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| "The Curse" |
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all began during the filming of the first movie. Actress, Jobeth
Williams was pretty leery about doing the 'swimming pool scene' because
it was wet, slippery, and muddy and there were electrical wires and
lights everywhere. Bottom line was she didn't want to get electrocuted.
Selfish huh? Spielberg, being the nice guy that he is, jumped in
the
water and said, "Now if a light falls in, we will both fry." She
finally agreed to do the scene. |
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For those of you that don't
remember the scene, it was the one where she was outside looking for
help, she falls into the muddy swimming pool, and the bodies from the
forgotten cemetery surfaced up from underneath the mud and into the
pool with her. What she didn't know at the time was that the
props used to simulate the corpses, were in fact, real corpses.
This is not a rumor. It's an undisputed FACT. She was told about it
after the fact, and has done many interviews on the subject.
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Needless to say, neither she nor Spielberg were very happy when they
found out about that little tidbit, but unfortunately the damage had
been done. Taking karma into consideration, if you believe in that sort
of thing, it can't be a good thing to use real human corpses for
entertainment purposes.
That's where the believers of the 'Poltergeist Curse' say it began. A lot of people died,
and there's a lot of things that went down.
Anyway, this
subject is controversial from the standpoint that the cast and crew
refuse to acknowledge a curse, and with good reason. These people who
passed were their friends. We have to respect that. I'm just
going to tell the stories and the facts. |
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| The Deaths:
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| Geraldine
Fitzgerald (Jessica
'Gramma Jess' Wilson)
(IMDB) |
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Born: November
24, 1913
Died: July 17, 2005 due to
complications from Alzheimer's disease.
She had a very long career in which she was nominated for an Oscar for
her role as Isabella in Wuthering
Heights in 1939.
She was 91 years old when she passed. She doesn't seem very cursed from
where I stand. |
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Beatrice
Straight (Dr. Lesh)
(IMDB)
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Born: August
2, 1914
Died: April 7, 2001 of
pneumonia.
After 87 years, sometimes people can no longer endure. I hope I am
fortunate to live as long. I don't see the possibility of a curse here
either. She avoided doing movies for most of her career, and stayed on
the stage. When she finally did do a few movies, she got an Academy
Award. No curse awards people, and makes them live that long.
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Julian
Beck (Reverend Henry
Kane)
(IMDB)
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Born: May
31, 1925
Died: September 24, 1985 of stomach
cancer.
He was diagnosed BEFORE accepting the role in the film, so I'm not sure
the curse applies here. Watching the film, you can tell by looking at
him that he was sick, which adds to the creepiness of the role. He
didn't do a lot of movies, as most of his work was in the theater. He
stole the show in Poltergeist II, which he died completing at age 60.
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Brian
Gibson (Director,
Poltergeist II: The Other
Side) (IMDB)
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Born: September
22, 1944
Died: January 4, 2004 of Ewing's
Sarcoma.
Here's where "bad luck" most often associated with a curse starts to
rear it's
ugly head.
Ewing's Sarcoma is a type of bone cancer found mostly in males during
their teen
years, and according to statistics, most people who
get it, don't die from it. He died from it at age 59.
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| Will
Sampson (Taylor)
(IMDB) |
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Born: September
27, 1933
Died: June 3, 1987 of complications
from heart surgery.
He was 53 when he passed. The operation was a heart-lung
transplant. The official cause of death was
pre-operative malnutrition & post-operative kidney failure. HE KNEW he had a slim
chance of survival going into it. Still, 53's a bit young, don'tcha
think? |
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Dominique
Dunne (Dana
Freeling) (IMDB)
(Dominique Dunne
Site)
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Born: November
23, 1959
Died: November 4, 1982. She was
murdered.
She was 22 years old.Her boyfriend strangled her in her driveway while
she was rehearsing lines for a new sci-fi film with a co-star. She went
into a coma, and was pronounced dead four days later. Her killer, John
Sweeney was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, and sentenced to ONLY 6 ½ years in prison. He
was released in less than 4.
