Film lore is filled with strange , tragic stories : unresolved murders , on - set tragedy , gruesome accidents and outlandish twists of destiny . Sometimes a train of tragedy line up like an arrow of dark portion pointing at one particular photographic film production . Over the twelvemonth , the film develops a reputation : parturban fable , part warning tale . The movie is cursed !
Of course , we know that curses are n’t veridical , but we humans innately observe patterns in random outcome and focalise on evidence that sustain an exciting or shocking narrative . Bad things befall on almost everyfilm set , and prospect dictate that sometimes a crew of unsound matter all happen on the same set . When that occur , we point to events that are otherwise unrelated and fold them into the story of " the scourge . " And there ’s no denying that they make for great stories .
It ’s crafty to define what exactly count as a cursed movie . Some flick have such a reputation for disaster that they ’re frequently link up to a curse story ( " Poltergeist " anyone ? ) . Yet other production are beset by chaos and difficulty but never acquire the whammy title . Still others are marked by a exclusive tragedy ( read : " The Crow " ) , but they do n’t have the foresighted series of misfortunes that make up a right whammy . in conclusion , some films are said to be haunted . While a haunting is n’t of necessity a curse , a few unredeemed movies also seem to contain elements of a haunting . We ’ll cover up all of these different representative .
Now make some popcorn and get ready for 10 of the most unredeemed moving picture in plastic film history .
10: ‘Poltergeist’
This reign as probably the most well - live movie curse , and it ’s much a text definition of one . The introductory account go like this : A mountain of worker who work on the film finally died out of the blue . Once you take a close look at the outcome surrounding the movie , it also becomes a textbook example of why the idea of curses is silly .
The three original " Poltergeist"movies were discharge in 1982 , 1986 and 1988 , severally . The two death that seem to give the oath the most adhesive friction are those of stars Dominique Dunne and Heather O’Rourke . Both died circumstantially under surprising circumstances and at very young long time . Dunne , 22 , was suffocate to decease by her ex - boyfriend in recent 1982 , a few months after " Poltergeist " was released . O’Rourke die in 1988 , after filming for " Poltergeist 2 " had been mostly completed . She had been diagnosed with the flu , but she really had an intestinal block that led to a pump attack and ultimately sepsis . She was 12 .
The death of Will Sampson and Julian Beck are oft tied to the curse as well , but both die of long - stand up medical problems . Sampson was 53 and died of complications following a heart / lung transplant in 1987 ; Beck , 60 , croak of abdomen cancer in 1985 .
All of these end are surely tragic and no doubt terrible for admirer and family ; however , four deaths related to a trilogy of movies does n’t even seem like a statistical anomaly . It ’s really the gamey - profile nature of Dunne ’s and O’Rourke ’s expiry that make this curse . Although actress JoBeth Williams claiming that real skeletons were used in the pool scene probably helped , too . In fact , plenty of citizenry who worked on these moving picture are alert and well and love depart degree of succeeder afterwards . Steven Spielbergseems to have done OK , and you ’d think if there were a oath it would hit the producer / conductor hardest .
9: ‘The Wizard of Oz’
The 1939 film version of L. Frank Baum ’s classic fantasy story is one of the original Hollywood legends . The seemingly pollyannaish , Technicolor land of Oz hid a dark and troubled yield label by tragedy and misery . Or so the news report proceed .
It ’s true that several torturous incident did befall cast members . Buddy Ebsen ( the Tin Man ) suffered awfully when the aluminum pulverisation used to make his skin flatware get at his lung and leave him in the hospital , unable to continue in the character . Margaret Hamilton ( the Wicked Witch of the West ) was burned when the pyrotechnics that marked her teleportation piece misfired . She returned to the circle only after find in a hospital .
Other incidents included flying scamp flight failure , contrary Munchkins and a conga line of directors being replaced for various reasons . There ’s even an urban legend that a Munchkin hanging himself was caught on film and accidentally left in the motion picture ( not true ) . agree to MGM ’s creative accounting , " The Wizard of Oz " lost money until its 1949 rerelease allowed it to turn a profit [ source : Corliss ] .
Much of the curse focuses on tragedies in the lives of certain cast members , like Clara Blandick ( Auntie Em ) commit self-destruction many years later , or Frank Morgan ( the Wizard ) being injured in a car accident a few months after the film ’s firing . This is a theme we ’ll turn back to in this list – everyone dies eventually . Of the hundreds of the great unwashed who work on a given film , some are bind to have noted deaths , and 100 pct of them will die . It does n’t intend there ’s a curse .
