Cursed Films (2020) s01e01 Episode Script

1
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- we hear a lot about
cursed films
around horror productions.
It's definitely a curious thing
that people gravitate to.
You know,
crazy things that happened
on the set of "the exorcist"
or "the omen".
You know, I remember watching
"poltergeist".
And I remember my parents
telling me,
oh, that little girl died.
And I was like, oh my god.
- Hello!
- I remember hearing the
stories about "poltergeist".
The lore was introduced to me
long before the film was,
and so I almost felt like
I had seen the movie
because I had heard about all
of the kind of cursed things
that had happened on set.
- Most people when you hear of
"poltergeist" probably think,
oh yeah, that's that film that
was kind of cursed.
And then you enter the Internet
into that and forget about it.
It's off and skyrocketing and
it has a life of its own now.
It will never go away.
- There's a series of mishaps
that happened
that believers will say,
uh, mean that there's
a poltergeist curse.
For example, on the set of
the film, the little boy,
when he's being strangled
by the toy clown,
the mechanism malfunctioned
and he claims he was actually
being choked out.
(Creepy laughter)
- (Screaming)
-Agh! Agh!
- One of the stories to come
out of
The original poltergeist,
which you had a lot of tragic
stories surrounding it
and a lot of deths,
was jobeth Williams in a
Muddy pool full of skeletons.
- (Screaming)
- If you need skeletons to come
out of a muddy pool, what do you do?
Well, get some real ones,
I guess.
- Some people think maybe
the skeletons in the pool
at the end of the movie
were actually real skeletons
from India. (Woman screams)
- The poltergeist curse
is often attributed
to these rumours
that they used real skeletons
from India.
And this is blasphemous,
and they've desecrated
these bodies
and it led to a curse.
- Whether that's true or not,
I don't know.
I tend to believe that it
is true
because those skeletons
do look pretty good.
- There are a number of crazy
things that happened
throughout the making of
the three poltergeist films,
but there are two primary
reasons
why people believe
the films were cursed.
- Now I lay me down to sleep
- The deaths of Heather o'Rourke
and Dominique Dunn.
- Oh brother!
- Dominique dunne was the
daughter of Dominick dunne,
who was a very famous writer
for vanity fair.
But he made a name for himself
covering many of the famous
murder trials
of the 1990s.
Her older brother
was Griffin dunne
who had made a number of movies.
(Howling)
- Did you hear that?
- Dominique dunne was in a
relationship with John sweeney,
who was the sous chef
for Wolfgang puck.
One evening, Dominique had been
beaten up by John sweeney
and so she
Broke off the relationship.
- (Screaming) What's happening?
- Poltergeist had already been
released
and was a big hit.
And John sweeney showed up
at her house in Los Angeles,
and got into a fight with her
and began to strangle her.
He did not, at that time,
kill her.
She then remained in a coma
for four or five days
and then she was taken off
life support.
Dominick dunne had the idea
to write about his daughter's
murder
and the subsequent trial
for vanity fair.
The judge ruled against
the prosecution
in almost every way possible.
For example, John sweeney
had beaten up a girlfriend
previous to Dominique dunne
and that was not allowed
in court.
It looked as though
John sweeney,
under some kind of a plea
bargain,
would get 10 years in prison.
That would have been better
because he ended up spending
two and a half years in prison.
- So, after poltergeist,
Dominique dunne is murdered
by her boyfriend.
I think that doesn't pick up
a lot of cursed heat
at the time,
but then, in "poltergeist 2",
will Sampson,
an actor in the film,
who was also a shaman,
was allowed onto set after
hours to perform an exorcism
to try to rid the production
of its demons.
- Two years after the release
of "poltergeist 2",
will Sampson, that same actor
who performed the exorcism,
died of kidney failure
and malnutrition at age 53.
Okay, that one, he's young;
That could be a curse.
- I god is in j"
-and then to add to this list,
Julian Beck, who played
the cult leader,
the old scary man that they used
in a lot of the marketing
for the film -
even if you haven't seen
the film
you're probably aware of
this guy. Ahhhhhhh!
- You are gonna dieeeeeeeee!
- He died of stomach cancer
as well.
- Sorry to see
You're still unconvinced.
- When I accepted to do
"poltergeist 3",
I was aware of the fact that
there had been deaths
on the previous two films.
I think the only thing that
brought about
any feelings of a curse
or anything
was we had to recreate one
of the characters in the film
because the actor Julian Beck
had died
and we wanted to bring back
the character of rev. Kane.
So they used a death mask
of um
Julian Beck,
to make the prosthetics
for Nate Davis
so that Nate would look like
Julian.
They called it a death mask.
