Cursed Cinema: Poltergeist - Ep. 11

Is the Poltergeist curse real, or is it just one of Hollywood’s darkest tabloid legends? In this episode of Cursed...ish, we dig into the alleged Poltergeist movie curse, from Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper’s creation of the 1982 horror classic to the tragic deaths of Dominique Dunne and Heather O’Rourke, the eerie stories surrounding Poltergeist 2 and Poltergeist 3, and the infamous rumor that real human skeletons were used on set. Along the way, we trace how the “curse” narrative spread through tabloids, media frenzy, and horror lore, and ask the question at the heart of every Cursed...ish episode: is there really something supernatural going on here, or are people forcing a pattern onto tragedy? If you’ve ever wondered about the truth behind the Poltergeist curse, this is the story behind one of horror’s most infamous legends. 

Questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share? Send us a hex at uhoh@cursedish.com.

The hosts of Cursed...ish are not responsible for any misfortunes that may befall you while listening to this podcast. By listening to Cursed...ish, you assume all risk of bad luck, ill omens, and unexplained catastrophes.

*Terms and conditions may be upheld by unknown forces.

Transcript

Daniel 0:00

So, regardless of what we think about it, it can't be the cause of a curse, right? I mean, if everyone's doing it.

SPEAKER_03 0:05

So you're saying I still have a shot at Hollywood if I just play my cards right?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Yes, you could be on the silver screen.

Angela 0:13

An Oscar-winning skeleton.

Daniel 0:36

Cursed!

SPEAKER_00 0:37

And ask whether And ask whether there's really anything more than bad luck and human nature going on behind the scenes. I'm Daniel Stevens.

Angela 0:45

And I'm Angela Mattis.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Take it you didn't like the intro I wrote for this episode, Angela.

Angela 0:51

Oh no, it was great. We're just evening the score on how many like nerdy things you say versus how many nerdy things I say. So I'm happy. I'm sitting pretty with it.

Daniel 1:01

Well, let's add another one to my column because I have a question to start tonight's episode for you. What's your favorite scary movie?

Angela 1:11

Oh my god. Um, okay. I mean I could go down a rat hole about this because anybody who knows me knows what my favorite scary movie is. So actually I'm curious if you'll know before I even say it.

Daniel 1:21

I I I you now that like I don't know. Let me try let me think for a second. I mean the mummy doesn't count as a scary movie, does it?

Angela 1:29

What movie do I go on and on about how I think it is the most perfectly done scary movie of all time?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Wait, Saw? No! No, you hate Saw is your the one that freaks you out the most, right?

Angela 1:40

Friendship over. Yeah, remember we went to go see Saw and I like crept out of the theater, I think. Maybe I went to a different movie? There was something.

Daniel 1:49

Enlighten me.

Angela 1:51

The ring? How many times have I gone on and on and on about how the ring is the perfect scary movie?

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yes, you're right. You're right.

Angela 1:58

Like how it starts out being campy, so you kind of lower your guard, and then like, you know, the two girls they're like, you know, having the sleepover or whatever, and then you get like slept by like jump scare, and then it goes into this melancholy mode, so you spend like half the movie just kind of like, oh, feel so good, like feeling sad. And then you again, you drop your guard again because you're just kind of like, ugh, and then the end. Oh my god, nothing has ever scared me more in my entire life. It has, I watched that movie for the first time in theaters in middle school. See, I told you, you got me on a roll. I watched it in middle school. I am a lady of a certain age, somewhere in my 30s, and I still am scared of that movie. I still think about it, and I don't think I'm alone in that at all. Like anytime somebody says something is gonna happen in seven days, I'm like, fuck. Am I gonna start like scrolling circles into notepads and like seeing horses dying in my dreams? Perfect 10 out of 10, most, most incredible scary movie movie of all time.

Daniel 3:00

The ring, I mean, that is for people of our age, of our whatever age, uh, we'll leave it as as nebulous as you wanted to leave it. Uh, that's definitely an iconic, like when we were of like horror movie age, you know, early high school-ish and such, that was like the iconic movie of the time.

Angela 3:17

Yeah. Actually, we came up in such an iconic time. Do you remember the entire summer? It was like, it was a few years after the ring, but there was like The Grudge and Room 1408 came out.

Daniel 3:28

They yeah, when when they stole all the Asian horror movies and remade them in America. Yeah. Yeah.

