The Paranoid Style Podcast
The Paranoid Style Podcast
More Cursed Movies
This week The Paranoid Style Podcast is back at the cursed movie well… Presenting… More Cursed Movies! Now with 90% less Satanic possession! We are once again looking into the strange occurrences, mysterious deaths, and rogue lightning that seem to plague some movies. This time around we're overanalyzing 1976's The Omen, 1955's Rebel Without a Cause, 1982's Poltergeist, and 1979's The Amityville Horror, with a splash of the 2005 remake. From egg dish puns to the word play hat trick. From moved headstones to removed heads. From 1950's juvenile delinquents to 1970's juvenile antichrist. It's all for you, Listening Audience!
Clips from:
- "Carol Anne's Theme" from Poltergeist - Music Box Melodies
- "Scrooged" - 1988 - Paramount Pictures
If you have any topic suggestions for the show or any tales to share, please email us at theparanoidstylepod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram @theparanoidstylepod or on twitter @style_paranoid.
Opening theme music provided by Tony Molina. You can hear more of his music at https://tonymolina650.bandcamp.com/
ARK: Hey, Sister
CCK: … …
ARK: Hey, Listeners. Thank you for joining us on The Paranoid Style Podcast where we discuss weird and whacky and sometimes conspiratorial aspects of our world.
CCK: And if you enjoy listening to that kind of thing, we strongly recommend subscribing to The Paranoid Style Podcast on your podcast listening app of choice.
ARK: And if you like taking strong recommendations, then we also strongly recommend that you consider leaving us a rating and/or review.
CCK: I’m Christine and I … …
ARK: My name is Amanda and there was a time in my life when my job of choice was to be involved with the film making business. … … And speaking of movies, it’s time once again to return to a subject we’ve covered before, but this time it’s personal.
CCK: Now with 90% less demonic possession!
ARK: That’s right! Christine, tell me what you know about More Cursed Movies!
CCK: So, the last time we covered cursed movies, we focused on The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby, and since we promised 90% less Satan this time, let’s just get that devilish 10% out of the way right at the top. Our first cursed film was so wrought with strange and unusual occurrences and real-life tragedies that it is no wonder that it has been called by some the most cursed movie ever made. And of course, we are talking about The Omen.
ARK: IT'S ALL FOR YOU, DAMIEN!
CCK: The Omen was released in 1976 and directed by Richard Donner.
ARK: Who also happened to direct my favorite holiday movie of all time, Scrooged, starring Bill Murray.
CCK: The Omen tells the story of an American diplomat, Robert Thorn, played by Gregory Peck, and his wife, Katherine, played by Lee Remick. While the couple are living abroad in Rome, Katherine gives birth to a baby boy, who dies at birth. Instead of telling his wife the devastating news, Thorn adopts a baby, whose mother died while giving birth to him. They name the boy Damien, and Katherine is never informed that Damien is not her birth son. Five years later and the family is now living in England, and 5-year-old Damien, played by Harvey Spencer Stephens, is starting to exhibit some concerning behaviors, like violent resistance to entering a church
ARK: Been there. Done that.
CCK: And causing wild animals to go crazy.
ARK: A squirrel once threw a berry at my head in Central Park.
CCK: Finally a Catholic priest, named Father Brennan, figures out that Damien is the antichrist, he tries to warn the family of Damien's true birthright before it's too late.
ARK: Spoilers: It was too late. The real-life tragedies that surrounded this film make it a perfect candidate for carrying the label of cursed. And it began just about three months before principal photography began on the film, when star, Gregory Peck's son died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at just 30-years-old. A couple of months later, Gregory Peck was flying to London when his plane was struck by lightning. Which, disturbingly enough, apparently, planes getting struck by lightning aren't all that uncommon… but, just a few weeks after Peck's near-miss, lightning struck twice this time to another member of The Omen crew. The movie's writer, David Seltzer's plane was struck by lightning while flying to Los Angeles. And if the odds still don't seem that out of whack… Mace Neufeld, a producer on the film, also experienced a plane struck by lightning while flying to the film set in London.
CCK: We've got the lightning hat trick, let's go for whatever you call a quadruple hat trick.
ARK: I'm pretty sure that's called a Fez Flim-Flam.
CCK: Five goals?
ARK: Bonnet bilk.
CCK: Six goals?
ARK: Sombrero scam.
CCK: Seven?
ARK: Chapeau bamboozle.