Whether the casting was done
while Julian was alive
or after he died, I'm not sure.
It was a little creepy.
- I'm Matthew hutson.
I'm a science writer
and I'm the author
of "the 7 laws of magical
thinking:
How irrational beliefs keep us
happy, healthy and sane."
Magical thinking is basically
belief in the supernatural.
Things like luck, destiny,
mind over matter,
life after death
or the belief that objects
carry essences.
This is the law of contagion.
It's the idea that mental
properties like personality
or good and evil can be
transmitted through contact.
So, a great example of this is
the story of the Red Sox Jersey
buried under yankee stadium.
- Following a lengthy curse
that hung over his beloved
Red Sox baseball team,
a Boston fan hatched
his own devious plot:
Bury a Red Sox Jersey
in the foundation
of the new yankee stadium.
- He went to the construction
site for yankee stadium
and brought with him a Jersey
for David Ortiz
who was a star on the Red Sox.
And he put this Jersey
in the wet cement,
thinking that he would curse
the stadium.
And the next year the Yankees
found out about it.
And, so, people were calling
for this thing to be removed
and they had to jackhammer it
out of two feet of concrete.
- They ripped the concrete
apart today
at the new yankee stadium,
and there it was,
wedged in there.
Yup, that's it, the infamous
Red Sox Jersey
buried by a construction worker.
- They pulled this Jersey
out of the cement
and held it up under
the flashing bulbs.
It was like a magical rite,
like a cleansing ceremony.
It felt very tribal.
(Subway rattles)
(Creepy music)
- We infuse inanimate objects
with agency,
and our brains are just really
good at that.
We know from research
by cognitive psychologists
that if you offer subjects
the opportunity
to wear Hitler's jacket,
they don't wanna do it.
There's evil in the object
itself.
Almost as if the evil is
floating in the ether
and it just infuses into
a body, a person,
a jacket, an article.
Anything associated with
a horror film -
the house, the set, a prop -
of course, it's gonna have that
kind of sense
like there's something evil
lurking within -
in the walls or in the object.
- There's something therapeutic
about owning the things
that frightened you.
I just am a fan of the art.
You know, some people collect
paintings.
I collect props.
So this is my toy slash
prop room.
This is years and years
of collecting right here
And a few bucks as well.
(Chuckles)
A lot of screen-used masks,
various Halloween films.
It's very important for me
to have screen-used stuff
versus just replicas.
The screen-used stuff,
I mean it's so rare
and you're like one of a small
portion of people
that may have one.
They only did one of these
Frankenstein masks
and I have it.
It is kind of crazy to think
who has handled these things,
who's worn them,
who's touched them.
The legacy they carry,
it makes them special
and it also gives them
some sort of mystique.
But my crown Jewel
of my collection,
the thing that creeps out
pretty much everybody
that comes into my house,
is the poltergeist clown.
Many people look at that
poltergeist clown
and they think I'm completely
out of my mind
for having it in my house.
That thing terrified them
as a child.
It terrified me.
- I don't necessarily like
collecting
some of the objects
from horror films,
even though I'm sure many
people do,
but I am a little bit addicted
to going to the locations.
Not just for the horror
education that you get from it,
but also for the history
as well.
And sometimes real-life history
does intersect
with the making of the movie.
A place takes on a certain kind
of personality
just because a movie
was shot there.
- Okay, Rob, that thing almost
killed me.
- There's so many homes used in
a horror film
and then a buyer kind of
unwittingly gets this home.
And maybe they weren't aware
of the fact
that there were going to be
so many people
who come to their house almost
like a pilgrimage, you know?
This is, it is almost like
a religion.
- Hello. This is Ethan
from nubby vision
and I am standing in front
of the freeling house,
which was featured in
poltergeist,
my favourite horror movie
of all time.
- Who knew that a regular
residential area
could turn into a horror film
tourist location?
- The person that lives in
that house now
was the original owner,
but they shot the film there
before anybody had moved in.
It was a brand-new construction.
And so, when they bought it,
I don't think they knew
right away
that that was the house from
the film. Or maybe they knew
and they just didn't think
it'd be a big deal.
Who would ever find out?
- Reason why I'm whispering
is because I am at
the poltergeist house
and the garage door is open.
There's a guy literally in
his garage right there,
so I'm trying to be quiet.
- When you visit these places,
you feel like it's a house
you grew up in
'cause in your mind
it's a memory.
So I just became obsessed
with it.
My friend Darren and I found
the street
where the Myers' house was.
Hi, I'm Sean Clark.
Today, I'm at the Myers' house
in south Pasadena, California.
That started my obsession
with filming locations.