If there truly is a darkness at the meat of " The Wizard of Oz , " it surrounds Dorothy herself . Judy Garland was beloved as an actress and a singer , but she was treated awfully by the Hollywood studio system . She was forced to take bizarre measure to keep from gain weight ( including smoking XII of coffin nail every day ) , was givendrugsto help her defend the studio ’s brutal product step and was fundamentally treated as a human trade good [ source : Norman ] . She drink down herself when she was 47 .
8: ‘Superman’
" Superman " seems less a damned film than a cursed character . Several actors who limn the Man of Steel over the decades have suffered tragic accidents and unexpected deaths . In fact , the majority of the citizenry who have played Superman or been involved in productions of " Superman " are now dead ! Of of course , the superhero first appeared on photographic film in the forties , so that ’s not surprising . Plenty of Superman role player went on to have okay careers and exit many years after they last wear the big , red cape . A few were even animated and well as of this writing . Furthermore , some of the events link to the nemesis are ridiculous , like people getting fired from studio , suffering underage accidents or violate up with their significant other .
So why is this such a famous Hollywood curse ? Because of two high - profile tragedies that befall Superman actors . The first was George Reeves , who played the superhero in one film and in a democratic 1950s television series called " Adventures of Superman . " Reeves became so closely identified with the character that he had a hard sentence get unrelated work . reef did n’t see the use interesting or challenging , and it did n’t pay well [ source : Patterson ] . This seems to have created some intimate turmoil and natural depression . On June 6 , 1959 , Reeves went upstairs at his own home , furious at the noise from a company his fiancee and some Friend were have . Officially , he dash himself in the head , although the case is a famous Hollywood scandal , complete with alleged cover - ups and other uncorroborated theories .
And then we have Christopher Reeve , who portray the last son of Krypton in a serial ofblockbuster filmsin the 1970s and ' 80s . He was seriously injured when he was throw from a horse cavalry in 1995 , eight year after he last played Superman . The fortuity go out him paralyzed from the neck down , but he continued to direct and work , and worked to raise enquiry that could cure spinal injury until his death in 2004 .
Reeve ’s story is incredibly tragic , even more so when you consider that his married woman Dana , who firm supported Reeve after the injury , died ofcancerless than two years after he died . In that story , we hear the unknown echoes of George Reeves ' own tragedy : their funnily similar figure , their heroic prototype and their tragical remnant .
7: ‘The Conqueror’
" The Conqueror " might be the only movie on this list that was truly , genuinely curse – byatomic bombs . Its plot revolve around onGenghis Khanand a woman named Bortai , whom he kidnaps and power to get married him . The motion picture came with an astonishingly terrible script and starred John Wayne , who played Khan and is n’t remotely Mongolian .
But none of that is really why " The Conqueror " was imprecate . Filmed in Utah , the location was less than 150 miles ( 241 kilometers ) from the Nevada Test Site , where the U.S. government had go under off 11 above - ground atomic bombs the twelvemonth before . radioactive dust from those blasts could have linger , and the canyons where they filmed would have funneled wind - driven fallout , trap much of it in the heavy detritus and crap . During shooting , actors and crew were constantly caked in dust blow by the wind . Later on , producer Howard Hughes ship 60 net ton ( 54 metric tons ) of the radioactive grime back to RKO studios for reshoots [ source : Jackovich and Sennet ] .
In the years after the movie ’s handout , at least 91 penis of the mold and crew ( out of 220 sum ) were diagnosed with cancer . Pedro Armendariz beat kidney Crab and then kill himself when a newfangled form of Crab was observe . Wayne died after battling a motley of cancers ( lung and breadbasket , primarily ) . Agnes Moorehead died of uterine malignant neoplastic disease . Jeanne Gerson had pelt cancer , then chest cancer . Susan Hayward croak of brainiac cancer . Director Dick Powell died of lung cancer . Even some actor ' nipper who visited the set get by with cancer by and by in life .
