about to get ugly.
So the crew had booked a plane to use for some aerial shots. At the last minute, the company rented the plane out to another client. Guess what? It crashed. Killing everyone on board.
Director Richard Donner was staying at a hotel while it was bombed by the IRA. The cast also had reservations at a restaurant that they never made, because it too, was bombed by the IRA.
The day after filming the safari park scene, an animal handler was MAULED BY A LION. Oh, and the cemetery dog scene? Those animal handlers were attacked by the dogs.
It was during filming that star Gregory Peck was informed that his son, Jonathan Peck, had shot himself.
And the granddaddy of them all:
A few months after The Omen had wrapped, special effects director John Richardson was driving with his assistant Liz Moore. They were now in the Netherlands to film “A Bridge Too Far”. On their way to set, they were involved in a car accident. An accident so severe that Moore was cut in half. Richardson survived the crash, and as he stumbled away from the wreckage he looked up to see a sign: Ommen 66.6km.
Thanks for reading folks! Now go watch I Love Lucy or something.
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