Dark Details From The Set Of Poltergeist — And How One Young Star’s Grim Fate Was Sealed

Horror movies are a nice bit of frightening fun before getting back to reality, right? Well, for the cast and crew of the movie Poltergeist, life imitated fiction. Strange things happened both on- and off-camera, ranging from the spooky to the downright dangerous. Take a trip into terror with us as we peer behind the scenes and reveal the film’s sinister secrets… if you dare!

40. JoBeth Williams’ haunting

JoBeth Williams, who played Diane Freeling, said she experienced strange goings-on at her apartment. She was troubled by how the pictures on the walls would become crooked each time she left for filming no matter how often she straightened them. In 2014 she admitted to having solved the mystery on Reddit, writing, “I finally realized… that the pictures would shift because I slammed the door!” But not all happenings are so easily explained. 

39. The Poltergeist curse

Many strange incidents have happened to the cast and crew of the Poltergeist movies. So many, in fact, that it’s led to an urban legend that the films are somehow cursed. There’s much speculation about what might have caused it, but the theory is so widely believed it even prompted a 2002 E! True Hollywood Story called Curse of the Poltergeist

38. Drew Barrymore missed out on the role

Heather O’Rourke famously played Carol Anne Freeling, but the movie could have been markedly different — because child actress Drew Barrymore auditioned for the part instead. She nearly got it too, but writer and co-producer Steven Spielberg spotted O’Rourke at the last second. In the end Barrymore went on to star in her breakthrough movie E.T., with Spielberg at the helm as director. 

37. James Kahn’s shock

The novelist for the Poltergeist book, James Kahn, had just finished writing a storm scene when a real one broke outside his office. “All the lights went out,” he said on YouTube in 2019. “The front of the window air conditioner blew off across the room and almost hit me.” And when the power came back on, it simultaneously sparked all the nearby videogames back into life at once. Pretty weird, right?