CCK: Ok. I can see editing is going to be interesting this week. Back to the Omen. Although, not on a plane at the time, producer Harvey Bernhard, claimed that he himself was almost struck by lightning while filming in Rome. The producer admitted that he began carrying a cross with him on set and claimed, quote "The devil was at work and he didn't want that film made."
ARK: Before we leave the not-so-friendly skies completely, there is one more airborne tragedy that occurred around the making of this film. There was a unit that had charted a plane to get some aerial shots for the film, but the flight was canceled at the last minute, due to a scheduling conflict with another group. The plane that the film crew got bumped from crashed. Upon take off, the small plane flew into a flock of birds, the plane crashed through a fence and into a car that was driving along the road near the airport. Inside the car was the wife and children of the pilot that was flying the plane. Everyone on board the plane and in the vehicle were killed.
CCK: When filming actually got underway, things did not seem to get any less creepy. There was a prominent Rottweiler role in the film, and so they had a dog trainer and his dogs on the set. And although, these were animals that had been used on other films, and were trained appropriately, apparently on this set, there was something setting them on edge. It culminated in a scene where a stunt double, standing in for Peck was filming a scene where Peck's character gets attacked by Rottweilers. Somehow the dogs were able to bite through the stuntman's protective padding, and then they stopped responding to their trainer's commands. The stuntman survived.
ARK: And there was another incident with an animal trainer that did not end as well. There is a scene in the film when Lee Remick's Katherine and Damien visit a wild animal park. In the movie, the animals in the park react scared and violently towards the vehicle with Damien in it, culminating in a scene when the car is attacked by a huge group of baboons. Apparently, while on the set, the fear in Lee Remick's performance is 100% real because the car they were driving stalled and the baboons kept attacking the car in droves. The production was finally able to get the apes shooed away and get the car running again. But the next day after filming, the animal handler at the park that assisted with the baboon scene was killed by a tiger.
CCK: But it was an event that would happen shortly after The Omen was released that would so eerily parallel events in the film that would make it a contender for most cursed movie of all time. The special effects artist on The Omen, John Richardson, was the person that oversaw the infamous decapitation scene in The Omen. And it was he and his assistant that were driving through Holland headed towards their next job on the film, A Bridge Too Far, when they would be involved in a terrible car accident. John survived, but his assistant Liz Moore was decapitated when the vehicle's front tire sliced through the chassis of the car. The story goes that after John pulled himself from the wreckage he looked up to notice a road sign indicating that the nearby town was 66.6 kilometers away. The name of the town was Ommen (spelled O-M-M-E-N). And this accident occurred on August 13, 1976… a Friday.
ARK: I think I have the perfect segue into our next movie…
CCK: Alright.
ARK: That little Damien was a real rebel.
CCK: Oh, boy.
ARK: But, not as much as our next cursed film who was a Rebel Without a Cause.
CCK: Wow. That was seamless. Rebel Without a Cause was released in 1955 and directed by Nicholas Ray. The title for Rebel Without a Cause comes from a book that Warner Brothers production company had secured the rights to called "Rebel Without a Cause: The Hypnoanalysis of a Criminal Psychopath" written by psychiatrist Robert Lindner. As you can imagine it was not the kind of page turner that Hollywood was usually interested in making, and the book rights were secured simply so they could use the title, the first half of it anyway.
ARK: What "Rebel Without a Cause" actually became was the coming-of-age story about three, middle-class, suburban teenagers who form a bond after meeting in the juvenile division of a Los Angeles police station. Jim Stark, played by James Dean, is the new kid in town and an outsider. He struggles at home with his overbearing mother and timid, weak-willed father. Jim is picked up by police for drunkenness. Judy, played by actress Natalie Wood, is ignored by her father ever since she stopped being a little girl and became a young woman. Judy was brought to the station for a curfew violation. And finally, there is John "Plato" Crawford, played by Sal Mineo. Plato's father abandoned the family when he was very young, his mother is often away from home, and he is mostly raised by the family housekeeper. Plato is suspected of killing a litter of puppies. Jim and Plato become friends, and eventually they are also joined by Judy. Together the three teenagers create the sense of belonging and comfort that they all lack at home. They become a family.
CCK: All three of the of the main actors of this film would die premature, and in a couple of cases, mysterious deaths. And the first death would occur before the film Rebel Without a Cause was even released. On September 30th 1955, James Dean was driving his new 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder, nicknamed "Little Bastard". Dean was on his way from Los Angeles to the Salinas Road Race event. At 3:30pm that afternoon, Dean was pulled over and ticketed for speeding. About two hours later, driving Westbound on the State Route 46, in San Louis Obispo County, a 1950 Ford Tudor headed Eastbound turned left onto Highway 41 in front of the oncoming Porsche. Dean was unable to stop in time and he slammed into the Ford. The young college student in the Ford was uninjured, Dean's passenger was thrown from the Porsche, he was badly hurt and would require several surgeries over the course of 6 months, but he did survive. James Dean, however, just 24 years old at the time, was trapped in "Little Bastard" and sustained several fatal injuries, including a broken neck. Dean was rushed to the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, but was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.
