When you mix a daughter who communicates with spirits living inside a TV set, a backyard that becomes a swimming pool of muddy skeletons, a wolf-beast demon that lives in a closet, and Steven Spielberg’s genius, you get the perfect formula for blockbuster scariness. Released in 1982, the original Poltergeist, directed by Tobe Hooper and produced by Spielberg, was an instant success and is considered to be a masterpiece of American horror cinema.
The original movie focuses on the Freelings, a middle-class family led by a youthful, dashing Craig T. Nelson whose life is upturned when a number of paranormal and vicious events occur in their California home. Most petrifying among them is when the Freelings’ daughter Carol Anne is abducted through her bedroom closet by a group of ghosts who are under the control of a monster demon called the “Beast.”
The Freelings spend their time attempting to retrieve Carol Anne and all the while stay sane as they get smacked around, terrorized, and ultimately “goobered” on in the bathtub. Eventually, they learn the reason for their house’s haunting. The family’s story continued in the sequels Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) and Poltergeist III (1988).
With Poltergeist’s success came a creepy mystique. The classic movie is shrouded in real-life tragedies that some interpret as a curse.
Watch Poltergeist, Poltergeist II: The Other Side, and Poltergeist III on Amazon Prime Video
Four cast members died during and soon after the filming of the movies
The majority of the fuel for the alleged Poltergeist curse stems from the deaths of multiple cast members. In total, four actor died during and soon after the filming of the series. Two of these tragic deaths were highly unexpected and puzzling, leading many fans to speculate on the trilogy’s eerie implications.
Dominique Dunne played older sister Dana Freeling in Poltergeist.
The first actor to meet a tragic and unforeseen fate was Dominique Dunne, who played the original older sister Dana Freeling. In 1982, the actor separated from her partner John Sweeney. That November, he showed up at Dunne’s house pleading for her to take him back. When she refused, Sweeney grabbed Dunne’s neck, choked her until she was unconscious, and left her to die in her Hollywood home’s driveway. Sweeney was sentenced to six and a half years in prison but was released after three years and seven months. (Dunne and her death were recently back in the zeitgeist following the September release of Netflix’s Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story that featured Nathan Lane as journalist Dominick Dunne, who was Dominique’s father.)
Heather O’Rourke starred in all three Poltergeist movies as Carole Anne Freeling.
Heather O’Rourke played the Freelings’ other daughter, Carol Anne, who is the young focal point of the movie trilogy. Only 6 years old when the first Poltergeist movie was released, O’Rourke captivated audiences with her stark blond hair, doll-like appearance, and big, inquisitive eyes.
In 1987, she was misdiagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. The following year, O’Rourke fell ill again, and her symptoms were casually attributed to the flu. A day later, she collapsed and suffered a cardiac arrest. After being airlifted to a children’s hospital in San Diego, O’Rourke died during an operation to correct a bowel obstruction, and it was later believed she had been suffering from a congenital intestinal abnormality. Poltergeist III was released four months after her death.
Julian Beck
Will Sampson
The other two cast member deaths, while unfortunate, weren’t as unpredictable or mysterious. The evil preacher Kane from Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) was played by Julian Beck. In 1983, Beck had been diagnosed with stomach cancer, which took his life soon after he finished work on the second installment of the series. The same film was met with further tragedy, after Will Sampson, who played Taylor the Native American shaman, died in 1987 after undergoing a heart-lung transplant, which had a very slim survival rate.
Other strange things happened on the Poltergeist sets
Cast deaths weren’t the only agents of the curse’s proliferation, as other peculiar and creepy legends surround the film franchise. JoBeth Williams, who played mom Diane Freeling in the first two films, claimed that producer Spielberg insisted on using actual human skeletons as props in an attempt to save money. At the time, they were cheaper than plastic skeletons. Williams’ claim has never been verified, but it persists to this day in the lore surrounding the movies’ curse.
Finally, in an effort to further creep out everyone involved, Sampson, who was a real-life medicine man in addition to being an actor, performed an authentic exorcism after shooting wrapped up one night. One can only imagine how this made the other cast members feel.
