Honestly , a documentary about some of these film sets would be 10x scarier than the actual horror movies were .
word of advice : This article includes acknowledgment of death , execution , and injury . Proceed with circumspection .
1.The Nun’s director, Corin Hardy,claimedthat he had his first supernatural experience while shooting the movie. The crew was shooting a scene in a 200-foot-long, dark corridor filled with crosses in an actual underground Romanian fortress. He ducked into a pitch-black cell to watch from the monitors and saw a room full of what he assumed to be local crew members sitting behind him, watching along as well. After the scene played out, he turned back to see their reaction. No one was there. Corin claims there was only one door to the room, and it was right in front of him.
You can watch the “corridor of crosses” scene here:
2.BothJennifer Carpenter— star ofThe Exorcism of Emily Rose —and her costarLaura Linneyhad paranormal experiences while working on the film. Jenniferrevealedthat she was woken up several times in the middle of the night by her radio turning on by itself, once blaring “Alive” by Pearl Jam. She said Laura had a similar experience, except for her it was the TV.
3.The unusual activity on the set ofThe Possessiondidn’t happen behind the scenes… It happened while the cameras were running and major scenes were being shot.According tostarJeffrey Dean Morgan, activity ranged from things like exploding lights and inexplicable, cold wind in a room that had no drafts…to a mysterious fire that destroyed all the film’s props in storage, including the fake dybbuk they used while filming. To this day, none of them know what caused the fire, as there were no signs of electrical issues or arson.
4.According toThe Ring Two’s director, Hideo Nakata, the film’s crew had some real-life unfortunate encounters that suspiciously mirrored things that happen in the movie. Hideoexplainedthat in the film, water is used to symbolize someone’s evil spirit. So, it was especially creepy for him and the rest of the crew when their production office started flooding days after they started filming the movie. It was so bad that water was literally pouring out of the walls. Additionally, the set costumer had an incident walking to set on the Universal lot, where a 6-foot deer sprinted around the corner and right at her, going about 100 miles an hour. If she’d just been a few steps closer, she said it easily would’ve taken her down. In the film, there’s a scene where Samara uses deer in an attempt to kill Rachel and Aidan.
You can watch the deer scene here:
5.Many believe the set of the originalPoltergeisttrilogy — which came out in the 1980s — was cursed, attributing the long string of unfortunate circumstances that followed the cast and crew to the use of real, human skeletons in the first film. Neither the crewnor JoBeth Williams— who was literally inside the pool with them — knew the skeletons were real and not, in fact, just props. Before the final film was released, four cast members died, including the young girl who played Carol Anne herself, Heather O’Rourke. A fifth was brutally murdered over a decade later, and one more narrowly escaped their own death.
The same year that the first movie came out, Dominique Dunne — the 22-year-old who played Dana — wasstrangledin her driveway by an abusive ex. Julian Beck — who played Kane —died of cancerbefore the second film’s release, and Will Sampson — who played Taylor —diedat only 53 from postoperative kidney failure. Heather passed away at the age of 12, before the final film hit the big screen, froma severe bowel obstruction. In 2009, Lou Perryman, who played Pugsley, was murdered with an ax in his home by an ex-con who wanted to steal his car.
Richard Lawson — who played Ryan —was aboard US Air Flight 405, whichcrashedafter takeoff. Over half of the plane’s passengers were killed by the crash, but Richard fortunately survived. While one technically can’t attest all these tragedies to the set’s “curse,” there does seem to be quite a significant amount of death and destruction surrounding it and its crew. So much so, that one cast member did an exorcism of the second movie’s set, trying to ease people’s nerves. You can read more about the whole thinghere.
You can watch the skeleton scene here:
6.BothAnnabelleand its sequel,Annabelle Comes Home,had some really strange things happen, from onset injuries like light fixtures falling and nose bleeds that stopped after leaving the house, to the Annabelle doll moving on its own. Ultimately, they chose to bless the film set.
During the first film, director John R. Leonettisaidthe first time the demon was in full makeup, he walked down a hallway when suddenly, a giant glass light fixture — which an actor had been following — suddenly crashed down onto that actor’s head. In the scene they were about to film, the demon killed that character in that exact hallway.
On set of the sequel,Madison Iseman claimedthat whenever she’d run up the stairs past the Warrens' bedroom, the Annabelle doll would be in a different position in the room, despite nobody going in the room.Mckenna Grace also saidthat one of the first days onset, rehearsing in the house the crew had crafted, her nose suddenly started pouring blood. When she went outside to clean it, it suddenly stopped. She also claimed that one of the trailers had a strange power outage issue, in which the lights wouldn’t turn on or off despite crew re-setting it and there being no issues they could detect.