Angela 3:33

No, like remember that summer where all we ever did was just like drive around and call our friends and leave voicemails and play the like the carpenters, like, we've only just begun.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

And like, and we'd be like, uh when the well like classics. Okay.

Angela 3:49

This was the time before the internet. This is before we had social media, this is what we were doing.

Daniel 3:53

And you're leading me perfectly into this. I guess we would have maybe had to call our friends if we were of a different era a few decades earlier. We would have maybe be rotary dial. They probably had did they have cordless phones in like the 80s? Or is it still you were you were like connected to the line. Either way, we'd be dialing on our plasticky 80s phones, maybe rotary dial if and maybe what we would have called our friends to freak them out. And let me know if this means anything to you. But we maybe would have got on the phone with them and said, They're here. Does that mean anything to you?

unknown 4:25

No.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

But I'm excited to find out about it.

Daniel 4:30

That was that was it is one of the most iconic horror movie lines. It's it's a it's and it is from a movie in in the early 80s that was a very iconic movie. It was super successful, and it was a Steven Spielberg-produced movie that was poltergeist.

Angela 4:46

Oh, I don't know that Steven Spielberg had anything to do with it.

Daniel 4:50

Yeah, that's actually the beginning of the story. Let me tell you about why they decided to make the movie. So, Steven Spielberg, we probably all know him, but you know, very famous director, producer, writer, overall filmmaker. Uh, he was coming off of making Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is a great movie about peaceful, friendly aliens. I recommend it to everyone, one of my favorites. Um The studio was kind of forcing him into doing a sequel or talking about doing a sequel, and he had an idea of making it into a horror sequel at first. So he started getting this idea about this movie that he was gonna call Night Skies. He had heard these stories of this real life UFO incident that had taken place called the Kelly Hopkinsville Encounter, which was this thing in like 1955 in Kentucky where these families were like besieged by what they claimed were UFOs and aliens for days, I think. And they were like firing weapons at them and stuff. Yeah, it's wild. And but I think there's theories that in the end they mistook some barn owls for aliens and stuff. But it's a whole I know, I know it's a whole other thing. But this idea of this family kind of being terrorized by these aliens is what Spielberg took, and he was like, I'm gonna make this the sequel of Close Encounters. But then he kind of soured on the idea of turning something so pure and happy, which was the original, into something scary in the sequel. So he decided to just scrap the idea altogether. But he had actually gotten pretty far into uh production. He had started talking to a director, Toby Hooper. He was the guy who co-wrote and directed the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So he kind of got to, yeah, and he was maybe gonna direct that, but he turned it down. Eventually they decided to scrap the movie as a whole, but they kind of turned the movie into two different movies. So the alien aspect became E.T., and the scary family story became eventually Poltergun.

Angela 6:37

Oh wow, that's so crazy.

Daniel 6:38

Yeah. And because E.T was also in production at the same time, Spielberg could not direct. He was like contractually blocked from directing anything but E.T. And so eventually they talked to this Toby Hooper guy again and they said, Hey, we're gonna actually turn this into a different, uh, scary movie still, but instead of aliens, it became a ghost story, and they asked Toby Hooper if he wanted to do it, and he he agreed to direct it. So Spielberg created, came up with it, produced it, and Toby Hooper directed the movie. Eventually they settled on a plot. It revolved around a suburban family. They experience increasing supernatural terrors, culminating with the disappearance of their youngest daughter, Carol Ann. She disappears sort of into the TV into an ethereal, like alternate dimension. With statics.

Angela 7:30

Oh, those static TVs.

Daniel 7:33

Yeah, so you've never seen the movie, but of course it is an iconic film. Like you've never actually seen the movie, but you know of the imagery. Very iconic, yeah. And so uh that little girl, Carol Ann in the movies, she was played by Heather O'Rourke. She was about six years old when they first shot the movie. Um, her parents were played by Joe Beth Williams and Craig T. Nelson. They're pretty famous actors. And the other two children were played by other kind of unknown or early actors. Oliver Robbins played the middle child, the son, and Dominique Dunn played the older sister.

Angela 8:08

I just get this ominous feeling when you're naming them all for me that you're about to be like, and they all died while filming.

Daniel 8:15

Well, I mean, we are talking about this. Uh we are talking about the film.