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Heather
O'Rourke (Carol Anne
Freeling) (IMDB)
(Heather O'Rourke Memorial Site)
(Heather
O'Rourke Network)
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Born: December
27, 1975
Died: February 1, 1988
Immediately after filming Poltergeist III, she was diagnosed with the
flu. In truth it was a bowel obstruction that sent bacteria through her
bloodstream. She went into cardiac arrest. After her heart was
restarted, she had emergency surgery to have the obstruction removed.
She passed away during the surgery. She was only 12 years old.
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| Poltergeist |
Just like in the movies,
disturbances started small and slowly progressed. As production
continued on the first film, Jobeth Williams would return home after a
day of shooting to find the pictures on her walls off kilter. She'd fix
them, and go to work the next day only to come home and find them all
messed up again.
Another incident was much more serious than moving
pictures. Oliver
Robins(Robbie) was filming the famous 'clown scene' where the clown
attacks him toward the end of the movie. In the scene the clown wraps
it's arms around his neck in order to strangle him. The clown squeezed
tighter and tighter to cut off his oxygen. "I can't breathe!" he
gasped. At the time, both Spielberg and director, Tobe Hooper
believed
it to be a good shot until young Oliver began turning blue. Apparently
there was a malfunction in the robotics used in animating the clown
doll. Fortunately, Oliver wasn't injured.
During filming, author James Kahn was in the process
writing the
Poltergeist novelization. There were a lot of stormy nights in the
story, and as he was writing about one of them, he had a bizarre
occurrence of his own. As he typed the words "thunder and
lightning
ripped the sky," a REAL bolt of lightning hit the building that he was
in. It made his air conditioner explode. The debris flew across the
room, and hit him in the back.
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The production on the film had ended, and all involved were free to do
other projects. Dominique Dunne went on to start filming possibly one
of the
best sci-fi films ever (in my opinion). One night she was rehearsing
lines with co-star, David Packer. While rehearsing, the two friends had
music on in the background.
That night it was the Poltergeist Soundtrack by the late, great
composer Jerry Goldsmith.
Her previously abusive boyfriend, John Sweeney showed up.
She had broken it off with him shortly beforehand, and he was trying to
get
her to take him back. They took their argument outside where he choked
her into a coma. She died four days later and was buried in Westwood
Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Her final film was dedicated to her memory at the end of
it's credits.
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Poltergeist II: The Other Side
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Because of the success of the
first one, the powers that be decided to give it another go with most
of the original cast back on board.
Here
we go again.
Craig T. Nelson told a story about the filming of the cave
scene toward the end of the film. The cave in the story was back in
Cuesta Verde in the same location as the house in the first film.
Inside the cave there were supposed to be the corpses of the people who
had been buried there.
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"I am convinced that the presence of Will
Sampson on this film saved us from tragedy."
-Craig T. Nelson |
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While on the cave set, cast
members always felt an uneasy feeling.
He spoke of a feeling that something just wasn't right about the whole
thing. As it turned out, they did it again. Once again, the props guys
tried to pass real corpses off as fake ones.
How the hell does this happen?
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I don't know exactly
what kind of things
happened on the set, but apparently things got pretty bad because the
production came to a virtual standstill. The bad feeling about the set
among the cast just wouldn't go away either. There was only one thing
left to do. An exorcism was conducted after hours.
Will Sampson, who played Taylor, the Native American shaman in
Poltergeist II was actually a REAL shaman. The studio security was told
to leave the place unlocked so Sampson could come in the middle of the
night and do his exorcism ritual. After that, everything stopped, and
production could continue.
In an interview, Craig T. Nelson spoke of the incident. He
said, "I am convinced that the presence of Will Sampson on this film
saved us from tragedy. Sampson not only plays a shaman, he is himself a
shaman, and I believe that it cost him dearly in terms of his own
personal health to see us safely through."
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Poltergeist
III
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A wise man once said, "if at second you
don't succeed, run it into the ground," and they decided to make
a third film.
By this point, most of the cast of the first two films had
decided that they had enough. Only Zelda Rubenstein who played Tangina
Barrons, and Heather O'Rourke returned for the final film in the series.
Aside from being Lara Flynn Boyle's first film, there were
three bad things that happened during production that are noteworthy.
The least of the three, was during the filming of a scene
in a parking garage, in which the garage was to appear to be on fire.