ARK: However, from one of my favorite things on the internet… There was a Crazy Days and Nights blind item that came out about 2018 that claimed that perhaps James Dean did not die on the side of the road that night, but actually faked his death and went on to live a long and happy life, out of the public eye in Northern Canada. Until at the age of 95 he was killed in an auto accident.
CCK: Sal Mineo, was just 16-years-old at the time that Rebel started filming. He would go onto become the youngest person with two Academy Awards nominations for acting, one for his role as Plato in Rebel Without A Cause. But the rumors of Mineo's homosexuality made it very difficult for him to secure leading men roles as he got older. Mineo would much later discuss his bisexuality and at the time of his death he had been in a long-term relationship with a man. On the night of February 12, 1976, Mineo was returning to his West Hollywood apartment after a day spent rehearing for his next play, P.S. Your Cat Is Dead. Mineo parked his car in the carport of his building and as he began to walk towards his apartment, he was approached by a man with a knife and intent to rob Mineo. Mineo started yelling and in a panic the assailant stabbed Mineo once, right through the heart. Mineo managed to stumble or drag himself a short distance down the alley of the building, but collapsed and died shortly afterwards. When police arrived to the scene, none of Mineo's items, cash, watch, etc, had been taken. This led to the rumor that this death may have been a result of a rough trade encounter gone wrong.
ARK: Two years later, a man named Lionel Ray Williams, while serving time in another state was overheard by correction officers admitting that he had been the one that stabbed Sal Mineo, although, he claims he had no idea who the actor was at the time. Lionel Ray Williams would eventually be convicted and sentenced for the killing of Mineo, as well as a string of ten other muggings around the Hollywood area. But there is still mystery that surrounds Mineo's death. Specifically, that of some of the witnesses that described seeing someone fleeing the scene that looked nothing like Lionel Ray Williams. And crazydaysandnights.net offers a different story with their blind item from 2014 that says that Mineo’s real killer was none other than Liberace! Who killed the actor after he threatened to go public with their affair if the former did not cough up some hush money.
CCK: … …
ARK: Well, they can’t all be winners. Let’s move on.
CCK: Natalie Wood was a child actor, whose most well-known role as a child was from the Christmas classic, Miracle on 34th Street. Wood, like Mineo, was also 16-years-old at the start of filming of Rebel Without A Cause, and the director initially did not want to hire her, as he could not see her as a teenage wild child. Around the time of casting for the film, Natalie was out joy-riding with some friends when they got into an accident. When the film director, Nicholas Ray, found out he rushed to the hospital to see her. A doctor was overheard calling her a juvenile delinquent, causing Natalie to yell out to Ray, "Did you hear what he called me, Nick? He called me a goddamn juvenile delinquent! Now do I get the part?" And she did get the part!
ARK: The mystery surrounding Natalie Wood's death begins on the evening of November 28, 1981, while on a boat trip to Catalina Island with her husband, actor Robert Wagner and her friend and co-star at the time, Christopher Walken. The story is that the three had spent a boozy couple of days on the boat. And on the night in question, Wood and Wagner had a particularly vicious argument with each other.
CCK: In some Hollywood circles, the rumor had always been that Wagner felt that Wood and Walken were flirting with each other angering Wagner. But Wagner himself had claimed that it was never more than a brief shouting match that ended within a few minutes and with Wood heading off to bed. Wagner went back to drinking with Walken until about 1:30 in the morning, at which time he went to go check on his wife and could not find her.
ARK: Natalie Wood's body would be found the next morning, floating in the Pacific Ocean. She was dressed in a nightgown, a coat, and a pair of wool socks. There were scratch marks on the yacht's dinghy, which was tied to the side of the boat, indicating that Wood had attempted to pull herself back on board the ship. Wood's death was officially classified as accidental drowning; however, it could never be determined how she got into the water, although Robert Wagner’s story was that his wife was very intoxicated and had probably slipped and fell in the water.