Angela 8:19

Okay, so something something wicked this way comes.

Daniel 8:23

We'll see, I guess. Uh, but the the movie, the first kind of off thing that happened with the movie was sort of this idea that on set there was kind of this almost authorship debate or kind of this awkwardness about like who was really directing the movie. The media, the the Hollywood press was kind of talking about it. Uh as the movie was releasing, there were just this idea that it was really a Spielberg movie and Toby Hooper was kind of just there on a like name only. The DJA, the director's Guild of America, they apparently eventually, after all these rumors, they even investigated because they take things obviously very seriously. Whoever's credited needs to do the work, it's a union. Um, so it it got really, you know, it was a kind of a big deal, and they're like everyone was sort of talking about like Spielberg, was he just sort of actually directing the movie? Uh, he eventually, the week of the release of the movie, he Steven Spielberg released an open letter basically saying, I, you know, these rumors are wrong.

Angela 9:17

So he Well, wasn't he making ET? Like, wasn't he busy making another iconic movie at the time?

Daniel 9:23

He was, but there were lots of stories about him coming on to set. Him Spielberg himself in interviews said, like, well, yeah, I kind of had veto power. I had final say on stuff. And some of the special effects people said that they would work with Toby Hooper on things, and then eventually, after long discussions with him and like building things and making it, Spielberg would come in later and veto it at the last second, and it was like, Well, I guess I should go talk to the guy who actually is gonna decide if this makes it into the movie. So it kind of became an issue on set.

Angela 9:49

Like, uh, even just like from you know, my my corporate dronerism, like that kind of work environment, that's the kind of times when at work, I'm just like, I wanna kill someone. I'm literally gonna scream. That sounds awful. Yeah.

Daniel 10:02

So Spielberg eventually released this this open letter trying to like quash it a little bit. And he says, regrettably, some of the press has misunderstood the rather unique creative relationship which you and I shared throughout the making of Poltergeist. This is an open letter to Toby Hooper, obviously. I enjoyed your openness in allowing me, as a writer and a producer, a wide berth for creative involvement, just as I know you were happy with the freedom you had to direct poltergeist so wonderfully. And as the director, you delivered the goods, you performed responsibly and professionally throughout, and I wish you great success on your next project. So he was trying to be cool.

Angela 10:36

Sure.

Daniel 10:37

Either way, the movie, even if it had some weirdness in on set, and there's another set issue that comes up later. We'll talk about it later. It really feeds into the whole cursed issue, but no one really had been talking about it yet at release of the movie.

Angela 10:51

I mean, I'm still worried about all these people in the cast that you listed on.

Daniel 10:55

I know, I know. Yeah. Um, either way, whatever was happening on set, the movie released and it was a huge success. Critical acclaim, three Oscar nominations. Really?

SPEAKER_05 11:05

Yeah.

Daniel 11:05

Pulled up. Yeah, special effects. Yeah, best special effects, best sound, and best uh score. So I mean, yeah, and and and um uh one of the high the eighth highest grossing movie of the year, 76 million dollars in US box office that year. That's 260 million in today's dollars. Yeah. So, and that was just US. Uh great critical reviews, not universal critical reviews. Siskel of Siskel and Ebert, if you'll remember him, he didn't like it. He gave it a 1.5 out of four stars. But generally regarded, great movie obviously entered American iconography. You know of certain parts about it, even though you've never seen the movie itself. There were some accusations of a little bit of plagiarism, maybe. There's a Twilight Zone episode called Little Girl Lost that involves a family searching for their daughter who disappears into this like alternate dimension. They can hear her but not see her. And the author of that episode, the writer of that episode, he even kind of mentioned it once, but he's he was cool that he said, you know, I think they just took an idea and made their own version of it. You know, Spielberg's a talented guy, I'm fine with it. So some weirdness, but nothing truly like angry going on on set or anything. So the movie released, everyone loved it, and you know, it was just a successful, successful horror movie. There is kind of a Mandela effect situation going on where a lot of people and a lot of the parodies and references that happen to this movie talk about it having to do with an Indian burial ground. But really, what happens in the movie is the family under uh discovers that there's dead there's a cemetery that hadn't been properly moved under their house, but it's just regular burial grounds, it has nothing to do with an Indian burial ground or anything. The sequel eventually will start to incorporate some Native American imagery and such stuff like that. So I think that's where a lot of that idea that the movie has to do with an Indian burial ground came from to begin with. Um, but that's sort of like if you if you ever talk to anyone about the movie, they'll probably be like, oh yeah, the movie with the family with the Indian burial ground under the ground under the house.