Hi, I'm Sean Clark
and today I'm standing in front
of the house from poltergeist.
We're in cuesta verde,
California -
which is actually simi valley,
California -
where the house from the film
poltergeist was located.
It's still here. It didn't get
sucked into the ground
like you saw in the film.
The swimming pool was shot on
a sound stage at mgm,
but, you know,
this house doesn't even have
a swimming pool.
The interior of this house
wasn't actually used.
It was all sets.
And just the exterior is
what they used in the film,
and it's just a regular house.
There's nothing scary about it.
It's just suburbia.
- Hey, how you doin'? (Chuckles)
- Hi.
- Now I'm with Richard hallman.
- He's the next-door neighbour.
So, tell me,
when did you move in
and when did you first find out
this was the house
from poltergeist?
- I moved in in 2010,
about 8 years ago.
It's fun. I love the people
coming by and checking it out.
Everybody's friendly,
so it's great.
- I do believe they shot at
least the scene in the kitchen,
'cause looking into
the backyard,
when they were supposedly
making the swimming pool.
- 'Cause they did that.
- They made a pool.
- There is a pool?
- Yeah, so
- There is a pool.
- Okay, mystery solved.
So I wonder if they did shoot
that infamous scene
with all the skeletons here,
if that
- That was here.
- It was here?
- No, it was here.
- Okay. So
- It was done here.
- The curse could be real
and it might actually be
this house.
- So yeah, like there's some
weird things that went on
as far as like how many,
you know, people,
- actors, things like that
- That passed away, yeah.
- Things like that.
- That's scary.
- Did you know there was
rumours that they used actual
Some actual skeletons
in that scene
and that might be part of
the reason of the curses.
So, who knows? I mean you say
this guy is the original owner.
Nothing's happened to him yet,
as far as I know, so
- No, he's still here,
still going.
- The curse of poltergeist
is really fascinating
because it's kind of this
meta curse.
Because it is mirroring what
you're seeing in the movie
and that does have a bigger
impact.
The house in the film is not
only the source
of all the supernatural troubles
that haunt the freeling family,
but it's also the source
of the problems
faced by these real-life
homeowners,
thanks to a bunch of curious
poltergeist fans.
And the same thing
with the skeletons
that are rising up
from underneath the house.
If those are real, perhaps the
people who are making the movie
are making the same mistakes
that the people in the movie
are making,
then it has this meta
credibility to it.
- You son of a bitch!
- You moved the cemetery
but you left the bodies,
didn't ya?!
- The thing is,
if you talk to anyone
who's around that tragedy,
it's, it's real
and it's something that
we forget.
We try to mythologize it
but we forget that there are
real people affected.
- I had an amazing relationship
with Heather.
I absolutely adored
that little girl.
I think it was after the first
or second day of shooting,
she came up to me and said:
You know what, Gary,
I really like the way you
direct,
and I, you know, I'm gonna be
a director when I grow up,
so I would like to study
how you work.
(Laughs)
I think Heather had a ball
with the practical effects.
It was like an amusement park
ride for her.
And especially that mirror -
you know,
when she locks fingers
with her image in the mirror.
- We're back!
-And she loved it.
She just thought that was
the most fun in the world,
of riding up and down
on this mirror.
(Chuckles)
Heather had been ill
before we started shooting
and her parents had been taking
her to doctors.
She was diagnosed as having
crohn's disease,
and they were treating her
for crohn's disease.
So she was on steroids
and I guess the only
side effects
were the chipmunk cheeks that
she would develop sometimes.
But, unfortunately,
they were treating her for
Something that she didn't have.
We got a call one morning
that we were gonna have a
conference call that afternoon
and the conference call was
Heather's agent telling us
that she had passed away
that morning.
My first reaction to hearing
that Heather passed away
was just total sorrow.
Um, I-I just
I-I couldn't believe it.
- The mother of the star of
the three poltergeist movies
has filed a wrongful death suit
against the hospital
and medical group
that treated Heather.
- What they thought she had
was a bowel inflammation.
What she actually had
was an obstruction.
- There was a congenital birth
defect
and she had an abscess
in her intestines
that had been collecting
fecal matter
and, and, and other toxic matter
that had been growing in like
this balloon on her intestines,
and that morning
Um, it exploded.
And basically,
she went into toxic shock
and that was
That was the end of it.
And Alan ladd Jr., he said,
"Gary, get on a plane.
You gotta come back,
we gotta have a meeting.
We have a film that we have an
ending that we're unhappy with.
We were gonna shoot
a new ending and"
So I flew back to Los Angeles.
And I wanted to be there
anyways for the funeral,
where I had been asked to be
a pallbearer.