CCK: In 2012, the Los Angeles County coroner re-classified Wood's death as "drowning and other undetermined factors" and the police investigation was re-opened and in 2018, Robert Wagner was officially named a person of interest in the case, as he was the last person to see Wood before she disappeared. Move over Crazy Days and Nights because while this story has been bandied about in more recent times, the Paranoid Style Podcast has an exclusive! We just happen to have the scoop from a Hollywood insider. Of course, we cannot name our source…
ARK: The gossip amongst the glitterati and in every movie set make-up chair was that Wood walked in on Wagner and Walken wrapped up in a warm embrace. Wood got angry at her husband and in turn her husband got furious with her, worried that she would spread the rumor about him and the other actor. And perhaps that is what motivated a physical altercation which ended with Wood in the water, struggling for help. Instead of helping, Wagner decided to teach his wife a lesson, and leave her out in the water for a little while, even knowing that dark water was one of his wife's greatest fears. At one point, Wagner even stopped the boat’s captain from turning on the search lights or radioing into coast guard to notify them of a woman overboard. But was Wagner's wretched workshop just a willful waggery gone woefully wrong? Or was this Wagner's wicked wile to rid himself of his wife? And what of Walken's role in the wrong-doing? We'll have to wait and see how this latest scandal plays out, but we do know that Hollywoodland has lost one of its brightest stars!
CCK: And while we mostly just focused on the three main stars of the film, there were other actors from the film that died from unnatural causes. For instance, Nick Adams, played James Dean’s character’s nemesis, Chick. Adams would go on to portray Johnny Yuma in the TV series The Rebel. In February 1968 the body of the then 36-year-old actor was found in his home. Authorities believed the cause of death was a drug overdose; however, there were no drugs or sign of drug use found at the scene and several of Adams’ prized possessions were missing from the home. Edward Platt, played the character, Inspector Ray Fremick, the police officer that keeps having to deal with the three delinquents at the heart of Rebel Without A Cause.
ARK: He also played The Chief on Get Smart.
CCK: Platt died suddenly in 1974, and although the initial reports of his death ruled it a heart attack, his son later revealed that his father had long suffered from depression and had taken his own life. All terrible and sad deaths, but except for James Dean himself, these were deaths that occurred years after the filming of the movie. It’s hard to reconcile this with a curse.
ARK: Well, in that case, I’ll throw in a bonus curse… this is the Curse of Little Bastard!
CCK: James Dean’s Porsche?
ARK: Yes! The silver 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder. From an article written by Nick Berg on Hagerty.com…
CCK: “In fact Little Bastard had caused upset almost from the moment Dean bought it. A week before the fatal crash Dean met British actor Alec Guinness in Los Angeles. Guinness had an ominous feeling on seeing the Porsche and would later write in his diary: ‘The sports car looked sinister to me . . . exhausted, hungry, feeling a little ill-tempered in spite of Dean’s kindness, I heard myself saying in a voice I could hardly recognize as my own: ‘Please never get in it. . . if you get in that car you will be found dead in it by this time next week.’”
ARK: Guinness felt a great disturbance in the force and he was right. After Dean's fatal crash the Porsche was purchased from a salvage yard in Burbank and stripped for parts. The engine was installed into the Lotus IX race car of one Dr. William Eschrich. The transmission and the suspension were given to a fellow doctor and racer, Troy McHenry. Both doctors would compete at the 1956 Pomona sports-car races with pieces of Little Bastard in their vehicles. Eschrich crashed, but survived. McHenry hit a tree and was killed.
CCK: The chassis of Little Bastard was purchased by a man named George Barris. Barris had proclaimed himself as the King of Kustoms. The King of Kustoms had originally planned on rebuilding Little Bastard, but when Barris realized that the Porsche was beyond repair, he decided to instead capitalize on the car's notoriously dark history and started touring it around to car shows, movie theaters, and bowling alleys. In 1959, while the car was in storage, it mysteriously caught fire, although, suffered remarkably little damage. Barris had sold two of the Porsche's tires, which apparently blew at the same time causing the car they were installed on to careen off the road.
ARK: There are lots of other unconfirmed stories of Little Bastard's cursed existence, reports that it fell off a display at a car show in Sacramento, landing on and seriously injuring a bystander. Allegedly, it also fell and crushed a driver that was transporting the car to a road-safety expo. And then there was the rumor that the car vanished from a sealed boxcar while enroute from the East Coast to Los Angeles; however, most people believe that this story was a fabrication from the King of Kustoms himself, building up the intrigue around Little Bastard. However, the car has not been seen since this alleged disappearance, despite someone offering a $1Million reward for any information about it back in 2005. Although, as of 2016 there were reports from a man in Whatcom County, Washington who claimed that as a young boy in 1960, he saw the car being hidden behind a false wall of a building. The man was given a polygraph test, which he passed, but unfortunately, no further information has ever been obtained about who may have owned that building and if they still had the remains of Little Bastard… Assuming Little Bastard let them live…
CCK: That was a fun, little cursed excursion. Let’s get back to movies! The next cursed film we’ll talk about has subject matter even scarier than 1950’s juvenile deliquents.
