Original subtitles

We hear a lot about cursed films around horror productions.

It's definitely a curious thing that people gravitate to, you know, crazy

that happen on the set of The Exorcist.

They omen.

You know, I remember watching Poltergeist, and I remember my parents

oh, that little girl died.

And I was like, oh, my God.

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 the

kind of cursed things that had happened on set.

Most people, when you hear of Poltergeist, probably think, oh yeah,

film that was kind of cursed.

And then you enter the internet into that and forget about it. It's off and

skyrocketing and has a life of its own now. It will never go away.

There's a series of mishaps that happen that believers will say 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

being choked out.

One of the stories that come out of the original Poltergeist, which had a lot of

tragic stories surrounding it, a lot of death, was Jo Beth Williams in a muddy

pool full of skeletons.

If you need skeletons to come out of a muddy pool, what do you do? Well, just

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.

The Poltergeist curse is often attributed to these rumors that they

skeletons from India, and this is blasphemous, and they've desecrated

bodies, and it led to a curse.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I tend to believe that is

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.

The death of Heather O 'Rourke and Dominique Dunn. Oh, brother.

Dominique Dunn was the daughter of Dominique Dunn, who was a very famous

writer for Vanity Fair.

He made a name for himself covering many of the famous murder trials of the

1990s. Her older brother was Griffin Dunn, who had made a number of movies.

Did you hear that?

Dominic Dunn was in a relationship with John Sweeney, who was the sous chef for

Wolfgang Puck.

One evening, Dominic had been beaten up by John Sweeney, and so she

broke off the relationship.

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.

Dominic Dunn 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 Dominic Dunn, 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 Dunn is murdered by her boyfriend.

I think that doesn't pick up a lot of cursed heat at the time, but then in

Poltergeist II, Will Sampson, an actor in the film who was also a shaman, was

allowed on set after hours to perform an exorcism to try to rid the production

of its demons.

Two years after the release of Poltergeist II, Will Sampson, that same

performed the exorcism, died of kidney failure and malnutrition at age 53.

that one, he's young. That could be a curse.

And then to add to this list, Julian Beck, who played the cult leader, the

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.

He died of stomach cancer as well.

When I accepted to do Poltergeist 3, I was aware of the fact that there had

deaths on the previous two films.

I think the only thing that brought about any feelings of a curse or

was we had to recreate one of the characters in the film because the

Julian Beck, had died, and we wanted to bring back the character of Reverend

Kane, so they used the death mask of 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

sure.

It was a little creepy.

I'm Matthew Hudson. I'm a science writer, and I'm the author of The Seven

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, 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 the 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. Yep, 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.

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

opportunity to wear Hitler's jacket,

They don't want to 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 going to 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.

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.

A lot of screen used masks, various Halloween films.

It's very important for me to have screen used stuff versus just replicas.

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

my mind for having it in my house.

That thing terrified them as a child.

It terrified me.

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

location.

Not just for the horror education that you get from it, but also for the

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

there.

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, it is almost like a religion.

Hello.

This is Ethan for Nubby Vision. I am standing in front of the Freezing House,

which was featured in Poltergeist, my favorite 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 is 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

house from the film. Or maybe they knew and they just didn't think it would be a

big deal. Who would ever find out?

The reason why I'm whispering is because I'm at the Poltergeist house and the

garage door is open. There's a guy literally in his garage right there, so

trying to be quiet.

When you visit these places, you feel like it's a house you grew up in because

in your mind, it's a memory.

So I just became obsessed with it. My friend Darren and I found the street

the Myers house was.

Hi, I'm Sean Clark. Today I'm at the Myers house in South Pasadena,

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

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

The swimming pool was shot on a soundstage at MGM, but, you know, this

doesn't even have a swimming pool.

The interior of this house wasn't actually used. It was all set, and just

exterior is what they used in the film.

And it's just a regular house. Nothing scary about it. It's just suburbia.

Hey, how you doing?

So now I'm with Richard Hallman. He's the next -door neighbor. So tell me,

did you move in, and when did you first find out this was the house from

Poltergeist? I moved in in 2010, about eight 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 because looking into the backyard when

were supposedly making the swimming pool because they did that they made the

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 was right

here it was here no it was here Okay, so the curse could be real, and it might

actually be this house.

Yeah, there's some weird things that went on as far as how many people,

things like that, passed away, things like that. That's scary.

You know, there was rumors that they used some actual skeletons in that

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. Don't hear him. Still going.

The curse of Poltergeist is really fascinating because it's kind of this

-curse, because it is mirroring what you're seeing in the movie, and that

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

the same mistakes that the people in the movie are making. Then it has this meta

credibility to it.

The thing is, if you talk to

anyone who's around that tragedy, 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'm going to be

a director when I grow up, so I would like to study how you work.

I think Heather had a ball with the practical effects.

It was like an amusement park ride for her.

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.

Heather had been ill before we started shooting, and her parents had been

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 going to 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

I just, 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 bowel inflammation.

What she actually had was an obstruction.

It was a congenital birth defect, and she had an abscess in her intestines

had been collecting fecal matter and other toxic matter.

that had been growing in like this balloon on her intestines. And that

it exploded.

And basically, she went into toxic shock.

And that was the end of it.

Nell and Ladd Jr., he said, Gary, get on a plane.

You got to come back. We got to have a meeting.

We have a film that we have an ending that we're unhappy with. We were going

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 going to 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 going to finish the film.

We got a lot of money invested in the film. You're going to finish the film.

You don't need to land.

I can lead you into the light.

I have the knowledge and the power.

So they said you'll have to come up and do an ending that...

It 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

of the movie.

None of us wanted the movie released, but it was.

I don't think any of us thought finishing the film would be a memorial

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.

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 tabloid world.

They were outside my door. I couldn't pick up my phone without it being

from the National Enquirer or some other rag like that wanting to know.

you know, asking me questions about Heather's death and about the curse of

Poltergeist. I actually moved and changed my phone number.

Zelda Rubenstein got so fed up with people asking her to talk about it, she

finally went on camera and did an interview.

Zelda Rubenstein is in Poltergeist 3. We asked what she thought of the Jinx

stories. Heather died.

because of an undetected congenital anatomical defect.

And Dominique Dunn 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 crap.

You know, it's possible if I had to do this all over again that I probably

wouldn't have made the movie.

But I don't think it had anything to do with the curse.

I think people are always fascinated by the unknown.

The fact that some people want to connect that with poltergeists and

to each his own.

I'm Craig Reardon, and I work in special makeup effects.

And in 1981, I worked on poltergeist.

The subject of the skeletons that were used in poltergeist, to my utter

amazement, has created a sort of an online mythology, and not a pretty one.

Apparently, there's a contingent of people out there who believe that the

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

just conceptually ridiculous, but 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 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.

I mean... you know, I hate to disillusion you, those were real human

because no low -budget B -film is going to 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 Dunn, 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

of it, because the reality is that anyone can leave us at any time, and

sometimes too difficult to wrap our heads around.