Angela 13:02

So it's part of the plot line, it's not part of like they weren't doing the production on it. It's part of the plot.

Daniel 13:07

The plot line, yeah, the plot line of the movie has the the the the dad is a real estate salesperson, and he the the the development they're in, he learns that they had moved a graveyard to build the development, and then the developers, shady people as they are, only moved the headstones, not the culture guys. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's a super great movie. Everyone loved it, became an American icon pretty quickly. It released on June 4th, 1982.

Angela 13:38

Long, long, long before we were ever born.

Daniel 13:41

Yeah, right, exactly. Um, so released, and you know, just a successful horror movie. Successful Steven Spielberg movie. Also, ET came out like a week around that. Say, like very similar. Two successful movies, great year for him. No one said anything about the movie being cursed. So the first thing that really happened is um they remember the actress who played the oldest daughter. Her name was Dominique Dunn. She was about 22 years old. She was born in Santa Monica, California. Um, she grew up in LA, she was a super awesome person. I know.

Angela 14:11

Whenever you start saying she was a great girl, it means something horrible happened.

Daniel 14:15

I know. Yeah, I mean, yes, spoil spoiler alert, yes, there a bummer of a story is about to unfold. Um this whole story is actually was I was it was very emotional for me when I was researching this and a lot of stuff. So yeah, it is it's it was a rough story. Um But Dominique Don, she had, you know, just a couple of things about her life before we talk about what happened to her. Um she had apparently she was really great with her family. She she supported her dad, was a at the time, was a closeted bisexual. She supported him and his like long-term partnership with his with yeah, exactly. She had a a a cottery of dis of pets, many of which had disabilities that she cared for. Um, you know, just seems like great. Her career was just starting. She had started with some television roles, and then Poltergeist was really her first, and unfortunately, would be her only film role. Um so what happened was a horrible man entered her life. She met a guy named John Thomas Sweeney in 1981. He was a sous chef at a restaurant in LA. They started dating, they eventually moved in. He was a horrible, horrible, abusive jerk. Many stories from her friends and family told about him, many instances of him doing stuff. For uh towards the end of the relationship, he attacked her as a friend was at their house. She had to eventually uh climb out of the bathroom window and drive away. He jumped on the hood of the car. Yeah, it was just horrible. Just this guy is a complete monstrous individual. Just just the worst. Yeah, he's just the worst. Um so they break up after that. She she gets him to move out of his their shared home and um then you know she moves on with her life. She gets cast in the miniseries V. I don't know if you know about that, but it was very popular back in the 80s. It was about aliens. She was in the middle of rehearsing on October 30th, 1982. She was rehearsing with former actor David Packer when she picked up a phone call from someone else, and apparently the operator like cut into the phone call at Sweeney's request. Didn't know that was a thing you could do. You could like ask the yeah, very bizarre. But so um Dominique Dunn told this friend, Oh, it's John on the other line. Let me get him all, let me like deal with him. So like it was him contacting that night. She talked to him. A little while later, he showed up at the house. They talked through a locked door. He eventually got her to agree to go talk to him out on the porch. And that is when eventually the the actor who was there working on lines with with Dominique heard some noises. He heard smacking, two screams, and a thud. So he called the police. And apparently he was told by the police that her West Hollywood home was outside of their the jurisdiction. Yeah. So horrible. This whole story, when I said is emotional, it's also enraging. It's enraging that John Thomas Sweeney is such a piece of shit and that he even existed.

Angela 17:06

Oh, and I'm sure the police were called enough times throughout their relationship, and yet he's still, you know, this is the tale as old as time.