ARK: Is it singing and dancing 1950’s juvenile delinquents? “Got a rocket in your pocket. Keep coolly cool boy!”
CCK: No, but that is scary. Our next cursed film is 1982’s Poltergeist, based on a story by Steven Spielberg, who wrote the screenplay along with Michael Grais, and Mark Victor. Poltergeist was directed by Tobe Hooper, who famously directed the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Billy Idol, Dancing With Myself music video, and one of my personal favorites (?*sister, I think this is true? Or is it just the book?*) the 1979, made-for-tv mini series, based on the novel by Stephen King, Salem’s Lot.
ARK: Poltergeist tells the story of the young Freeling family, who have been given an opportunity to be one of the first residents of a brand-new housing development. Shortly after moving in, they start experiencing strange occurrences, which at first seem almost friendly and kinda fun, but soon turn terrifying and dangerous. And when the Freeling’s youngest daughter, Carol Anne, starts hearing voices coming through a static television screen, it opens a portal to another dimension that poor, little Carol Anne gets sucked into. And was the moment that spawned what must be one of the most quotable movies quotes of all time… “They’re here…”.
CCK: This movie has a great cast. JoBeth Williams as mom, Diane. Craig T. Nelson as the Freeling father, Steve. Beatrice Straight and Zelda Rubenstein as Dr. Lesh and Tangina, a paranormal investigator and psychic, respectively, that are brought in to assist the family. And of course the Freeling’s three children, Robbie played by Oliver Robins, Dana played by Dominique Dunne, and of course Carol Anne played by then just five-years-old Heather O’Rourke.
ARK: Poltergeist is such an effective scary movie about the fallout from not being respectful of the dead, since we come to find out by the end of the movie that…
CCK: SPOILERS AHEAD!!
ARK: The new housing development was built over a cemetery and as Craig T. Nelson famously explains, “You son of a bitch, you left the bodies and you only moved the headstones! You only moved the headstones!” Some people believe that life may have imitated art in this case, since the rumor had long been that real human skeletons were used during filming.
CCK: Which is true. And really, not all that uncommon especially for an earlier era of special effects on movies. It was very expensive to create a realistic human skeleton, especially when you need several, as they would have for the iconic pool scene in Poltergeist. In theory, most films would have procured their skeletons from a reputable, medical and science supply company, which sold human skeletons, mainly for use in medical schools. But, due to the several untimely deaths that surrounded this film, many people began to question whether the dead were not overly excited about their remains being used the way they were. And without even being considered for a SAG card.
ARK: There was another uncredited role in this film that was one of the most memorable for a lot of people and it almost really killed one of the young actors on set.
CCK: The creepy clown?
ARK: The creepy clown! Please be warned, there are some additional spoilers ahead… there is a scene in the film with a very unsettling clown doll that attacks middle child, Robbie, by wrapping its arms around the boy’s neck. To achieve this sequence, a mechanical version of the clown doll was built, but when the arms of the mechanical clown were around the actor, Oliver Robin’s neck, something went wrong and the arms started tightening to a dangerous degree. The young actor started indicating that he couldn’t breathe, but production thought this was a bit of improvisation.
CCK: Zip, zap, zop!
ARK: Finally, someone noticed that the boy’s face was starting to turn a different color and realized that this was no longer acting. Production was halted while they pried the doll off Robins. Luckily, besides what I imagine was a newly discovered case of coulrophobia, the boy was unharmed.
CCK: However…
ARK: Ugh. Speaking of spoilers…
CCK: I’m not saying that clown story isn’t true, I’m merely pointing out that Oliver Robbins, who is still an actor and also director, did an interview with the Daily Mail about his experiences on the Poltergeist films, and when speaking about the clown scene he mentions, quote: “It was really low-tech and they used a camera that shot in reverse and I remember the director, Tobe Hooper, told me, 'You're going to have to act backwards here and we're going to use this reverse camera. We're going to wrap the clown's arm around you and we're going to pull the clown away, but when we play it back it'll actually look like it's going towards you and wrapping it's arm around you because we'll be shooting in reverse, which will give an optical effect.”