Statistically , it seems that the photographic film ’s bunch suffered above medium genus Cancer rates . mass mag reportedon " The Conqueror " cancer connection in 1980 , when they quoted Dr. Robert C. Pendleton , director of radiological health at the University of Utah : " With these numbers , this guinea pig could characterise as an epidemic … in a radical this size of it you ’d expect only 30 - some cancers to develop . With 91 , I believe the tie - in to their pic on the curing of " The Conqueror " would take up even in a court of law . "
If we wear that more Crab typesetter’s case occurred after People ’s 1980 exposé , it would seem that " The Conqueror " was truly a deadly movie to people who spent only a few months work on it . conceive of the effects on the people who subsist there .
6: ‘The Omen’
This horror film about the Antichrist appearing as a lilliputian boy and inflicting all kinds of satanic havoc on the people around him was free in 1976 . A series of catastrophes surrounded the film ’s production , leading to the legend of " The Omen " scourge .
Any claim that a horror film is damn should plausibly be looked at with a skeptical oculus . Today it seems to be a standard part of the merchandising programme for any horror movie , and fib of this motion picture ’s curse do seem to be embellished with unlikely , unprovable detail . Still , a lot of terrible thing did happenduring , not following , production of " The Omen . " The film ’s macabre subject field subject makes it light for our imaginations to relate the inauspicious events to an malefic force working to foreclose the film from ever being made .
Where did the curse begin ? Actor Gregory Peck ’s son commit self-annihilation before film even began . Peck ’s plane was struck bylightningen road to London , as was a producer ’s woodworking plane . The London hotel where that same manufacturer and others were staying was bombed by the IRA ( Irish Republican Army ) . A planned excursion by some cast and crew to a eatery was cancelled when the eating house also was flush it . A programme to lease a secret jet for some aeriform footage was shelve so a group of businesspeople could use the blue jet , which crashed on takeoff ( in this casing , the curse plainly saved some fellow member of the crew ) . A proletarian at an animal chancel where they shoot was pour down by atiger .
The capstone to the curse was the car crash involving John Richardson , who had designed the exceptional effects for " The prognostication , " many of them very macabre . He was in Holland a few month later work on " A Bridge Too Far " when his railroad car was in a school principal - on crash . He was wound , and assistant Liz Moore was killed by beheading . Richardson claimed that he awake to see a route sign in his sight express the distance to the next township down the road . It happened to be the Dutch townsfolk of Ommen . The distance was 66.6 kilometers ( 41.3 miles ) .
5: ‘Apocalypse Now’
Francis Ford Coppola ’s self - financed epic retelling of the Holy Scripture " Heart of Darkness"suffered from one of the more minor forms of motion picture jinx . While it was profoundly disruptive , no one died while it was being made , and its eventual achiever boosted the careers of many involved . In fact , it ’s rarely referred to as a nemesis , which makes you wonder what it takes to get an " official " Hollywood curse . credibly more tragedy .
limit in Vietnam , the film was shot in the Philippines . Typhoon Olga destroyed several large sets , causing expensive shot delays . The crew ’s payroll department was steal . Helicoptersneeded for one scene were amuse to assault Filipino Johnny Reb . Then , once filming got back underway , one of the flick ’s biggest stars , Marlon Brando , come extremely overweight and incapable of memorize his line . Coppola rewrote the ending extensively to accommodate the limitation imposed by Brando ’s heft and lack of agility . Meanwhile , Martin Sheen was struggling withalcoholismand had a centre plan of attack during production . One scene in which his fibre has a nervous equipment failure in a hotel room depicted a drunk Sheen accidentally ruin a mirror and ignore his helping hand open . The visceral footage was used in the film ’s final undercut . The infotainment " inwardness of Darkness : A Filmmaker ’s Revelation " by Eleanor Coppola ( Francis Ford Coppola ’s wife ) documents much of the chaos besiege the production of " Apocalypse Now . "
Coppola himself was deeply troubled throughout the production , as the stress of his own failure if the film go bad , the hard locations and his own personal topic drove him to threaten self-destruction and consider abandon the labor . In the end , " Apocalypse Now " dominated the Oscars , win awarding for best cinematography and safe sound and receiving nominating address in six other category , and is widely consider one of the greatest films ever made . Which is n’t much of a expletive .
4: ‘Brainstorm’
This is one you wo n’t find on many tilt of cursed movies , although Hollywood superstar Natalie Wood died during the cinematography of the 1983 sci - fi flick " insight . " In fact , many multitude lump in her demise , along with that of James Dean and Sal Mineo , as part of the " Rebel Without a causal agent " curse . So why is Wood ’s final plastic film a just curse nominee ? For one affair , the timing between the film and her death is much closer .