Daniel 17:13

The police response was bungled, and the trial is frankly the worst. Not the worst, obviously, murder is the worst, but the trial is so infuriating, but we'll we'll get there. So the police were delayed in getting there. Unfortunately, Packer then went outside after trying to argue with the police. Eventually, they were sending someone. Unfortunately, he saw John Thomas Sweeney crouched over Dominique Dunn's lifeless body. Well, she was unconscious. Um, but apparently, police eventually arrived, and he, Sweeney, basically immediately confessed. He says, I killed my girlfriend and I tried to kill myself. Um Dominique Dunn was still alive but unconscious. Unfortunately, after five days on life support, um, she did die at the age of 22 on November 4th, 1982. So Sweeney was arrested and he was put on trial. But unfortunately, a judge ruled that first degree murder was not an option because there was no evidence of premeditation. And it's what about the all the times he showed up to her house? What did he go to her house?

Angela 18:12

What about the part where he said I killed my girlfriend? It was me. I was going to kill myself next. Like, what?

Daniel 18:18

Sweeney also tried on the tr on the stand, he tried to claim he had no memory of what happened. He just quote, like, I just woke up standing over and it's in the autopsy, she was strangled for three minutes, and it's like, shut up. You sat there for three minutes, just absolutely murdering her. Like, and you're trying to say, Oh, I don't know what I don't remember. It's I hate that so much.

Angela 18:37

When I was, this is I'm not gonna make a whole bigger side out of this, but when I was in college and I was getting my degree in journalism, I was doing a crime journalism course, and part of that course we had to go to a sentencing, and it was for a strangulation. And I mean, and the um person who was being sentenced, he was really remorseful. He had been on drugs and he, you know, had strangled a woman. And the reason why the judge did not give him leniency, even though he was very like remorseful and going to go into the system and make sure he like got the help that he needed, was because to strangle someone is such a personal crime. You were on top of them, you were looking at them straight in the face. Like especially for someone that you were in a relationship with and you were in love with and you know, ideally potentially um like it is such a personal crime.

Daniel 19:25

It's truly monstrous.

Angela 19:28

Yeah, like I honestly didn't even I mean, I don't sit around thinking about it, but until that sentencing I didn't, and now it's like whenever I hear about a strangul like a strangulation, it's just like, no, fucking like lock them away. So for the judge to go the opposite direction on it.

Daniel 19:42

Well, listen to what else the judge did. He also declared that testimony from Dunn's family and friends would not be admissible to establish the history of abuse in their relationship and the pattern and all everything, because he claimed it was hearsay. And it's like, well, the woman who would be telling this-the Sweeney's best friend or something, like what the f it's truly insane because the woman who could tell this as not hearsay was murdered by this guy. So it's absolutely unconscionable. Another, an ex of Sweeney's, was barred from her testimony of describing the the abuse in their in their relationship, was also barred from the jury, was not allowed to hear it by this judge. He said it would be, quote, prejudicial. So just absolute miscarriages of justice.

Angela 20:24

Was this the judge's first day? Like, was it his first day and was he a piece of shit person?

Daniel 20:29

I don't I don't know much about him, and I guess I don't want to speak poorly about a judge, but he sounds awful.

Angela 20:34

I'm gonna speak probably about this one.

Daniel 20:36

Okay, so the trial went on. The jury did not get to hear a lot of crucial stuff about how much of a piece of shit uh John Sweeney was. He was indicted only of manslaughter, which had like a maximum sentence of six years. Apparently, the judge at the sentencing kind of tried to be like, What happened here? And he kind of tried to blame the jury, and he said that this was quote, a case of pure and simple murder, murder with malice. And it's like, you're the one who didn't let people hear about the how this guy had a pattern, and it's so he clearly maybe the judge was like, Oh, I can't believe I let this happen. The her family was furious, of course. Just horrible, horrible.

Angela 21:12

The judge was Clarence Thomas. I'm just getting up. I would be like, Yeah, that tracks.

Daniel 21:18

Yeah. So uh Sweeney would only eventually serve about three years. He got released and he started working again at a restaurant, and Dominique Dunn's family went and found this out. When they found this out, they went and they handed out flyers saying, The hands that prepared your meal tonight are the ones that killed Dominique Dunn. Got him basically run out of town, which, yes, justice failed. I so, so, so I hate that the family had to do this, but they have kept tabs on him. A woman in Florida or a guy in Florida called um Dominic Dunn, uh her Dominique's father, and was like, I think my daughter might be dating this John Sweeney guy, and like found and he was like, Let me like they figured out it was him, the uh Dominique's Brother like went there and warned the woman, like told her to stay away from him. They basically kind of had kept tabs on him. He apparently even sued them once for like harassment. I hope that went nowhere. But like they have not let him live in peace after what he did and what he got away with.