ARK: And while its possible that they used the low-tech clown for some shots and the mechanical clown for others, it does seem odd that the actor himself would not tell the tale about when a freakin’ toy clown almost murdered him. JoBeth Williams did an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit in which she told the story that while she was filming Poltergeist, she started to experience strange occurrences at home. Specifically, she would return from a day of shooting and find the framed pictures on one wall all crooked. She would straighten them, head to bed, wake up the next morning and head to set, but again when she returned at the end of her day, she would come home and find all the pictures crooked again. And while she said that she was initially very disturbed by this, and started to associate it with the subject matter of her film, she ultimately decided it was being caused by her slamming her front door when she would leave for the day.
CCK: James Kahn, the author of the novelization of Poltergeist, also had some strange experiences while he worked on this project. He said that one night while he was finishing up the Poltergeist novelization, his building was struck by lightning, causing the front of his AC unit to fly across the room and strike him in the back.
ARK: Freak lightning! That ol’ curse standby. But, the thing that most people reference when they are talking about this film being cursed was the number of untimely deaths that surrounded it and its subsequent sequels.
CCK: The first death was brutal and occurred just a few months after the first film’s release. Actress, Dominque Dunne, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. She was strangled in the driveway of her West Hollywood home, lapsed into a coma, and died five days later at the age of twenty-two years old. Dominque was the daughter of Dominick Dunne, a writer and investigative journalist and sister of Griffin Dunne, a prolific actor.
ARK: The tragic loss of their daughter and sister was made even worse by the lack of justice the Dunne family experienced when the murderer, John Sweeney, would only serve three years of his fifteen-year sentence. Not to mention his seemingly effortless segue back into living a normal life and his career as a chef. However, Griffin Dunne and his mother, Lenny, refused to make that a painless transition, by standing outside Sweeney’s restaurant holding up signs that read, “The food you will eat tonight was cooked by the hands that killed Dominique Dunne”.
CCK: The second Poltergeist film, Poltergeist 2: The Other Side, was released in 1986. Still following the Freeling family as they move into a new home while trying to escape the trauma of the events of the first film. But the evil entity, known as The Beast, that was so interested in Carol Anne, is not ready to give her up so easily. This film also introduces some new characters. That of the physical embodiment of The Beast, Reverend Kane, played by Julian Beck and friendly Native American, Taylor, who befriends and helps Carol Anne and the rest of the Freeling family, played by actor, Will Sampson.
ARK: Let’s start with Kane, played by Julian Beck. While the second Poltergeist is not nearly as good as the first one, the thing it does have going for it is Julian Beck’s Kane. He is terrifying. One of the most compelling things about this character is the way he looks, and that was tragically related to the fact that the actor was dying of stomach cancer throughout filming. His battle with the illness resulted in his skeletal appearance and sunken eyes. It was said that his appearance was so jarring that the first time O’Rourke, reprising her role as Carol Anne, saw Beck on set, she started crying. Beck finally succumbed to his illness and passed away at the age of 60; several months before the film was released and before it was even done in post-production which necessitated a voice actor to re-record some of Beck’s line in ADR or automatic dialogue replacement.
CCK: When Will Sampson showed up on set for his role as Taylor, he was feeling uneasy at the fact that real human skeletons had been used on the first film and he insisted that he be allowed to do what has been described as an exorcism in several articles that I saw, but I have a feeling what Sampson did was probably more like a spiritual cleansing. Either way, it was said that when the cast and crew returned the next day the energy of the set felt better.
ARK: Sampson was unfortunately yet another tragic and premature death associated with the Poltergeist franchise. In 1987, at the age of 53, Will Sampson died from post-operative kidney failure and malnutrition. But, it was the untimely death of young Heather O’Rourke in 1988 at the age of 12 who had just barely finishing filming the third and final Poltergeist film that stands as the most convincing piece of evidence that this film franchise was cursed.
CCK: Heather O’Rourke was discovered by Steven Spielberg while eating at the MGM commissary with her mother. Initially Spielberg worried that at just 5 years old, O’Rourke would be too young to portray such a substantial role in a movie like Poltergeist, but after a couple of auditions, Spielberg was convinced. After the first Poltergeist film was released, O’Rourke became a familiar face on television, with guest appearances on shows like Happy Days, Webster, and the New Leave It To Beaver, as well as numerous tv commercials, but of course it was her role in Poltergeist that most people associated with the young actress. It was after the release of Poltergeist 2, that Heather began displaying flu-like symptoms. When the flu never seemed to go away, she was eventually diagnosed as having Crohn’s Disease, which is a chronic inflammation of the intestines.
