Was "The Innkeepers" shot at an actual haunted hotel? Did a movie anthology's sudden tragedy change Hollywood forever? Did Annabelle actually come home during the filming of "Annabelle Comes Home?" Here are the horror movies that were cursed in real life.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00 Was "The Innkeeper" shot at an actual haunted hotel?
00:03 Did a movie anthology's sudden tragedy change Hollywood forever?
00:07 Did Annabelle actually come home during the filming of Annabelle Comes Home?
00:11 Here are the horror movies that were cursed in real life.
00:16 Rosemary's Baby, based on Ira Levin's 1967 novel, was an extremely successful film.
00:21 It was Roman Polanski's American debut, and established him as one of the most distinctive
00:25 filmmakers of the time, as well as cementing Mia Farrow's status as a movie star.
00:30 "It's alive!
00:31 God, it's moving!
00:32 It's alive, it's alright!
00:33 Mia, wait."
00:38 It was also plagued by deaths among the cast and crew, who died in strange and tragic ways.
00:45 At a party, the film's composer, Christoph Kometa, fell off a rocky slope and into a
00:49 coma that he never recovered from, similar to the actions that the witches take in the
00:53 novel to get rid of Rosemary's friend.
00:56 Then there's also the story of Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski's wife.
01:00 Reportedly, Tate auditioned repeatedly for the role of Rosemary, which ended up going
01:04 to Farrow.
01:05 She makes a background appearance in one of the film's scenes.
01:08 "You dirty, stinkin' secret keeper!
01:12 Congratulations!"
01:13 While the film was still in theaters, Tate was killed in her home by followers of Charles
01:17 Manson.
01:18 At the time, she was pregnant.
01:21 All of these events stoked the fear and the interest of the public, giving the film a
01:24 bump in popularity and an infamous reputation.
01:27 Levin himself said that he had mixed feelings about the film, claiming that while it gave
01:31 him access to exclusive literary circles, it also helped popularize the occult and Satanism,
01:37 which was prevalent during that time period.
01:39 "God is dead!
01:41 Satan lives!
01:42 The year is won!
01:45 Hail Satan!"
01:46 The Exorcist is easily one of the most revered horror films in history, one that even non-horror
01:51 fans can't help but admire.
01:53 Upon its release in 1973, the iconic film sparked theater walkouts, made people pass
01:58 out mid-screening, and in what has to be the best marketing strategy on the planet, saw
02:03 theater attendants hand out barf bags to audience members.
02:07 The Exorcist is a terrifying film, following Regan and her mother, who, after witnessing
02:12 some increasingly strange behavior from her daughter, first seeks medical help to no avail.
02:17 Eventually, she finds her way to a priest, who confirms that Regan is possessed and fights
02:21 with everything he has to save her.
02:23 "Look, your daughter doesn't say she's a demon, she says she's the devil himself."
02:28 The Exorcist set was plagued with injuries, including one that affected Linda Blair.
02:33 The injury occurred in a scene during which Regan is in the throes of her demonic possession.
02:37 Blair thrashed around with the help of a rig that kept her tied to the moving bed.
02:42 In one of the takes, the lacing came undone.
02:44 Blair explained in an episode of the documentary Cursed Films,
02:47 "I'm crying, I'm screaming, they think I'm acting up a storm.
02:51 It fractured my lower spine.
02:53 No they didn't send me to the doctor, it is the footage that's in the movie."
02:57 Aside from injuries, there was also a fire that burned the majority of the set, all except
03:02 for Regan's room.
03:03 "I don't know.
03:04 It sure seems fishy."
03:07 Things didn't stop once the film debuted, either.
03:10 One audience member sued Warner Bros. after he passed out during a screening, fell out
03:14 of his chair, and broke his jaw.
03:17 The Omen is a story that builds on the lies of a father, taking them in terrifying directions.
03:23 Following a traumatic stillbirth, Robert Thorne takes a child from the hospital ward and hands
03:27 it to his wife, pretending that he is their son.
03:30 As luck would have it, the child turns out to be the Antichrist.
03:34 Released in 1976, the film tapped into the success of The Exorcist, another film that
03:39 specifically targeted Catholic fears, making the production ripe for spooky goings-on.
03:44 "This is it.
03:45 Don't get scared now."
03:47 Production on The Omen was controversial from the get-go.
03:50 Executive Bob Munger, who pitched the original story, warned the producer about the dangers
03:54 of making a film like this.
03:56 He said,
03:57 "If the devil's greatest single weapon is to be invisible, and you're going to do something
04:00 which is going to take away his invisibility to millions of people, he's not going to want
04:04 that to happen."
