Horror films are designed to terrify, but sometimes what happens behind the scenes can be so much scarier.
For decades, some of the most frightening flicks to hit the big screen have been labelled ‘cursed’ by fans due to terrible things that happened during filming – and sometimes before it had even begun.
Most recently, Glenn Close’s The Deliverance was hit by several strange instances one after the other that had fans scratching their heads and wondering if the set was haunted.
The cast and crew of the Netflix hit reportedly held ‘prayer circles’ after director Lee Daniels’ dog died, and actor Mo’Nique was rushed to hospital.
‘Mr. Daniels had me doing a scene, okay? And we’re outside. It was just, the demon was supposed to be on top of the building, so they kept blowing this… I mean, at one point I’m like, “Lee, do we have this shit because I can’t breathe,”‘ she told SiriusXM.
‘So when I got finished, right, my thyroid was a big… I mean, it was just sick.
‘Oh, baby. I was like, “What kind of s**t is this?” It was a lot of things happening with The Deliverance.’
Daniels also revealed his sister had been diagnosed with lung cancer two days after filming the chemotherapy scene with Close.
It’s just the latest in a long line of horror films that have had stranger than fiction events surrounding the production…
The Exorcist
The Exorcist is often cited as one of the scariest and greatest horror films ever made, but it was famously dogged with problems and freakish occurrences even before filming began.
Shortly before filming began on the 1973 possession horror, the set of Regan and Chris MacNeil’s home burned down unexpectedly.
Further delays occurred when Linda Blair and Max von Sydow, who played Regan and Father Merrin respectively, lost close family members.
Things didn’t get much better when filming began, with Linda and Ellen Burstyn, who starred as Chris, both sustaining injuries on set – Linda even fractured her spine during the iconic bed possession scene, an injury that had lifelong implications.
It has also been reported that one crew member lost a toe during filming, and another a thumb.
Across the production of The Exorcist, nine deaths occurred including that of Jack MacGowran, who played Burke Dennings.
Where to watch: BBC iPlayer, NOW TV, and Sky Go
The Omen
Lucifer himself appeared to be trying to stop The Omen in its tracks back in 1976.
Two months before filming began, Robert Thorn actor Gregory Peck was struck by tragedy when his son took his own life.
Later, In October 1975, Peck was travelling to London to film The Omen when his aeroplane was struck by lightning – and bizarrely, this isn’t the only disruption lightning would cause.
A few weeks later, producer Mace Neufeld was travelling to set when his aeroplane was also struck by lightning, and screenwriter David Seltzer also experienced the same occurrence.
When filming began in Rome, producer Harvey Bernard narrowly avoided being hit by lightning – proving once, and for all, that lightning can strike twice…And more.
A stroke of luck saw the crew avoid death when the charter plane they were set to use for an aerial shot was used by a group of businessmen – with the plane crashing and killing everyone on board.
The hotel the director, Richard Donner, had been staying in was bombed by the IRA the day after filming, and a zookeeper at the safari park where they filmed the baboon scene was killed by a lion, also the day after those scenes were shot.
A serious accident could have occurred onset when dogs used in a scene turned on a stuntman and could not be called off by their handlers.
But the most infamous tragedy that happened that is attributed to The Omen is that of Liz Moore’s death.
She was the assistant and girlfriend of John Richardson, the film’s special effects expert. The duo were involved in a car accident in the Netherlands in 1976.
While Richardson escaped the wreck largely unscathed, Moore was decapitated.
What makes it even more terrifying? The accident happened on Friday the 13th and when John came to, he noticed a road sign that read ‘Ommen, 66.6km’.
Where to watch: Disney Plus
Poltergeist
Film fans have long suspected that 1982 horror film Poltergeist was cursed after supposedly using real, human skeletons in the first film, though this has never been confirmed.
Before the third Poltergeist film was released in 1988, four cast members had died, including Heather O’Rourke who played Carol Anne in the original production.
O’Rourke was just 12 years old when she died of congenital stenosis of the intestine complicated by septic shock on February 1, 1988, before filming of the third film wrapped.
In the same year that the first film was released, Dominique Dunne, who starred as Dana, was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, in the driveway of her home.
She fell into a coma and died five days later on November 4, 1982.
Taylor actor Will Sampson died aged 53 from postoperative kidney failure in 1987, and Lou Perryman, who played Pugsley, was murdered by Seth Christopher Tatum in 2009 during a robbery.
Oliver Robins, who played Robbie Freeling, was also almost killed while filming a scene where a clown was attacking him, after the mechanical clown malfunctioned and the actor was being choked for real.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store
The Crow
Actor Brandon Lee – who was the son of Bruce Lee – was fatally shot on the set of The Crow, when a prop gun was accidentally loaded with a real bullet, which hit him in the abdomen and caused his death.
While that could easily be attributed to a freak accident, what makes it so much more creepy is the fact that he had apparently predicted his own death after having a premonition that he would die suddenly.