ARK: The plot of Poltergeist 3 was that Carol Anne is sent to live with her aunt and uncle, played by Nancy Allen and Tom Skerritt, respectively and her young, hip, cousin, played by Lara Flynn Boyle in her movie debut, in their high-rise apartment building in Chicago, both to attend an elite elementary school and to try and shield the girl from the evil and very persistent Reverend Kane AKA The Beast… go on… you know you want to, Sister.
CCK: … …
ARK: Before we move on, I do just to remind everyone that the original actor that portrayed Kane in the second film, Julian Beck, had already passed away by the time of the third film, so the role was now being played by an actor named Nathan Davis. In order to try and re-create Kane’s gaunt features, Davis had to wear eight different blended foam-latex pieces, contact lenses, dentures, paint, and a wig, and ultimately the few lines he does have to say were re-dubbed with someone else’s voice, but the creepiest thing of all is that there is a rumor that the foam pieces that Davis wears in the film were actually sculpted from Julian Beck’s original sculpt. Which means Davis was wearing Beck’s death mask around on set.
CCK: Back to Heather O’Rourke. After her diagnosis of Crohn’s disease, she was put on steroids, which the evidence of is tantamount in some scenes in Poltergeist 3. You can tell that the little girl’s face is puffy and swollen. When O’Rourke had wrapped on her scenes, she and her parents took a road trip from Chicago back to California where they lived. But, unfortunately, the girl’s health just kept getting worse, to the point where she would have a hard time keeping any food down. On the morning of February 1, 1988, O’Rourke fainted on to her kitchen floor. She was rushed by ambulance to the hospital and suffered cardiac arrest on the way but was revived by the paramedics. Heather O’Rourke, twelve years old, suffered another cardiac arrest while on the operating table for emergency surgery, and although the doctors performed CPR for over 30 minutes, she was finally pronounced dead at 2:43 that afternoon.
ARK: It wasn’t until after the girl’s death that it was discovered that the Crohn’s disease diagnoses has been wrong. The actual cause of death was intestinal stenosis, a severe bowel obstruction, that was complicated by septic shock. It was determined that it was most likely congenital and was particularly unusual, as the girl did not seem to show any prior symptoms of a bowel defect.
CCK: Poltergeist 3 director, Gary Sherman, had initially made the decision to shelve the film indefinitely; however, MGM insisted that it be completed and advised Sherman that if he didn’t do it himself, they would find someone that would. **Small musical interlude** And now… The Paranoid Style Playhouse presents a dramatic re-enactment of our next Cursed Film… 1979’s The Amityville Horror…
ARK: Carolyn, will you get a grip on yourself? You sound like some kind of psycho weirdo!
CCK: Come on, Jeffrey. Don't be such a hard-core rationalist. Everything in life cannot be explained by a slide rule.
ARK: Thank you very much for your cosmic views. Now do me a favor, shut up!
CCK: And scene.
ARK: Wait. That was the scene you chose from The Amityville Horror?!
CCK: Those are my favorite lines from 1979's Amityville Horror, staring James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger and two flashlights as the worst demonic pig in cinematic history, Jodie. The 1979 Amityville Horror was directed by Stuart Rosenberg who was known for directing Cool Hand Luke, The Laughing Policeman and The Drowning Pool as well as numerous television shows.
ARK: And he died a hideous death after making Amityville Horror?
CCK: Nope, he was fine. Didn't die until 2007 at the age of 79. The movie script was written by Sandor Stern, who wrote many TV movies scripts, including episodes of The Mod Squad as well as John and Yoko, A love story, a made for TV movie from 1985 which he also directed, proving that everything does come back to the Beatles and…
CCK/ARK: Paul is dead.
CCK: Exactly. But Sandor isn't. As far as I could tell from Dr. Google, he's still perfectly alive and well at 85. The Amityville horror script that Stern wrote was based on the book, The Amityville Horror: A True Story by Jay Anson. Anson was a journalist and had written quite a few scripts for short documentaries before he wrote Amityville in 1976, it was published in 1977 and he wrote a horror novel after that called 666 which was published in 1980, the year he died!
ARK: CURSE???
CCK: Yes, the curse of heart disease unfortunately. He died during heart surgery at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. Anson's Amityville book, the 1979 film and 2005 remake were based on the, and that sound you hear is vigorous finger quotes, true story told by George and Kathy Lutz about their experiences in the actual Amityville house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, NY. Amityville is a village in the Town of Babylon in Suffolk County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York.