04:05 "Arrest my case."
04:07 In production, tragedy struck.
04:09 Lead actor Gregory Peck's son died by suicide, and his plane was struck by lightning when
04:14 he was flying to London for the role.
04:16 Mark Neufeld, one of the film's executives, also said his plane was struck by lightning
04:20 when flying to L.A.
04:22 Stories like this continued to plague the production, resulting in the death of an animal
04:25 trainer on set and a special effects artist's involvement in a fatal car crash that recalled
04:31 the fatality he created for the film.
04:33 According to a persistent urban legend, a sign near the site of the accident read, "Omen,
04:39 66.6 kilometers."
04:41 As we leave behind the horror films of the '70s, we quickly run into Poltergeist, released
04:45 in 1982.
04:47 This horror classic follows the Freelings as they battle a haunting after their youngest
04:51 daughter is abducted by spirits who communicated with her through the family's TV set.
04:55 The Poltergeist curse is one of the most famous in movie history, spawning both E! Hollywood
05:00 specials and an episode of the previously mentioned documentary series, Cursed Films.
05:04 "Some people think that if you just don't believe in this kind of stuff, you can't be
05:08 harmed by it.
05:09 We call those targets."
05:11 Among the tragedies that surround Poltergeist, the most striking is the high number of deaths
05:16 associated with the film and its sequels.
05:18 Four cast members died during or after working on a Poltergeist movie.
05:23 Heather O'Rourke, the little girl who served as the face of the series, Dominique Dunne,
05:27 Julian Beck, and Will Sampson.
05:30 Other creepy things happened on set, including a rumor that real human skeletons were used
05:34 for the iconic pool scene, and that an exorcism was conducted on set after shooting wrapped.
05:40 One of the most horrible tragedies in Hollywood history occurred during the shooting of the
05:44 movie adaptation of The Twilight Zone, when Vic Morrow was killed alongside two child
05:49 actors in a horrific and arguably preventable accident.
05:53 "The helicopter crashed just before 2.30 in the Indian Dunes Park as a Warner Brothers
05:59 crew was about to wrap up filming the new Twilight Zone movie."
06:02 The Twilight Zone featured four stories, each one adapted by a different director — Steven
06:07 Spielberg, Joe Dante, George Miller, and John Landis.
06:11 If nothing else, you probably remember that one scene where Dan Aykroyd asked the infamous
06:16 question,
06:17 "Hey, you wanna see something really scary?"
06:20 "You bet."
06:21 "Really?"
06:22 "Yeah."
06:23 Reportedly, Landis' attitude on set was dictatorial and scared some of the crew members into silence
06:29 when conducting the stunts.
06:31 In the film, a racist portrayed by Morrow travels through time and must rescue two Vietnamese
06:36 children from an American raid.
06:38 In the midst of the mayhem, the pilot handling the helicopter on set lost control of the
06:42 aircraft, killing the three actors, forever changing Landis' career and sparking a variety
06:48 of civil suits against the studio and the director.
06:51 While the tragedy remains as one of the great Hollywood horror stories, it did force the
06:55 film industry to place more importance on safety on their film sets, leading to the
06:59 creation of risk management jobs and new rules for the use of gunfire, planes, pyrotechnics,
07:04 and more.
07:05 While it is not strictly a horror film, The Crow is a macabre, gothic superhero movie
07:10 that's heavily influenced by horror classics.
07:13 It's also one of the most tragic Hollywood productions to date.
07:16 Directed by Alex Proyas and released in 1994, The Crow is a comic book adaptation starring
07:21 Brandon Lee as Eric Draven, a man who is murdered alongside his fiancée by a group of gang
07:26 members right before Halloween.
07:28 Some time later, a crow with mystical powers brings Eric back from the dead, setting the
07:33 stage for his revenge against those who murdered him.
07:36 "Suddenly, I heard a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."
07:43 The Crow had a slow and rocky production.
07:46 According to Cursed Films, a mysterious figure called the offices during pre-production and
07:51 asked them to halt the production.
07:53 This was followed by multiple tragedies.
07:55 An electrician was badly burned.
07:58 Others were injured.
07:59 Then, Lee died as the film was finishing filming, shot by accident when a prop gun malfunctioned.
08:04 "Everybody waits for him to get up, and he didn't get up.
08:09 He just stayed there."
08:12 Since the film was late in production, the person responsible for handling weapon safety
08:16 wasn't around to supervise the scene, and wasn't able to ensure that all props were
08:20 safe to use.