Wood overwhelm after being on a yacht with hubby Robert Wagner . Aside from the boat ’s senior pilot , there was one other person aboard : her " Brainstorm " co - lead , Christopher Walken . No one claimed to have see to it Wood light into the water , so it was surmised that she was drunk and fell in . The headwaiter claim many years afterwards that Wagner hadkilledher , but no one was ever institutionalise . For decades , her death was classify as an accident , but self-assurance changed it to " undetermined " in 2012 . It ’s one of Hollywood ’s biggest scandals .
That ’s still not enough for a curse though . So how about this : Wood ’s death forced the use of a eubstance three-fold to make out filming , then the moving picture ’s release was detain until 1983 by a variety of Byzantine film industry fiscal dealing . When it was finally released , it was bury with virtually no merchandising , and it predictably lost money . The intact ordeal was so awful that it ended Douglas Trumbull ’s career as a plastic film director . He never direct another film , although he did grow innovative limited effect technology for movies andtheme park ride .
3: ‘The Exorcist’
This 1973 film , based on a novel by Peter Blatty , shocked audience with its depiction of a untested girl possessed by a monster and the endeavor of a Catholic priest to save her . The dark guinea pig matter led to reports of a film curse . Controversy surrounded the film upon its exit , since many believed it exert a demonic influence on audiences .
It ’s dependable to say the curse surrounding " The exorciser " is the work of a film studio apartment marketing department . near every report of the dire curse can be follow to a single source : an " E ! True Hollywood Story " episode title " Curse of the exorciser . " Padded to last two hour , the episode creates incidents out of whole cloth ( a crucifix on a nearby church being struck by lightning during the film ’s premiere in Rome ) , greatly exaggerates minor incident ( Ellen Burstyn ’s minorback injuryduring filming became a " spinal injury " ) , make unsupported claims ( supposedly nine peoplediedduring cinematography ) and gives charlatans middle stage ( Billy Graham claiming the factual strong-arm film the movie was print on was infused with diabolic power ) .
A lot of motion-picture show curse are really startling coincidences that appear to form a radiation pattern , but there ’s no happenstance with the"Exorcist"curse . The " E ! True Hollywood Story " episode about the cuss was broadcast on Aug. 15 , 2004 . An " Exorcist " prequel , " exorciser : The Beginning , " attain theaters on Aug. 20 , 2004 .
2: ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’
Is it possible for a movie to be anathemise without it ever having been made into a motion picture ? John Kennedy Toole write this satirical novel before his suicide in 1969 . Only the oeuvre of his mother got it published at all , but it won a Pulitzer Prize for fabrication in 1981 . Efforts to turn it into a film start almost immediately but were derailed by the death of the lead actor at every turn . First it was to be directed by Harold Ramis and to asterisk John Belushi . Belushi died . John Candy signed on to act the spark advance . He died . Chris Farley was the next histrion attached to the moving picture . He died .
A version starring Will Ferrell seemed to be moving toward filming , but whatever strange force are describe up against this picture show feel that killing off Ferrell would be too predictable . Instead , the psyche of the Louisiana State Film Commission wasmurdered(“Confederacy " is adjust in New Orleans ) , andHurricane Katrinadestroyed share of the city that would be want as locations . The film remains unmade .
1: ‘Atuk’
This curse is a unearthly one because it ’s fundamentally the same as " Confederacy of Dunces . " It ’s the rarefied case where a individual curse is powerful to cover two unmade comedy films . Almost everything is the same : John Belushi was set to asterisk in this caustic remark about an Inuit huntsman in New York City , but he died . John Candy and Chris Farley were also going to flirt Atuk at various times , but they died before production began .
The dispute with " Atuk " is that the motion-picture show was about to be filmed with comedian Sam Kinison . Kinison himself necessitate creative control of the project and want to rewrite major parts of the script , then allegedly threatened to intentionally do a bad jobactingif he did n’t get his path [ source : Raouf ] . There werelawsuits , but it all come to nothing when Kinison died in a car crash .
The message here ? Do n’t mess with " Atuk . "
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This is such a fun topic cave by the fact that curse word do n’t really exist . But it was a great exculpation to tell a bunch of tarradiddle about weird things that pass off on plastic film sets . As every movie lover experience , things that hap to role player are a trillion time more of import than things that happen to normal homo .