ARK: The Lutzes were a married couple, both in their thirties who had three children from Kathy's previous marriage. They purchased the Amityville house in December 1975 for the bargain price of $80K, mostly due to the actually true story of the mass murders of the previous owners, the DeFeo family.
CCK: On November 13th, 1974 at the 112 Ocean Avenue house, around 3:00AM six members of the DeFeo family—father Ronald, mother Louise, two daughters, Dawn (18) and Allison (13), and two sons, Marc (12), and John Matthew (9)—were shot to death in their sleep. A third son, Ron "Butch" DeFeo, Jr., 23, initially told authorities he'd found his family dead in the closed house at 6 p.m. later that day. Police were called to the house and all of the bodies were found face down in bed. The parents had each been shot twice and the children were all killed with one shot. If there's anything truly weird to the point of being supernatural about the killings it is that none of the victims appear to have been awakened by the shots. Upon examination, no drugs were found in any of the victims systems that might have incapacitated them, the rifle used in the killings did not have a silencer and none of the neighbors reported hearing any gunshots, only the DeFeo's dog barking at some point in the early morning.
ARK: After further questioning, DeFeo admitted to carrying out the murders himself. He said that after killing his family he bathed, redressed and disposed of his bloody clothes and the rifle before going to work as usual. He told detectives: "Once I started, I just couldn't stop. It went so fast". The police believed he committed the acts in order to obtain insurance money, estimated to be in the amount of $200,000.
CCK: On November 21, 1975, DeFeo was found guilty on all counts and was sentenced to six sentences of 25 years to life. He was held at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in the town of Fallsburg, New York, and until his death at aged 69 on March 12, 2021 all of his appeals and requests for parole were denied.
ARK: And this wasn’t a dealbreaker for the Lutzs? Would you live in a mass murder house?
CCK: … …
ARK: Both the 1979 movie, the 2005 remake, and Anson's book have a fairly simple plot: Young American family moves into house where there was once a mass murder. Disturbing phenomena follow. Also, it may have been located on top of a Native American burial pit/mental asylum and maybe some Salem witch trial guy named Ketchum lived there too because we want to have all our haunted house tropes covered.
CCK: So, about the 1979 movie itself, it was a definite hit with the public. The tagline was "For God's Sake get out!" It received tepid reviews but it became an unexpected blockbuster and made around $17 million at the box office which put it in the top ten money makers at the time. But, we're here for movie curses, and this one is a doozy. Are you ready sister??
ARK: … …
CCK: James Brolin was apparently hesitant when he was first offered the role of George Lutz. He was told that there was no script yet but that he should read the Jay Anson book as soon as possible. According to Brolin he started reading the book one evening at seven o'clock and was still reading at two o'clock in the morning. At a really "tense" part in the book, his pants fell down from where they were hanging startling Brolin out of his chair and making him nearly crash his head into the ceiling. It was then that Brolin said, "There's something to this story." and he agreed to do the movie.
ARK: That’s the curse?! His pants fell down from where they were hanging?! I mean, maybe if he had been wearing them at the time…
CCK: Maybe the 1979 movie was spared from more diabolical curses, because it was not filmed in the actual Amityville house. There were rumors this was because the production team was too frightened to film inside the house. But actually the town of Amityville denied American International Pictures permission to film any scenes whatsoever in Amityville in an attempt to distance themselves from any publicity.
ARK: His pants fell down…
CCK: Well, cinematographer Fred J. Koenekamp had a difficult time filming the scenes with the flies, as he claimed to be scared of insects. He says that whenever he was to film a scene with a close-up facial shot of a fly right in the camera, he would look away or close his eyes and hope for a good shot. He also lost nearly 30 pounds because he refused to eat, saying the flies made him lose his appetite. The Rod Steiger fly scene was rough, they allegedly covered Rod's head in honey to attract the flies.
ARK: That’s a little more curse-y…
CCK: The 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror allegedly had some additional cursed moments, many of the crew apparently woke up every night at around 3:15, the time when Ron DeFeo killed his family. Also, Ryan Reynold allegedly got too into character and slapped one of his prop children, but that's less of a curse and more of a lawsuit waiting to happen.
ARK: And lawsuits did happen with that 2005 version of the story. George Lutz was pissed that in the 2005 version of the movie, his character kills the family dog Harry, when that was not in the book.
CCK: And in the 1979 version…
ARK: SPOILER!!
CCK: James, double A, M-C-O, Brolin goes back into the hellmouth to save Harry thus eternally earning my love. I get it now Barbra!
ARK: Babs, did you put a curse on me, cause I feel my pants dropping…