The Horrifying True Stories Behind Cursed Horror Films

Paul and Carla watched a different horror movie every night in October. They did this every year, and after being together for five years, it felt like they were running out of options. So after a bit of scrolling, they landed on Incantation, which is a Taiwanese film. They got to a part in the movie where the power goes out, and less than two seconds later, the power in the entire house is out. They looked at each other confused. Carla was scared, but Paul told her that it was probably someone pulling a prank. They lived in the last house on the corner and there was a lever outside that shut off the electricity. They also had huge windows, so Paul tried calming her down by telling her that some teen could probably see what they were watching and they just shut it off as a joke. She didn't seem reassured though, but she agreed with him. So he went outside to turn the power back on and then looked around. The street was quiet empty. He felt a little nervous now, but shook it off and went back inside. They sat back down on their couch and press play, but less than twenty minutes went by when the power shut off. Again. Paul sprang up and ran to the window and then pulled the curtain back. He was sure that he was going to catch the kid playing the prank, but no one was there. He went back to turn the power back on, but Carla didn't want to finish the movie anymore. She thought that it was a movie's fault. Somehow it had something to do with the power being off. After this, though it didn't happen again. Paul turned to Google to see if this happened to anyone else that had tried to watch the movie, and then came across post after post warning others to not watch this movie because it was cursed. If you look for more information, you come across similar videos and articles. I did, and Incantation came out in twenty twenty two. When the movie centers on Lee Rohne. She is cursed after breaking a religious taboo and then she has to protect her daughter from also being cursed, and throughout the movie, Lee begs the audience to chant the words ho ho zoe, see say, Woo ma say. He tells those that are watching to say those words. It's basically an incantation, and it's going to stop the curse. From getting worse, but then it's revealed that the chant does this by transferring the curse to the viewer. See say the words really mean good fortune follows upon disaster, Disaster lurks within good fortune. The directors of the movie have even come out begging people to understand that it's not really a curse and it's just a movie. But still there are so many that believe that the movie really is cursed and that it will invoke evil entities if they watch it. In this episode, I'm exploring the moments when horror leaves the screen and manifests in real life. My name is Edwin, and here's a horror story. The original Exorcist movie came out in nineteen seventy three and has been terrifying audiences ever since. It's one of the most profitable horror movies to this day, as well as one of the scariest. It also didn't help that it's loosely based on a real exorcism case. Roland became Reagan, portrayed by Linda Blair, who starts acting pretty odd. She starts levitating, speaking in tongues, and her mom doesn't know what else to do. A local priest thinks that little Reagan has been possessed by a demon and requests permission to perform an exorcism, and then an expert arrives to help with the ritual. The movie alone tugs at some of the scariest things to us as a society, but that fear went beyond the movie. See when it first came out, cities all over the US were reporting the same thing. People that were watching the movie were screaming, crying, throwing up, and even fainting because of how scared they were. There were even reports of people being hospitalized after seeing The Exorcist because of vomiting and hallucinations. The New York Times reported a story when the movie theater Midtown East Cinema premiered the film, there were several heart attacks in the room. Once the premiere was over and the employees went home, one of the ushers fell under a subway train and he actually lost an arm. That same night, another employee found out that their mother had died in an accident. There were people that wanted it banned from screening in their cities, and maybe they had a good reason for not wanting the movie near them. You see, The Exorcist is said to be cursed people that had anything to do with it, the actors and the production team, they all to be effected. The movie was said to be done with filming within a few months, but it took over a year. Strange things just kept happening. All of these incidents and accidents were part of the reason that the original five million dollar budget film ended up more than doubling. Most movies have some sort of accidents, but the amount on The Exorcist left everyone shaken. One Sunday, at two point thirty in the morning, a fire broke out on set. There was only one security guard on shift when it started, and by the time he ran for help it was too late. The house had burned down everything but one room and only Reagan was safe. And that was a place where the Exorcism took place. Now, that may seem like just an eerie coincidence, right, but when they try to find the cause for the fire, it kint even weirder. At first, it was thought to be an electrical issue. That was fine. It turned out that the fire was a bird's fault. Somehow a pigeon flew into a light box and died. And then it got too hot and the fire began. It took six weeks to rebuild a house, and just when they were ready to start shooting again, they couldn't. The sprinkler system is seriously shut down, and there was another two week delay. And of course that wasn't the only thing that went wrong. This might be a spoiler if you haven't seen it, but in the movie, Reagan is possessed by the demon Pezuzu. The production team needed a statue of this demon, which was ordered, but it didn't arrive on time. It had somehow been built in ships from Bourbon, California, to Molsoul, Iraq, and somehow ended up in Hong Kong. So that was another four week delay. And then the longer the team was in Iraq waiting for the statue, the worse things got out. Of the eighteen member crew that I went to shoot, nine were sick. At one point. They just weren't used to one hundred and thirty degree