Mishaps, hospitalizations, and eerie coincidences apparently plagued the set of the Netflix horror film "The Deliverance." They even kept an exorcist of sorts on set.
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00:00Mishaps, hospitalizations, and eerie coincidences apparently plagued the Netflix horror film
00:06The Deliverance. They even kept an exorcist of sorts on set.
00:10It's not exactly unusual for horror movies to develop a reputation for spooky on-set
00:15happenings. Some have even been considered cursed. The Deliverance, which hit Netflix
00:19on August 30th, is the latest in a long line of scary movies with bizarre occurrences plaguing
00:24their shoots.
00:25Directed by Lee Daniels, it stars Andra Day as Ebony Jackson, a single mother who moves
00:30her family into a new house in Indiana. And, surprise, their new home has a malevolent
00:34presence contained within it — one that begins to have an unsettling impact on her
00:38three children.
00:39It wasn't long into the film's shoot that reality began to reflect the quasi-fictional
00:44world of The Deliverance, which is based on real-life alleged hauntings. From on-set health
00:48emergencies to the deaths of beloved pets, the film set experienced terrifying, unexplained
00:54events that disturbed the cast and crew.
00:56The Deliverance was based on the true story of the Ammons family, who allegedly experienced
01:00a terrifying series of supernatural events over the course of a year when they moved
01:04into a new home in Gary, Indiana, in 2011. They reported perpetual infestations of black
01:10flies regardless of weather conditions and how regularly they were exterminated.
01:15Things got more frightening when the Ammons' children began to bear the brunt of the house's
01:18supernatural presence. The stories say they were levitated, thrown around the room, and
01:23supposedly possessed.
01:24It's your first look inside the house known as the Portal to Hell.
01:29Adapting the story for Netflix apparently came with some eerie coincidences.
01:33Oscar-winner Monique didn't escape the ravages of shooting The Deliverance. At one point
01:38during the production, she actually had to go to the hospital directly from set. She
01:42explained in a SiriusXM interview she had to do a scene that involved having a big fan
01:46blowing at her, but started having trouble breathing.
01:48At one point, I'm like, lady, do we have this shit? Because I can't breathe.
01:53They kept filming, and by the time they stopped, Monique's thyroid had swelled, and she had
01:57to be taken to the hospital.
01:58So when I got finished, right, my thyroid was a big, I mean, it was just sick.
02:06Whether her health scare was a result of supernatural forces or simply the effect of difficult shooting
02:10conditions, it's hard to deny that the feeling on set was that they needed to be careful,
02:15given the dark subject matter of the film. And that was far from the end of the troubles
02:19the cast members of the movie faced. Plenty of other strange — and sad — things happened
02:24while Daniels and his team were making The Deliverance. A fire extinguisher backfired
02:28on one of the crew members and hit them in the face, nearly blinding them. And just days
02:32after his sister, Girly Daniels, performed in a scene where Glenn Close's character is
02:36receiving chemotherapy treatment, she herself was diagnosed with lung cancer.
02:41To add to the bad news for the Daniels family during the film shoot, Lee's pet dog died
02:45mid-production.
02:47Daniels' mom was certainly worried about the impact of the film's subject matter on the
02:50project. As he told Variety in a recent interview,
02:53Years earlier, when he was first approached with the script, she convinced him not to
02:57take on the project.
02:58"...My mom talked me out of it, because she really believed I'm an open portal for all
03:02sorts of energies, and she really felt that if I was going to do that, something bad was
03:06going to happen to me."
03:07Daniels knew going into the project that, given its subject matter, he wanted to take
03:11preventative, faith-based measures to avoid the darkness of the film from seeping into
03:16the experiences of the cast and crew.
03:18In addition to hiring a professional deliverer to be on set — a profession that seems sort
03:22of like a reverse exorcist — he introduced prayer, hoping it would counteract any demonic
03:27influences.
03:28They laid down the palms and they welcomed Jesus and gave him the entrance."
03:34Daniels told Variety,
03:35"...We prayed every day. Interestingly enough, H.R. from Netflix tapped me the first day
03:39we started praying and said, this could be offensive to people and you can't. I go, wait
03:43a minute, we've got to figure something out, because I can't go in this jungle without
03:47praying every day."
03:48Apparently, the solution was to give the cast and crew an out if they weren't interested
03:52in participating in the prayer circle, but Daniels claims that most stayed.
03:55"...Was that your first time sort of experiencing that sort of experience, too?"
03:59"...Praying in a circle on a set?"
04:00"...Yeah."
04:01"...Yes."