Brandon is said to have believed his family was cursed after his grandfather had angered a businessman who had put a curse on them.
His dad, Bruce Lee, also died at 32 after apparently having a premonition that he would only live half the time of his father, who died at age 64, due to the curse.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store
Twilight Zone: The Movie
Twilight Zone: The Movie, released in 1983, suffered a terrible, tragic accident on set when three cast members were killed when filming the Time Out segment.
Actor Victor Morrow, who played Bill Connor in the film, and two child actors, who had allegedly been illegally hired, were decapitated, crushed and killed on set when a low-flying helicopter spun out of control.
The three were killed while filming a scene featuring heavy explosions when debris from the explosions flew 100 feet in the air and damaged the helicopter’s rotor.
During the subsequent trial, director John Landis denied culpability for the accident, but admitted that the hiring of the child actors Myca Dinh Le, 7, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, 6, was ‘wrong.’
Landis, associate producer George Folsey Jr, production manager Dan Allingham, pilot Dorcey Wingo, and explosives specialist Paul Stewart were later acquitted on charges of manslaughter
Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store
The Ring Two
The Ring Two, directed by Hideo Nakata, was released in 2005 and had some very strange phenomena take place that suspiciously mimicked the events of the film.
Nakata once revealed in an interview that water is used in the film to symbolize someone’s evil spirit, and during production, the production office began flooding.
The film’s set costumer Jeannine Bourdaghs witnessed a strange occurrence on the Universal lot in which a deer, reported to be six foot tall, ran at her.
She continued that if she had been ‘six feet ahead’, the deer would have ploughed into her at almost 100 miles-an-hour.
This is particularly spooky as in the film, there is a scene in which Samara (Daveigh Chase) attempts to kill Rachel (Naomi Watts) and Aidan (David Dorfman) with a deer.
Where to watch: NOW TV, Sky Go, and Paramount Plus
Annabelle
For a film about a cursed doll, you would probably expect some eerie happenings on set – but maybe not this horrific.
Both the first Annabelle film and its sequel, Annabelle Comes Home, had some very freaky stuff happen during filming, including light fixtures reportedly falling and the film’s Annabelle doll moving on its own.
Producer Peter Sarfan told The Hollywood Reporter: ‘We shot in this amazing, old apartment building near Koreatown, and we had some funky stuff go down.
‘In particular, the first day that the demon was shooting in full makeup, we brought him up in the elevator. He walks out and walks around to the green room to where we’re holding the talent, and just as he walks under, the entire glass light fixture falls down on his head. And in the script, the demon kills the janitor in that hallway. It was totally freaky.’
The doll itself is based on a ‘real’ haunted doll investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are fictionalised in these films as well as The Conjuring franchise.
In the sequel, Madison Iseman said that when she would enter the Warrens’ bedroom set, she would find the Annabelle doll in different positions each time despite no one entering or exiting the room.
Star Mckenna Grace also reported experiencing a sudden nosebleed during rehearsals, and that one trailer had a strange power outage that the crew could not find the source of.
Where to watch: NOW TV and Sky Go
Rosemary’s Baby
Rosemary’s Baby centres on a pregnant woman who believes an evil cult wants to take her baby to use in their dark rituals.
But the stories that surround the making of the 1968 movie are enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
The most famous being the death of Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, who was brutally murdered by Charles Manson’s followers a year after the film was released.
Producer William Castle also suffered sudden kidney failure after receiving hate mail about the film and apparently screamed ‘Rosemary, for God’s sake, drop the knife!’ as he was being admitted to the hospital. He later died of a heart attack.
The composer, Krzysztof Komeda, also died of a brain clot a year after the film was released in a weirdly similar way to how Rosemary’s friend, Hutch dies in the movie.
In another bizarre coincidence, Beatles star John Lennon was shot and killed outside the building in which Rosemary’s apartment scenes were shot.
Where to watch: NOW TV and Sky Go
The Amityville Horror
The ninth installment of the Amityville series, 2005’s The Amityville Horror, focuses on the reported experiences of the Lutz family after they moved into a house in Long Island where Ronald DeFeo Jr murdered six members of his family in 1974, before they moved out just 28 days later after apparently being terrorised by the paranormal.
All six of the victims were found face down in their beds with no signs of a struggle, despite police finding that the rifle used to kill them had not been fitted with a sound suppressor and they hadn’t been drugged with sedatives before their deaths.
None of the family’s neighbours reported hearing any gunshots, and those who were awake at the time of the murders say they only heard the family’s sheepdog, Shaggy, barking.
Ryan Reynolds, who plays George Lutz in the film, reported that he and members of the crew kept waking up at 3.15am every day, which was the time Ronald DeFeo Jr was said to have murdered his parents and four siblings.
Before filming began, a dead body of a fisherman also washed up on shore by the film set and the real Kathy Lutz also died during filming.
Where to watch: Prime Video and Freevee
