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Haunted Or Cursed Films?

MrRING

Android Futureman
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Aug 7, 2002
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Haunted Films?

What are the legendary "haunted films" out there in movieland? The thread about Ghostwatch got me thinking about films that had somebody dying on set or are associated with other supernatural occurances. And, can a film be haunted - could the spirit get caught up somehow in the film negative?

Here's what I can think of:

The Bell from Hell: Director falls off the bell tower towards the end of the shoot.

The Crow: Brandon Lee's tragic death.

Once Upon A Time In The West: One of the actors commited suicide right after finishing his part.

Twilight Zone: The Movie: Vic Morrow & two young children killed in an effects mishap.

I know about the Three Men and a Baby urban legend, but isn't it just a minurature cutout of Ted Danson?
 
I almost forgot

The Poltergeist films, where somebody died after each film
(1st - older daughter)
(2nd - evil ghost leader & shaman)
(3rd - youngest daughter)
 
I heard about deaths associated with 'Polt' but have never got to the bottom of them. Any chance of a link please?
 
Didn't most of the set burn down during the filming of Kubrick's "The Shining"?

TVgeek
 
Someone told me once that in The Wizard of Oz there is a munchkin hanging from a tree, but I've never seen it myself.
 
Spooky angel said:
Someone told me once that in The Wizard of Oz there is a munchkin hanging from a tree, but I've never seen it myself.

That's an UL, according to snopes.

However, the gal that played the Wicked Witch was almost burned alive when her makeup caught on fire during her death scene.

Occupational hazard.
 
Spooky angel said:
Someone told me once that in The Wizard of Oz there is a munchkin hanging from a tree, but I've never seen it myself.

Just don't mention that rumor over on the snopes board or one of the regulars will go into apoplexy and start foaming at the mouth.

Nonny "it's a bird" Mouse
 
I heard it wasn't a munchkin, but a technician who got tangled in the lighting cables.
Anyone?
TVgeek
 
Things & stuff

"the munchkin" in WoOz is just a shadow, not a suicide, and I want to say it's a bird or just leaves or something.

I'm not sure about "The Shining", but the outdoor set for Legend burned down (footage on the DVD for all you renters out there).

I guess John Wayne's The Conqueror could be considered a cursed set, since so many of the cast & crew got cancer from nuclear tests conducted near the shooting.

Wasn't there something about the filming of the Exorcist, or did I imagine something like that?
 
IIRC, there were problems on 'The Exorcist' set, including one death.
 
I know that "The Misfits" has a reputation. But mostly because it was the last major film for the three stars, who IIRC all died fairly shortly afterwards
 
Here you go... more than you ever wanted to know about
"The Shining":

http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/html/shining/shining2.html

Part of the Overlook sets were destroyed and had to be rebuilt after a fire at the studio. The fire damaged one shooting stage, which contained the big lobby/Colorado lounge set. The fire destroyed many of the archive photographs on loan from Warner Brothers.

It doesn't sound like a big deal after all!

TVgeek
 
"real" ghosts on video

I’m not sure about haunted films. But my dad managed to record a ghost while videoing a Paul Simon gig (this was some years ago). For some reason an image appeared of a face on several frames of the video. Looked almost like the Turin Shroud but after a few times of studying the video the image disappeared. Very odd!

MX
 
Zoikies!

While it's not a film, has anybody else ever heard the rumor of a ghostly track spontaneously appearing during the recording of a Joy Division record?

The story I heard was that they recorded an album late at night (between mignight and three in the morning) and, during the mixdown, they discovered a weird track of gibberish/human voices recorded where no sound should have been recorded.

Of course, it could just be urban legend, but I always wanted to know which album it was...
 
Re: "real" ghosts on video

MXhaunted said:
I’m not sure about haunted films. But my dad managed to record a ghost while videoing a Paul Simon gig (this was some years ago). For some reason an image appeared of a face on several frames of the video. Looked almost like the Turin Shroud but after a few times of studying the video the image disappeared. Very odd!

MX


That is actually a very common phenomenon! Many
of the photos submitted to the http://www.ghoststudy.com
website are of anomalous images appearing on television
screens that are (supposedly) turned off!

And the folks at:
http://www.worlditc.org/
(thanks to Pinklefish for the link!)
seem to be making a career out of finding brief flashes
of faces, landscapes, etc... on videotape.

This topic might make a good thread on its own...hmmm...

TVgeek
 
Wayne's Way

The radiation-induced cancer deaths among the cast and crew of THE CONQUEROR is even more egregious than having filmed near nulcear tests. What gave most the eventually fatal dosage was the fact that Hollywood hauled tons of the dirt from the location site back to a sound stage, where it was blown around by fans inside a warehouse to get further scenes.

One technician died when, on a scaffold in the HAL 9000 set, he leaned back to catch a fallling lightbulb and lost his balance. Fell 70 feet as I recall. The only death during 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. How come this isn't considered a "haunted" movie?

Seems people use selective perception, and most so-called haunted movies are either horror movies, (POLTERGEIST), or have elements of spookiness, (THE WIZARD OF OZ).
 