weather and got sick from heatstrokes or dysentery. Now back in New York, one of the carpenters who built sets for the movie cut off his thumb. One of the lighting technicians lost a toe in the accident. It was just an accident. After an accident. Now, there was another part of the movie that took place in Reagan's room and the scene Reagan is possessed by the demon when she hits her mom in the face. This forces her mom backwards, and in order to make it seem real like she was actually being hit with an extreme force, there was a wire attached to Reagan's mom, so when she gets hit, a stuntman would pull forcing her against the wall. Now, this had to be done more than once. At one point, she told the director that the stunt man was pulling way too hard, and he just told her that it had to look real. So on the fourth take, she was pulled back again, and this time when she hit the wall, she screamed out in excruciating pain. She landed so hard she actually fractured her back, and her back never fully recovered from this accident. This was the take that they actually kept in the movie. Ellen wasn't the only one who injured her back. There was another scene where Reagan is lying down on her bed and her bed shakes violently. The machine that did the shaking was made for an adult, not a child, and this could be why it was way too rough, just like her mom in the movie. During one of the takes, Reagan screams and pain the machine was too rough, and her back was also injured. She also never recovered. Actress Ellen Burston, who played Reagan's mom Chris McNeil, went on to say, I don't know if it was a jinx really, but there were some really strange going ons during the making of the film. We were dealing with some really heavy material, and you don't around with that kind of material without it manifesting in some way. There were many deaths in the film. The movie took almost a year to film, so during the course of that time, deaths are going to happen, right, There's no denying that. But for the cast and the crew of The Exorcist, it really did seem like too much. Actor Jack mcgorrian, who portrayed Chris's boss in the movie, died right after shooting was done, and it wasn't a crazy accident, though he died of influenza. The strange part is that his character is one of the only ones killed by the demon possessing Reagan. He died one week after filming his death scene. Vasiliki Maliaro's who played the mother of Father Caris during the production, also died. Then Jason Miller, who played Father Carris, found out his son Jordan, had been in a freak accident. He was hit by a motorcycle that appeared at a nowhere. He had been walking on an empty beach when it happened. Linda Blair, who played Reagan, received news that her grandfather had died. The tech who made the set Freezing Cold also died. The janitor that took care of the building was shot and killed. An assistant camera person and his wife had just had their baby, and tragically the baby didn't make it. It was too much. He got so bad that William Friedkin, the director of the Exorcist, made a big move. He asked Father Thomas Birmingham, who had been hired as a technical adviser, to perform an actual exorcism on set. Father Thomas couldn't do it, but he did bless it in a ceremony on that every single person had to attend. Things were calm on set after that, but the Jesuit residence that was featured in the movie did catch fire. The set may have been fine after the blessing, but there's another disturbing connection to the movie, and I'll tell you all about it up next. The following was considered one of the most unsettling scenes in The Exorcist. Reagan is taken to the hospital because she needs a specific test done, a carterid angiogram. This is a test that looks at the inside of the blood vessels inside of your neck. It's done to check for any disease or blockage. During this test, contrast material, a type of dye is injected into the artery and a special X ray machine is used to be able to see it. A needle has to puncture the patient in the neck to get the dye in there, and it's pretty gruesome. There's definitely some blood involved. Medical professionals that watch this part celebrated how accurate it was done on screen. The director of the movie saw one being done when he was at the hospital and that's what inspired him to put it in the movie. He actually hired the X ray tech that did the actual exam he watched. His name was Paul Bateson. He agreed to the role because his dad hated movies and whenever Paul wanted to go to the Saturday night showings. As a kid, his dad made him stay home and listen to the opera instead. Being in the movie was like his little revenge on his dad, and as part of the movie, Paul does most of the talking. He has a very polite and calm bedside manner. He helps Reagan onto the table and attaches wires to her shoulders. As the procedure is finished, the camera closes up on her face. Blood splashes into the air, and it's his voice that can be heard. He tries to calm her down. He just tells her that it's gonna be okay. Now, you would think that the movie being out would be something to celebrate, but Paul began to spiral. He started to drink and drink. It was affecting his life. He was fired from his X ray job and was forced to take on jobs here and there. During this time, he would go out to drink at gay bars. It's worth noting here that Paul described himself as not exclusively gay, but would spend a lot of time at these bars. On September fourteenth, nineteen seventy seven, Addison Verel was found dead inside of his apartment. He had been beaten and stabbed, and it was unt known at the time, but Paul was the last person to see him. They met at a bar where they drank and did drugs together. A journalist actually wrote about his murder and how it was still unsolved, and at the end of his article he left the phone number for the NYPD. Eight days later, someone called the journalist instead of the police. The person claimed to be the killer. He told a journalist his article was mostly right, but he was not a sociopath. He said, I'm gay, and I need money, and I'm an alcoholic. He andson had spent the night together, but when he realized Addison didn't want more than that, he grabbed a frying pan and hit him in the head. He then stabbed him and took the money. He never said his name, though, but he gave the journalist enough