In reality, the garage was completely engulfed in flames, and only ONE
crew member was NOT injured in the fire.
The second incident was during a photo shoot for the film.
During the shoot, Zelda Rubenstein got a nervously sick feeling as if
something were wrong. After the shoot, she got a phone call. Her mother
had passed away. |
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Later, viewing the pictures
that were taken during that shoot it was noticed that one of the images had an
unexplainable anomaly. A white light was shining over Zelda's face in
ONLY one frame. She claims that that was the moment where she felt ill,
and her mother passed. (still trying to get the pics...If I do, I'll
put them up)
Lastly, and most tragically, immediately after completing
the film, 12 year old Heather O'Rourke had taken ill with the flu,
which made it so shocking to hear that she died of something completely
different. They had to re film one scene without her using a double.
She was also buried in Westwood
Memorial Park in Los Angeles along with her co-star Dominique Dunne.
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| "The Films" |
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When
released, Poltergeist was initially
given an 'R' rating. Filmmakers protested, and they somehow got it down
to a 'PG' rating. Keep in mind, there was no 'PG-13' back then. The PG-13 crap that's supposed to be horror
today isn't
nearly as well done or as creepy as Poltergeist was. Just my opinion of
course.
I was pretty young when the first movie came out. Carol
Anne was a year older than me, if that tells you anything. After
watching it, I was too freaked out to go to bed. Either my closet was
gonna get sucked up and turn into that orange thing, or The Beast was gonna get me, and I had a tree
outside my bedroom window that I was convinced was going to eat me.
Then there was
that
FREAKIN' CLOWN! Where the hell do they get off making that clown a PG
rating? I mean, it was so disturbing that the little boy had to cover
it up with Chewie!
PG my ass.
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The first film was hailed by audiences and
critics alike, the second, although I liked it, was lacking for most
people, and everyone flat hated the third one. With that in mind, I'm
mostly going to be analyzing the first one here.
One of the most interesting aspects of the first film is
that it's almost 100% fabrication. An evil spirit from another
dimension sucks a little girl into her closet, and they talk to her
through the television. The premise isn't the slightest bit realistic.
Is it? Not even for people like me who believe in this crazy stuff.
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I've done my research. There
are a LOT of people who get
freaked out by this flick. It's interesting that a horror movie rated PG
that has almost nothing realistic within it can be so creepy to so many
people after all these years.
I'm of course exaggerating a little about the realness
factor of the film. Surely, the plot is insane on the real scale, but
there are elements that are completely plausible. The television set
picking up frequencies from the 'other side', which is discussed in greater detail on
our EVP page, is nothing new to paranormal
investigators.
The main point about the film
that I think needs to be discussed further is an idea that was taken
one more step in Poltergeist II. In Poltergeist, she got sucked into
the closet, and in Poltergeist II, they jumped into the fire in that
cave. They ended up in this weird place with really spooky stuff.
The idea of the possibility
of another realm of existence,
for lack of better words, is
what I'm referring to. Is it
really THAT far fetched? Think about it for a second. People supposedly
communicate with 'the other side' on a regular basis. People are always
using Ouija boards, conducting séances, talking to John Edwards,
or even recording E.V.P.'s. Assuming that they ARE in fact talking to,
or recording spirits, those spirits HAVE to be communicating from somewhere, don't they?
Do they just come to visit us from time to time, and then
go back? Where do they go? They COULD be in the same room
with you, but the possibility exists that they're somewhere else
entirely, and if they are, can WE go to them as they come to us? |
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Poltergeist
Curse Radio Interview
On another note, I had recently been invited to do an
internet radio interview by New
England Ghost Project show, The Ghost Chronicles, featured on Ghostvillage.com. The show
aired on Feb 8th, and although I had a lot of fun, I was having trouble
hearing what was being said on the other end. There was an echo or
something that made me COMPLETELY misunderstand one of their questions
and answer it in a totally stupid way.
The interview, was primarily about the Poltergeist Curse,
but the question was about the Bloody Mary legend, and I heard it all
wrong and went off on a completely unrelated tangent.
Anyway, if you wanna hear me make an ass out of myself on the radio, Click
Here, to download the show!
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Here are some other Poltergeist related
pages:
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