08:21 Lee's scenes were completed by using a mixture of body doubles and then-revolutionary CGI,
08:26 but the film's tragic legacy remains to this day, impossible to separate from the story
08:31 itself.
08:32 Released in 2005, The Exorcism of Emily Rose is an interesting hybrid.
08:37 It's part horror film and part legal drama, resulting in something that manages to stand
08:42 out amid the exorcism subgenre, which generally relies on cheap jump scares and spooky face
08:47 contortions.
08:48 "Ahh!"
08:52 Loosely based on a true story, The Exorcism of Emily Rose follows Aaron, an agnostic lawyer
08:58 tasked with defending a priest who's been accused of homicide after conducting an exorcism
09:02 that resulted in the death of Emily Rose.
09:05 The film follows two separate storylines, the present which involves the legal drama,
09:10 and the past which depicts the exorcism in question, and features Jennifer Carpenter's
09:14 captivating performance as the possessed woman.
09:16 According to Carpenter, her radio would turn on at random times during the middle of the
09:20 night while she was shooting the film.
09:22 The director Scott Derrickson confirmed this rumor, and said that this also occurred to
09:27 Laura Linney, who plays Aaron.
09:29 Ty West was one of the horror auteurs of the 2000s, making a string of scary, gory, and
09:35 fun movies that opened the genre up to people who wouldn't usually gravitate towards horror.
09:40 The Innkeepers, released in 2011, tells the story of two hotel workers in New England
09:45 who, when looking into stories of hauntings, awaken a dangerous presence.
09:49 "Did you feel that?"
09:54 Interestingly, West decided to make the film after hearing that the hotel where his crew
09:59 stayed while shooting his previous film, The House of the Devil, was haunted.
10:03 Well, the hotel that inspired the film is actually in the film.
10:07 The staff at the hotel believe it's haunted.
10:09 The whole town believes it's haunted.
10:11 So it has this kind of mystique to it.
10:13 West and the cast lived in the hotel for the duration of shooting.
10:17 While he said that he's a skeptic and doesn't believe in ghosts, he and the rest of the
10:20 cast did experience some unexplainable phenomena during their time in the hotel.
10:24 Sarah Paxton, the star of The Innkeepers, said that her door would violently fly open
10:28 in the middle of the night, TVs would turn on and off on their own, and pretty much everyone
10:33 claimed to have had overly vivid dreams.
10:37 The Conjuring spawned a whole interconnected universe of modern horror films, many of which
10:41 are amongst the best in the genre.
10:43 The original film, released in 2013 and directed by James Wan, is a stylistic and terrifying
10:49 reinterpretation of a true story.
10:51 The film follows paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren as they investigate
10:55 the Perron's home, where there's a supernatural presence that starts to escalate in disturbing
11:00 ways.
11:01 "Something awful happened here, Ed."
11:08 The Perron's story deeply affected everyone involved in it, from the Warrens themselves
11:12 to the cast and crew of the film.
11:14 Vera Farmiga, who played Lorraine Warren, found herself waking up between 3 and 4 a.m.
11:19 every night during the shoot.
11:21 This hour has long been associated with spirits and the devil.
11:24 In the case of The Conjuring, that's also when the witch character dies.
11:28 Farmiga also reported finding claw marks, first on her computer screen and then on her
11:32 leg.
11:33 While the film never halted production, the experiences were strange enough that the team
11:37 behind The Conjuring 2 hired a priest to bless the set before filming started.
11:42 If there's something to be learned from all of this, it's that when depicting the paranormal,
11:46 you can never be too safe.
11:53 Another installment in The Conjuring series, Annabelle Comes Home, was another seemingly
11:57 cursed production.
11:58 Released in 2019, the film stars franchise newcomer McKenna Grace and series veterans
12:04 Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga.
12:06 Adding another chapter to the Warrens saga, Annabelle Comes Home follows a possessed doll
12:10 that starts tormenting the couple's daughter and babysitter.
12:14 "What is happening?"
12:20 In conversation with The Wrap, Grace talked about her experiences shooting the film, which
12:25 included doors opening and closing and shadowy figures appearing on location.
12:29 Grace said,
12:30 "The two of us were on set together for the first time, the lights went out, and we were
12:34 all freaking out and asking, 'Annabelle, are you there?'
12:37 Then the lights turned back on and my nose was bleeding, so heavily.
12:41 It happens sometimes because of allergies, but not this heavy.
12:44 As soon as I left set to get a tissue, it stopped."
12:47 Production notes also state that a piano bench moved around without explanation, and
12:52 that while visiting the set, a journalist's watch went haywire, skipping hours ahead.
12:57 For more information, visit www.fema.gov/wpn.