details to find him. He was the son of an orchestra leader, he wanted to be a dancer, and he was an unemployed X ray tech. NYPD detectivests believed that the unknown caller would contact the journalist again, and they set up shop at his apartment. By at eleven PM, the phone rang. It was not the man, though, it was someone who only called themselves Mitch. Mitch told the journalist that he knew who the killer was. His name is Paul Batesen. By first, police thought that this was a fake name, but they ended up actually finding him. The police went over to his apartment on East twelfth Street and knocked down the door. Paul was lying on the floor drunk. They asked him if they knew why he was being arrested, and he pulled out a copy of the article about Addison Errel's murder and said probably because of this. He ended up confessing to the murder A few hours after his arrest. He was charged with second degree murder and sent to Riker's Island. Around the same time of his arrest, there had been a series of murders plaguing New York City. At least six men were found dismembered and in bags floating in the Hudson River. They were never identified, but their clothes had been traced to shops that were popular with a gay community. Investigators began to connect Paul to the murders, but he was never charged. When all this was being reported nationally, William Friedkin, the director of the Exorcist, was shocked. He had gotten the best impression of Paul. He even went down to Rikers to talk with him. Was found guilty for the murder of Addison Verel. There was not enough evidence to prove that he was behind the rest of the murders, though he served twenty four years and three months of his sentence and was released after he turned sixty three. He successfully completed his parole in two thousand and eight, and that was the last known record of him. Twenty eighteen. The director of the Exorcist said that he had heard that Paul lived somewhere in upstate New York, but the Social Security Death Index says otherwise. According to their records, Paul died on September fifteenth, twenty twelve. The Exorcist curse is real, then, it seems that he may have gotten the worst of it. But a curse movie seemed to be a running theme with horror movies, especially from the nineteen seventies. The Omen came out in nineteen seventy six, three years after The Exorcist, but it was played with similar strange occurrences. If you haven't seen the movie, its centers around the rebirth of the anti Christ, the son of Satan, he switched at birth. After Robert and Catherine's baby is stillborn, they name him Damien, and after his first birthday, creepy and bizarre things start happening. Just like in the movie, it happened in real life too, and it started as soon as production began. Gregory Peck, who plays Robert Thorn, was on his way to London when lightning hit his plane. While this alone isn't odd, the same thing happened to the movie's executive producer during a different flight, and then the movie's writer was on a different flight which also was struck by lightning during filming, and Rome lightning almost hit producer Harvey Bernhardt. And that was four times, four different people, and their only connection was the omen on a different occasion was delayed and Gregory Peck wasn't needed for a few days, so he didn't board the private jet that had been requested for him. The next day, the entire cast and crew got the news that same jet their lead actor was supposed to arrive in was in an accident. It hit a flock of birds and it came crashing down. No one made it. But it gets worse. The plane crashed down on a car that was driving along the road, and the people inside that car ended up being the pilot's family. They all died as well. Sadly, that wasn't the only tragic car accident tied to the Curse of the Omen. John Richardson and Liz Moore were driving through the Netherlands. He was a special effects designer and she was his assistant. They were in his BMW when they got into a head on collision with another larger vehicle. He survived, but she didn't. She was decapitated during the crash and not parallel to a scene in the movie. The accident happened on a Friday, the thirteenth on kilometer sixty six point six. The near a sign pointed to the town of Omen, this time spelled m M N. One. Stuntman Alf Joint believed that the curse followed him after he was done filming. He was on set for a different movie and was supposed to jump off a tall building and then land on an airbag. This was something he had done many times with no problems, but this time something went wrong. He didn't land on the safety pad. He landed on the ground, so he was rushed at the hospital, but thankfully survived. When he woke up, he said that it had felt like he had been pushed. After the movie came out, the cathedral featured in it started experiencing its own problems that no one wanted to attend mass there. We're just too scared. This went on for more than thirty years, and it didn't help that in two thousand and eight, an armed man was seen on the cathedral grounds and police were brought in. They ended up shooting and killing the man on the same steps seen in the Omen. There are many reasons horror movies are so popular. They stimulate our brains and make us feel nervous and happy at the same time. It's entertainment lets us live things that we would hopefully never go through. I mean, we're not going to act out the Purge or Texas Chainsaw massacre, but we can watch it safely from our screens. That is, until the horror leaves the safety of our TV and we begin to live and experience what was only supposed to be the Storysode of Horror. Story was written and researched by Christina Lumagi, with narration and production by me Edwin Komarubjes We've got more suggestions for stories about North Dakota local folklore in cities that I have never heard of, so thank you a lot for that. You can also get a hold of me and get more information on our website horror story dot com. You can also find me on social media as Edwin Cove. That's E d w I nco v our Scary Plus members support a lot of what we do, so if you also want ad free episodes, you can try out Scary Plus for free over on scaryplus dot com. Then I believe it's four ninety nine a month. After that, you can cancel whenever you want. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone, See you soon.