From on-set tragedies to alleged curses, Hollywood is full of mystique, wonder, and lore regarding many of cinema’s most famous and infamous pictures. Sometimes the often fatal productions of these films can attract more attention and intrigue than the finished products themselves, with many people believing them to be ominously cursed.The entertainment industry has certainly had its fair share of scandals, misfortunes, and conspiracies, many of which are forever associated with these noteworthy projects. While such notions can oftentimes be easily written off as merely a coincidence, some examples of curses and calamity in film are a little harder to rationalize.Notorious horror flicks like Poltergeist and The Omen were plagued with bizarre and heartbreaking occurrences, while the shocking on-set death of Brandon Lee during production of the original 1994 version of The Crow stunned both the world and show business. The incident mirrored the more recent 2021 Rust shooting involving Alec Baldwin and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, in which the actor accidentally killed the artist after firing a prop gun.The death of Hutchins sparked a debate on occupational safety in the film industry and the use of real guns as props. Let’s take a closer look at Poltergeist and other seemingly cursed, deadly movie productions.
7 The Conqueror
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Dick Powell’s 1956 epic film The Conqueror stars cinema legend John Wayne as the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan, as he battles against Tartar armies and for the love of their princess Bortai. The picture was shot near St. George, Utah, which is 137 miles downwind from the U.S. government’s Nevada National Security Site where 11 nuclear weapons tests occurred in 1953. Following the completion of The Conqueror, cancer ran rampant among both the cast and crew members and would continue to affect those a part of production for years to come. Of the 220 crew members for the film, 91 developed cancer during their lifetime with 46 dying from it.
Director Dick Powell died of cancer in 1963, seven years after completion of the product. John Wayne died in 1979 from stomach cancer, though he himself blamed the diagnosis on his six-pack-a-day cigarette habit. Susan Hayward and Pedro Armendáriz both succumbed to cancer and cancer-related illnesses, with Hayward passing away in 1975 from brain cancer and Armendáriz taking his own life when he discovered he had terminal neck cancer.
Filmmakers were aware of the hazardous set and famed producer Howard Hughes felt so guilty he bought every print of the film for $12 million and kept it out of circulation for many years. Controversy still exists whether radiation from the nearby nuclear site is to blame or if simple statistics and odds were at play.
6 Twilight Zone: The Movie
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The 1983 sci-fi horror anthology film Twilight Zone: The Movie features four segments inspired by the iconic Rod Serling TV show. Its production and overall legacy is marred by the tragic helicopter accident that claimed the lives of lead star Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen around 2:30 a.m. on July 23, 1982.
The two illegally-hired children were in violation of California law, which prohibits them from working at night or in proximity to explosives; the segment’s director John Landis had been on set during the accident. The night scene called for Morrow to carry the children across the river while being chased by American soldiers in a hovering helicopter, but a rotor failed which caused the low-flying helicopter to spin out of control; Morrow, Lee and Chen were killed instantly.
In addition to the deaths of the three actors, six helicopter passengers were injured in the traumatic accident. Director John Landis, associate producer George Folsey Jr., the production manager, helicopter pilot, and the explosive specialist were all tried and acquitted on charges of manslaughter in a nine-month trial that lasted from 1986 to 1987. Producer and co-director Steven Spielberg was so disgusted and outraged by the handling of the situation that he ended their friendship and publicly called for the termination of the New Hollywood era, where directors had almost complete control over film. Following the tragedy, new procedures and safety standards were imposed in the movie industry.
5 Atuk
Arguably one of the most bizarre and spine-tingling alleged film curses is that of Atuk, a screenplay for a fish out of water comedy. It was intended to be a film adaptation based on the 1963 Mordecai Richler novel The Incomparable Ark, which tells the story of a proud and fierce Inuit hunter who tries to adapt to life in the fast-paced New York City.
The script was written by Tod Carrol and the project had been circulating since the 1970s, with many Hollywood producers and studios showing interest in the film. An urban legend has been linked to Atuk, with an alleged curse having killed all the actors who have expressed interest in the lead role. Four of the actors attached to the comedy all met untimely ends: John Belushi, Sam Kinison, John Candy, and Chris Farley.
The first “victim” of the curse was Saturday Night Live legend John Belushi, who read the script in 1982 and was extremely interested in portraying the character. He was set to headline the project just months later but on March 5, 1982 the beloved funnyman died from a drug overdose at 33. Following the death of Belushi, the ribald comedian Sam Kinison got his hands on the script and was set to star but was fired over rewrites and creative control; he passed away in a car accident on April 10, 1992.
The charming John Candy and Chris Farley later became attached to the project but died before production began; Candy from a heart attack and Farley a drug overdose. Screenwriter Tod Carrol dismissed rumors of a curse in 1999. Coincidence or not, the so-called urban legend is quite eerie and Atuk remains in production hell.
4 The Crow
Son of martial arts icon and film star Bruce Lee, Brandon Lee portrays a murdered musician who is resurrected to avenge the deaths of himself and his fiancé in 1994’s The Crow. Tragedy struck production when the 28-year-old Lee was fatally wounded during a scene in which his character Eric Draven is shot after witnessing his fiancé being assaulted.
