Everyone loves a horror movie, but sometimes the real fear happens behind the scenes. From haunted sets to unnatural deaths, let’s explore three more supposedly cursed movies.
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
A brilliant film by a horrible man, Roman Polanski’s 1968 creepy thriller Rosemary’s Baby is said to have been plagued by a series of tragic incidents and unusual problems.
The film’s producer, William Castle, is one of the many who back this claim due to his health struggles during filming which, along with hate mail it encouraged, lead him to be hospitalised. During this time, Castle was afflicted with hallucinations – the worst of which included a vision of Rosemary herself coming at him with a knife.
However, Castle was not the only one to be effected by this alleged curse. The films composer, Krzysztof Komeda, suffered a head injury which resulted in death at the tender age of 37, but the most infamous incident associated with the film is the tragic death of Sharon Tate.
In August 1969, just over a year after the film’s release, Tate and four others were murdered by the Manson Family cult. She was eight and a half months pregnant at the time.
Although not directly linked to the film, this awful event went on to etch itself into the public consciousness and laid the groundwork for the Satanic Panic of the 70s and 80s. Due to the film’s storyline, rumours began to circulate that Polanski himself offered Tate as a sacrifice in order to maintain his Hollywood status – a claim that is both unfounded and hurtful to those who lost their lives.
The Crow (1994)
In March 1993, one of the best known movie-set accidents occurred on the set of The Crow, when a misplaced bullet killed Brandon Lee, son of the legendary martial-artist and actor, Bruce Lee.
Unfortunately, Brandon’s death was not the first tragedy to effect the Lee family. Even before Bruce was born, his parents had lost another son. Because of this, Bruce’s superstitious mother originally gave him the female name, Sai-fon, in an attempt to confuse any evil spirits that may try to take another son.
If there were any evil spirits after the Lee family, Bruce avoided them until his untimely death in 1973 at the tender age of 32 from cerebral edema caused by an adverse reaction to a painkiller.
With Brandon’s death, rumours of a family curse began to circulate – particularly due to an awful case of foreshadowing, in which Bruce Lee’s character in his posthumously released film Game of Death is shot on a movie set, causing his characters supposed death.
Despite the fact that Bruce’s four siblings and Brandon’s sister all seem to have escaped the alleged family “curse”, rumours persist and The Crow has been forever entangled with both its star and his father’s tragic deaths.
Return To Babylon (2013)
With its own website branding it “a séance in celluloid”, this 2013 silent film is steeped in alleged paranormal activity.
Filmed on a hand cranked camera and shot on 19 rolls of 16mm film that was allegedly found abandoned on a street in Hollywood, Return to Babylon depicts “The scandals and decadent lives of the 1920’s greatest movie stars.”
However, production was said to have been weird from the get-go with stars Jennifer Tilly and others said to have been touched by strange forces and feeling unnaturally watched.
The worst, however, was yet to come,
Throughout the film, actors faces are said to morph and change into demonic features, with elongated limbs and webbed fingers. Additionally the faces of long deceased actors, such as Lon Chaney, are visible, with full bodied apparitions and demons appearing its shadows.
All this without the additions of cgi. Apparently. In interviews director Alex Monty Canawati insists the film was not digitally altered and claims that the strange “morphing” effects can be seen in the original negatives.
But if Return to Babylon is truly haunted – why? Could it be something to do with the strange circumstances of its creation? Or did Hollywood’s Golden Age stars object to their scandals being made public? Perhaps it’s all a cleaver marketing campaign for an unusual independent movie?
You be the judge.
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