Re: Wayne's Way

FraterLibre said:
The only death during 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. How come this isn't considered a "haunted" movie?

Seems people use selective perception, and most so-called haunted movies are either horror movies, (POLTERGEIST), or have elements of spookiness, (THE WIZARD OF OZ).

The common factor seems to be the strangeness of the deaths.
Granted, death comes to all, and it can hardly be called rare.
But in the case of POLTERGEIST, it was the sudden death of the young people from bizarre causes. The WOZ death was believed to be caught on camera, and the scene actually USED in the released film. Ditto TWILIGHT ZONE.

This seems to be where the line is drawn on "haunted" movies.
Anyone?

TVgeek
 
TZ's Death

Vic Morrow is seen picking up the kids and dashing into the water toward, or under, the helicopter -- depending how you see it -- and then they cut. That's how the scene looks in the released movie.

However, I've seen television monitor video tapes of the scene, from three angles, that does not cut. You see the copter come down in a fairly slow-motion crash, but then the blades come down as it tilts forward. You see Morrow actually hunch over to protect the children, and then the blade hits and there is a splash and that's it.

They used a heavily-edited cut of what the cameras captured, only after much legal wrangling and release forms signed all around. Meanwhile the director went from rising young movie guy to doing cable TV shows, and TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE became a kind of cult favorite or sorts.

Want to see something REALLY scary?
 
Tote bag a rama

Orson Welles actually filmed a late 60's/early 70's version of what became "Dean Calm" with Nichole Kidman but it's never been released. Here's what an Orson Welles site says about it:

"1970 THE DEEP ,previous title: DEAD RECKONING; unfinished.
Based in the novel DEAD CALM by Charles Williams.
D and S: Orson Welles. F in color: Willy Kurant and Ivica Rajkolvic C: Lawrence Harvey, Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, Oja Kodar y Michael Bryant. It was filmed between 1967 and 1969, nearly all the shooting was completed but some scenes remained unfilmed, they never could be shot because of the death of the lead male, Lawrence Harvey. "

I don't know if his death occured during filming or not.

Also, I've wondered if the premise for the Japanese horror film "The Ring" could be based on an existing underground film. If you haven't seen the film, it's got a psychic ghost who is trapped in thefilm and anybody who watched it will die in three days.

Speaking of underground, could Anger's Lucifer Rising be consideed a cursed film, what with the original being stolen and destroyed, then remade a bit later and scored in prison? It has an errie pull in the imagry...
 
How about a "haunted" filmmaker.
Orson Welles’ career was cursed by a voodoo priest who claimed Welles shouldn't have filmed an actual voodoo ritual for the documentary "It’s all True". The video release of "It’s all True" includes a segment titled "Four Men on a Raft" -- while shooting this, one of the men drowned!

I'm really on the fence with this one. After doing something
as perfect as "Citizen Kane" when he was 25, where else
can he go? The stress alone would have caused a career
slump for anyone. But having a voodoo curse over your head
gives you a convenient excuse, to never work again!

TVgeek
 
Welles

The Welles version of DEAD CALM would be of interest even unfinished, I'd think, and what a wonderful cast.

The voodoo curse apparently upset him, he bought into it. However, keep in mind when and how it came about, too. He'd finished THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and the studio wanted changes. He refused, knowing full well he had another masterpiece on his hand. They then sent him, ostensibly to do some government propaganda work, to Rio, where, during Carnival, he observed and filmed some voodoo ceremonies.

In his absence, the studio not only re-edited AMBERSONS but actually brought back Joseph Cotton and others and shot an entirely new ending. Worse, they actually destroyed Welles footage.

Meanwhile he'd somehow run afoul of a voodoo practicioner, who allegedly stuck a steel needle with some talismans on it through a copy of some script he'd brought with him, the one dealing with Carnival.

Welles would have been psychologically surrounded, as it were, by forces aligned against him, and from the top down. He was in many ways his own worst enemy, alienating people with his grandiose personality and arrogance and especially snapping his fingers under the noses of anyone who claimed authority over him. As a result, he must've felt doomed.

Yes, he was definitely as cursed as Hitchcock was, in most ways, blessed.
 
Re: TZ's Death

FraterLibre said:
Vic Morrow is seen picking up the kids and dashing into the water toward, or under, the helicopter -- depending how you see it -- and then they cut. That's how the scene looks in the released movie.
[/B]

Uh, no. No scene with Vic Morrow and the kids is in the released movie.
 
Scene in Movie

It's in there, but heaviliy edited, as I said. They never show the actual deaths, which were indeed filmed.

In fact, some suspect there was a bit of extra filming done to get some angle shots, perhaps with a model. That could be just an Urban Legend, but it's also quite possible.

What always saddened me most is that those folks had to die doing such a banal film.
 
Uh, no. The kids aren't in the released film and neither is the helicopter or the grass huts or the huge explosions.
 
Need Confirmation

We need to confirm this somehow, one way or the other. I've got it taped someplace, but damned if I'm rooting through THAT sub-basement.

I'm wondering if there aren't different cuts out. I'm also wondering if they differ inside and outside USSA.

Let the Googling begin !
 
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