Horror movies that caused real deaths on their set

Unsurprisingly, horror films are commonly associated with several curses or legends that link them to on-set tragedies. But it goes further when there is not an accident or an unexpected event involved, but the death of real people who lost their lives while recording these stories.

The exorcist

There are many examples of cursed horror films that went through different tragedies during their filming, but a special case is that of ‘The exorcist’, the horror movie classic that surround several urban legends. It was the scene of Chris MacNeil’s house, which was destroyed one day by a terrible fire that caused injuries and burns to almost all the actors.

The prophecy

Even more frightening was the case of ‘The prophecy’, a horror movie that many describe as cursed, since it wasn’t just a tragedy surrounding the tape. Just a month before the recordings, Gregory Peck’s son took his own life, a lightning bolt struck the protagonist’s plane and the director and producer suffered strange accidents. But undoubtedly the most tragic thing happened to the special effects supervisor, who was beheaded in a car accident.

poltergeist

The story of this horror film, originally written by Steven Spielberg, has been extended by two more episodes, thus encircling the entire production of the three episodes. In the first, it is said that real skeletons were used for one scene, which started a chain of rumors about a curse. Then the young woman who played Carol Anne died at age 12 of a bowel problem, but she wasn’t the only mysterious and untimely death in the cast.

the child of rosemary

One of the most recognized urban legends in this type of subject was surrounding dead ‘the child of rosemary’, the horror film directed by Roman Polanski, already a rather controversial figure for being the husband of actress Sharon Tate, one of the victims of Charles Manson, just a year after the premiere of this film (available on Amazon Prime Video).

However, the story with Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes is much darker than that, as the composer of “Rosamary’s Baby” suffered a fall on the recording set and died after being in a coma for a while. He was the only person with a tragic destiny, however there are several unexplained situations, illnesses and events, even today.

The Blair Witch project

Despite being a classic of horror films, no one can deny the abuse suffered by the actors of ‘The Blair Witch Project’, exposed to a tortuous recording in the forest. Although there were no deaths on the set, many enthusiasts who believed the witch in the story was real and wanted to record her for themselves frequented the Maryland forest, from which they never returned.