Actor Michael Massee’s character Funboy fires a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 629 at the actor as he walks into the room; the prop assistant was unaware of the rule for inspecting all firearms before and after any handling so that the barrel was not checked for obstructions. A bullet from the dummy round was trapped in the barrel and caused the .44 Magnum bullet to be fired virtually with the same force of a live round. Lee was struck in the abdomen and succumbed to his injury after six hours of unsuccessful emergency surgery.
Michael Massee was traumatized by the accident and took a year off from acting, never seeing the film. Twelve years later during an interview in 2005, the actor revealed he still had nightmares over Lee’s death and the event, saying “I don’t think you ever get over something like that.” The heartbreaking death of Brandon Lee mirrors that of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who died when a gun being used as a prop was fired by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film Rust. After the shooting, Lee’s family tweeted, “Our hearts go out to Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on Rust. No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.”
3 The Misfits
John Huston’s 1961 American Western The Misfits centers on a divorcee who falls for an aging cowboy struggling to maintain his romance-free lifestyle in the Northern Nevada desert in 1960. The picture famously stars Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift and was based on the screenplay by Arthur Miller, Monroe’s husband at the time. Production was plagued by 100 degree Fahrenheit heat, constant script revisions, and the breakdown of the playwright and movie star's marriage.
Despite not being a commercial success upon release, The Misfits was critically lauded for its gifted leads’ performances and unique script; despite such a warm reception the Western’s reputation was marred by the deaths of its three beloved stars, each of which died shortly after production was completed.
“The King of Hollywood” Clark Gable died on November 16, 1960 at the age of 59 from a heart attack, just 12 days after finishing The Misfits. Though the silver screen legend had been an avid smoker since his teenage years, his wife Kay Williams believed the film’s intense production and on-set tension was a big factor in his death. The blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe notoriously hated the picture, having disliked that Miller based the role partly on her life as well as his frustrating constant re-writes. The twentieth century pop culture icon died from an accidental barbiturate overdose on August 4, 1962 a year-and-a-half after filming; The Misfits was both her and Gable’s last completed film.
Montgomery Clift passed away just six years later on July 23, 1966 from a heart attack among other health issues. His live-in personal secretary Lorenzo James revealed that The Misfits was on television the night he passed and asked if he would like to watch, to which Clift firmly replied, “Absolutely not!”
2 Poltergeist
Tobe Hooper’s 1982 supernatural horror flick Poltergeist follows a suburban family whose home is invaded by malevolent spirits that abduct their daughter, and was written and based on the screenplay by Steven Spielberg (with one of the best horror movie trailers ever). The classic picture has a lot of darkness associated with it, as two of its promising young talents met heart-wrenching untimely deaths.
hild star Heather O’Rourke shined as Carol Anne Freeling in the freaky horror installments, but sadly passed away from septic shock before the release of Poltergeist III; she was just 12-years-old. Her on-screen big sister Dominique Dunn was tragically strangled-to-death by her ex-boyfriend, dying at 22 from her injuries five days later on November 4, 1982.
Aside from these heartbreaking deaths, Poltergeist was plagued by weird incidents and revelations, such as the fact that real skeletons were used in a frightening water scene involving JoBeth Williams’ character. Many superstitious fans of the film believe that is how the Poltergeist “curse” originated. In the first film, Oliver Robins was nearly strangled by the animatronic clown that tormented his character Robbie; Steven Spielberg saw what was happening and managed to free Robins just in time.
Actor Richard Lawson survived a plane crash in 1992 that claimed the lives of 27 of its 51 passengers; he was gifted a first class seat after giving his autograph which ultimately saved his life, as the person in his original seat died. The prodution got so spooky that Poltergeist II actor Will Sampson, a real-life shaman, performed an on-set exorcism to rid the place of “alien spirits.”
1 The Omen
Being a film depicting the Antichrist, it’s no wonder that the 1976 supernatural classic The Omen was marred by scary and downright blood-chilling incidents; it is arguably one of the most cursed pictures of all time. Lead actor and revered cinema star Gregory Peck experienced a devastating family tragedy right before production began, with his eldest son dying by suicide. When Peck took off for London in September 1975 for the film, his plane was struck by lightning that caused an engine to catch fire and almost made it come dangerously close to crashing.
Ominously, a few weeks later executive producer Mace Neufeld’s plane was also struck by non-fatal lightning, and screenwriter David Seltzer was just barely missed by a lightning strike in Rome. Even more frightening, Neufeld and his wife were staying at the Hilton Hotel in London when the Irish Republican Army blew it up; thankfully they were not in the hotel at the time.
Undeniably the most eerie and distressing occurrence to plague The Omen was when special effects designer John Richardson was driving with his assistant Liz Moore in Holland while working on the film A Bridge Too Far, when his car crashed. Liz Moore was disturbingly beheaded in a manner that was chillingly similar to the death scene Richardson helped create special effects for in The Omen. More sinisterly, the crash occurred on Friday the 13th, and after crawling from the wrecked car, Richardson reportedly saw a Dutch road sign near the accident that read: Ommen, 66.6 km. Talk about cursed.