We just decided in that room
that day,
the day before the funeral,
that we were not gonna finish
the film.
Film's over.
I can't go back into
the cutting room
or watch this film
with this dead 11-year-old
in it.
Afterwards, the board
at mgm just said to us,
you're gonna finish the film.
We got a lot of money invested
in the film,
you're gonna finish the film.
- You don't need Carol Ann!
I can lead you into the light.
I have the knowledge
and the power!
- So they said, we'll have
to come up and do an ending
that won't involve Heather.
So, we came up with the idea
for the stupid ending
that's on the film now
and used a double for Heather.
That was the creepiest thing
I've ever gone through
in my life -
having this little girl
dressed up as Heather,
keeping her face away
from camera.
I really just did not want
to finish the film.
None of us would go along
with the studio
and do any publicity for
the release of the movie.
None of us wanted
the movie released
and ah
But it was.
I don't think any of us
thought finishing the film
would be a memorial to Heather.
The only thing we did was
At the end of the film
there is a single card
that says:
In memoriam to Heather o'Rourke,
which just makes it sadder.
(Chuckles)
- In other showbiz news,
as "poltergeist 3"
opens around the country,
the memory of Heather o'Rourke
continues to make headlines.
- With the death
of Heather o'Rourke,
and several other stars in
the poltergeist films,
supermarket tabloids
immediately began running
stories of the films
being jinxed.
- Following Heather's death,
I was attacked by the
By the tabloid world.
They were outside my door.
I couldn't pick up my phone
without it being somebody
from
The national inquirer
or some other rag like that,
wanting to know uh
You know, asking me questions
about Heather's death
and about the curse
of poltergeist.
I actually moved and changed
my phone number.
Zelda rubinstein got so fed up
with people asking her
to talk about it,
she finally went on camera
and did an interview.
- Zelda rubinstein is in
"poltergeist 3".
We asked what she thought
of the jinx stories.
- Heather died because of
an undetected
Congenital anatomical defect.
And Dominique dunne died
at the hands
of an extremely ill-directed,
passionate boyfriend.
I think that it's pretty much
a courtesy
to put to an end
this superstitious um
Crap.
- You know, it's possible, if!
- Had to do this all over again,
that I probably wouldn't
have made the movie.
Um, I uh
But I don't think it had
anything to do with a curse.
I think people are always
fascinated
by the unknown.
The fact that some people wanna
connect that
with poltergeist
and skeletons
To each his own.
- I'm Craig reardon and I work
in special makeup effects,
and in 1981,
I worked on "poltergeist".
But the subject of the skeletons
that were used in poltergeist,
to my utter amazement
has created sort of an online
mythology,
and not a pretty one.
Apparently, there's a
contingent of people out there
who, uh, believe that the fact
that real human skeletons
were used
are some kind of pretext
to "explain" - air quotes -
why two actresses
that worked in the film
subsequently died,
which is not only
Just conceptually ridiculous,
but, uh, is personally
offensive to me.
Here's something I guess
they don't know,
and that's the fact that
human skeletons
have been used in movies
for years and years.
William castle, who's a kind
of a beloved figure,
well, he makes a movie called
house on haunted hill,
and at the end of that movie,
Vincent price makes a skeleton
emerge
from a vat of supposedly acid.
The skeleton wobbles toward
his virago of a wife.
Well, that was a real skeleton
too.
It was a skeleton rigged up
as a marionette.
There's a scene at the beginning
of the 1931 movie, Frankenstein,
where Fritz the hunchback
runs into a skeleton.
-Agh! Oh!
- I mean, you know, I hate
to disillusion you,
those were real human skeletons
because no low budget b film
is gonna pay anybody
to sculpt a human skeleton
when all you had to do was go
to a biological supply house
and get a human skeleton.
You know, wake up and smell
the budget.
That's really the way it worked.
The idea of having a few of
them on the set of poltergeist
and killing two lovely
young girls
is a pretty pernicious idea.
It's an insult to the memory
of a very sweet little girl,
Heather o'Rourke,
and it's worse than that
to Dominique dunne,
who was strangled to death
by her boyfriend,
which had fuck-all to do
with a skeleton.
- Life is full of really
Terrible tragedies
and accidents.
I think it's easier for people
to try to explain away
the kind of fragility
of life and death
if they can come up with some
kind of larger reason for it,
some kind of conspiracy theory
that helps justify why this
person is suddenly gone.
I think it helps people cope
in some ways too,
if they can't accept
the reality of it.
Because the reality is that
anyone can leave us at any time
and that's sometimes
too difficult
to wrap our heads around.
(Rain patters, keys jingle)
(Door bangs shut)