Rumors abound in Hollywood, especially when the film in question is a horror movie. According to stories, several movies have something supernatural attached to them.
First, and perhaps the truest, tragedy is linked to the movie Poltergeist. Unfortunately, two of the four deaths were unexpected, the other two weren't shrouded in mystery as urban legend would lead us to believe.
The first happened shortly after the first Poltergeist was released. In 1982, Dominique Dunn, the actress who played the role of the oldest sister, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend when he attempted to reconcile and was angered by her refusal. He choked her for a full six minutes, resigning her life to a coma. Four days later, she died in the hospital.
In 1985, stomach cancer claimed Julian Beck, the actor who portrayed the evil spirit in Poltergeist II. He had been diagnosed a year earlier and his death wasn't a surprise. Two years later, hos counterpart who played the good spirit in the same sequel, Will Sampson, died after a heart-lung transplant failed. Sad, but not necessarily surprising.
Then, after the final movie, 12 year old Heather O'Rourke, the blonde sister that the movies revolved around fell ill, seemingly with the stomach flu. A bowel obstruction was discovered too late and she passed away during surgery from septic shock. The toxins from the infection ravaged her poor little body and she was stolen away from the world.
The stories would have you blieve that literally hundreds of accidents and deaths befell the actors and the movie set, which just didn't happen. If, by some chance, some unspeakable evil spirit felt tromped on by the film's storyline, it's unlikely that it lashed out at only four victims.
The Exorcist, released in 1973, seemed shrouded in mysterious occurrences since before filming even began. During the screenings, people supposedly vomited, fainted, or broke into hysterics for no reason. I found no proof of this, but if it happened, I find it hard to believe the production even began.
Some believe a demon was at work on the movie set, though. During the 15 months of filming, it's rumored that anywhere between four and nine deaths occured on the set and kept under wraps. Small fires broke out a few different times, once at night when no one was there. One undisputed fact is the mental breakdown of actress Linda Blair who portrayed the possessed girl, Regan. Among the cast and crew were bouts with panic attacks and odd behavior, which most attributed to general jumpiness from the creepy storyline.
Among the list of accidental deaths:
~ The actor who portrayed the man that character Regan said would die during her mother's dinner party, was killed.
~ A nightwatchman died of a heart attack during a night while there alone. Did he see something scary?
~ A crewmember responsible for refridgerating the set for the exorcism scene died when the temperature dropped too low and he suddenly froze to death.
Some of these facts have been debunked as mere rumors and nothing more, some would have us believe that they're debunked, and still others are true.
While tales such as these surround horror movies of all types, they're not limited to them. A popular family film supposedly depicts the hanging of a man, in the published movie! In the Wizard of Oz , right after Dorothy and the Scarecrow meet up with the Tin Man and gallop off singing, there's a movement in the center background believed to be a Munchkin hanging himself. The makers of the movie and several others claim it's nothing more than one of the rented birds, a crane, meant to enhance the background scenery. Some say it was overlooked until the movie was printed and when technology was improved, the film was doctored into a more definite crane, deliberately, yet in the scarce original, the Munchkin is much more clear. Weirder things have happened. While no screenshot was available on the Internet of the hanging Munchkin, none could be found of the elusive bird, either.
In Three Men and a Baby, there's an image of a boy in the backgroun window during the scene when Ted Danson's character is visited by his mother. Legend says it's the ghost of the boy who committed suicide in the apartment they were filming in. The interior shots were filmed on a soundstage, according to the movie people. They also say it was a joke, and yet another version claims they didn't know what to do with the cardboard cutout so they just kept moving it around the set. Funny no one thought to just remove it from the set if it was in the way, huh? They would have us believe it's the very same cut out depicting Danson's character in a tuxedo and top hat, shown clearly in a later scene in the movie. However, a clear difference can be seen, like the absent top hat.
Undoubtedly, mysterious things exist, even in the film industry, but too often exaggeration and misrepresentation are the biggest entities at work. For the most part, everyone has to decide on their own whether or not to believe, one way or the other.