7.Unlike on some other sets, the paranormal activity on set ofThe Conjuringseemed to be personal. While cast and crew reported things like waking up every morning at 3 a.m. — something that occurs in the movie — and feeling watched, the most horrifying haunts happened to actors Vera Farmiga andJoey King. Vera allegedlyfoundclaw marks carved across her personal laptop while she was filming and didn’t know how they got there. The very same claw marks appeared on her thigh one day shortly after she wrapped on the film.
Joey King, who played Christine,developeda rare, severe blood disorder while working on the film, seemingly out of the blue. It was so intense, she had to go into the hospital before and after filming to get her blood drawn and tested, and had a high risk of internal bleeding. As Joey explained it, “…like, all the red platelets from my body were, like, drained. They were just gone.” However, after she finished shooting the movie and made her way home…it allstopped. Joey has never had an issue with her blood again since.
8.Before filming the original 1979The Amityville Horrormovie, James Brolin was encouraged by his team to read the Jay Anson book, as the film had no script yet but was eyeing him for the cast.He was readinga particularly scary part of the book when his pants — which he frequently hung over the top of his bedroom door — suddenly fell to the floor. He was so spookedandamused by the happening that he decided then and there he’d do the film.
9.Melissa George, who played Kathy Lutz, revealed some suspiciously spooky things occurred while filming the 2005The Amityville Horrorremake.In the first week of filming, the real-life Kathy Lutz — who washeavily involvedin the production, to the point of beingcreditedas a writer — died. Then, while filming at a boathouse, a dead body was found by police, floating on the lake. Finally, while filming at the re-created Amityville house one night, Melissaclaimedthe lights turned on and off in the house, even though nobody was in there and security found no trespassers.
10.Stephen King’s directorial debutMaximum Overdrivewas the scene of a pretty gruesome onset accident. They were filming a shot where a murderous lawnmower was coming straight toward the camera, so planks of wood were used to angle the camera just right. Stepheninsistedon keeping the blades in the lawnmower and for it to be going fast, making it visually more terrifying. Unfortunately, that meant that the lawnmower aggressively surged forward, chopping its way through the wood and shooting a splinter straight into cinematographer Armando Nannuzzi’seye, causing “severe and permanent injuries.”
You can watch the lawnmower scene here:
11.The hotel that Ti West and his crew stayed at while filmingThe House of the Devilwas so haunted, it inspired his next horror flick,The Innkeepers.While staying at the Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington, Connecticut, Ticlaimedthat they saw doors close on their own, the TV turn on and off unprompted, lights burning out frequently, and crew members having strangely vivid dreams every night they stayed there. According to him, both the people of Torrington and the employees of the inn itself believe it’s haunted.
12.Ti West decided to filmThe Innkeepersat the actual hotel that inspired the film, with the cast and crew all staying onsite. As you can imagine, the paranormal activity continued. Tisaidthe first night he returned to the inn, the strange, vivid dreams immediately returned. Sara Paxton, who starred in the film, awoke in the middle of the night, feeling like someone was watching her in her room. When choosing which room to film in, Ti chose the Honeymoon Suite simply because it’d allow the most flexibility when it comes to camera shots and angles. When they were wrapping on the film, he learned that it was actually the most haunted room in the entire inn, and where the paranormal activity started in the first place.
13.And finally,The Exorcistis one of the most well-known potentially-cursed movie sets. A long list of unfortunate occurrences happened while the movie was filming, from severe injuries to fires to a literal murder. The first occurrence happened before filming had even begun. The set of the MacNeil home, which was all ready to go for filming,burned downunexpectedly. The only room that survived was the room that belonged to Regan — the possessed girl. The crew had to rebuild the set, which tooksix weeksto do. Further delays to filming occurred when two cast members, Max von Sydow (Father Lankester Merrin) and Linda Blair (Regan), lost close family members.
The cast and crew of the film also suffered many onset injuries. Both Linda and Ellen Burstyn (Regan’s mom)suffered lifelong back injurieswhile filming. Linda’s were so severe that she fractured her lower back. As her character was possessed and meant to be screaming and convulsing in the scene, the cast and crew didn’t know anything was wrong, so they kept going. Linda’s screams and tears in the final cut of the film were genuine. On top of these injuries, it’sreportedthat one crew member lost a toe, another lost a thumb, and a total ofnine deathsoccurred during production of the film, including that of actor Jack MacGowran (Burke Dennings).
Additionally, an extra in the film, Paul Bateson, was an actualserial killer. Paul, who appears as himself in the cerebral angiography scene, was convicted of killing Variety reporter Addison Verrill in 1977. Police believed he’d actually killed several additional men as well, but he was not convicted for them due to a lack of evidence.According to Dr. Ajax George, who worked with Paul onThe Exorcist, “People were shocked. There was no inkling in his behavior that would raise any suspicion. He was very good with patients, and he was extremely smart…he was an asset to the department.”
You can watch the scene with Paul Bateson here:
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