Angela 22:15

Amazing, but unfortunate that they even had to be put into that situation.

Daniel 22:19

Yeah. And so obviously a huge tragedy that this young, rising, amazing actress was killed. She just had her first big movie. So the tabloids obviously were obviously, you know, it was a big story. But um, so they did every, you know, everyone talked about how horrible that was. You know, people followed the trial and everything, but it was just, you know, it was it was a single single horrible event done by one horrible man. Um, well, many horrible people who allowed the the the trial and the bad response as well.

Angela 22:54

Um one horrible man and a bitch ass judge.

Daniel 22:57

But eventually the C you know, eventually this movie studio was like, let's make a sequel. That was a huge success. So eventually Poltergeist II, the other side, would come out in May 23rd, 1986. Um, neither Spielberg nor Toby Hooper would return to be involved. The whole cast mostly returned, obviously, except for Dominique Dunn. They had to, they explained away the character's absence by saying that the older daughter was away at college during the events of the movie. Um, the plot of the sequel kind of this is when they start to go into the Native American imagery. They explore the burial ground where under the family's house and under realize there was like a cave there, and this preacher ghost starts terrorizing this. This crazy preacher played by a guy named Julian Beck. Um, and they get this help from another from this Native American shaman guy uh played by Will Sampson. And they basically have a battle with this ghost guy.

Angela 23:52

Um Have you seen this movie?

Daniel 23:53

I don't think I've ever sat and watched the second one fully through. I've seen parts of it like growing up. I don't know if I've ever actually watched the whole thing. It was not really critically acclaimed. Siskel downgraded, he gave the first one a 1.5, this got a one. It did still get nominated for best visual effects at the Oscars, but it only grows$40 million in the US, so it just wasn't as big of a success. It was middling. Those two new characters, the the the preacher and the Native American guy who helps the family out, both the what really starts kind of the discussion of this curse is both of those actors would die shortly after the release of the C of Poltergeist II. Julian Beck, he died in 1985 at the age of 60 after a two-year battle with cancer. So not super old, but also not a 22-year-old murder victim. Um and then Will Sampson, he died in 1987 at the age of 53. He had lifelong complications from battling an autoimmune disease. He ended up needing a heart and lung transplant, and complications from that uh caused his death. So again, a young, I mean, in his 50s, but not like outrageously early. But it and it really did just seem like, you know, people are talking hearing about actors dying, and then they start to be like, oh, they're all in this movie. And that's you start to see tabloid stories talking about the yes, talking about an official poltergeist curse. In the 80s, you've got the National Inquirer and the Globe having references to the poltergeist curse when reporting on these deaths.

Angela 25:27

Yeah, but weren't they also like wasn't the National Inquir also frequently reporting that like Elvis had been seen in the like Twinkie Eye like the grocery store? And yeah.

Daniel 25:37

But but people are seeing, and I mean, the reputable like at the LA Times and stuff starts to talk about, especially there's eventually the movie studio has to kind of start to think about how this affects their marketing and everything. And the movie studio became aware that people were talking about this as well.

Angela 25:54

And so real because there now are three people, but like two had died of rather natural causes. Okay, yeah, but three deaths. You were talking about it in the moment when I was having a poltergeist experience of my own, and my internet was cutting out, and I was cursed. Yes. So I missed that.

Daniel 26:09

But yes, yeah, so it's kind of like these three deaths make a line, sort of. So obviously, people were calling this like the poltergeist cursed and everything, but really what kind of cements it as this thing that we're sitting here talking about today, and that you know I had heard about throughout my life was what happens next. So Poltergeist 3 goes into production. Not much of the cast wanted to come back, really. There was also less money. So they really they made sure they secured Heather O'Rourke as Carol Ann, the little girl that you know had become the face of these movies. Later in a documentary, Craig T. Nelson would actually say that the talk of the curse was part of why he didn't want to come back for the third one. Just it was annoying to him. He didn't, he wasn't afraid of the curse. Exactly. So people were already getting annoyed with the talk about it, too. Um, but so they they they make Poltergeist 3 just starring uh Heather O'Rourke. It actually set in Chicago in the John Hancock Center. Yes, be careful, Angela. They started production in 1987. Uh and actually during production on May 13th, 1987, an explosion during a special effect occurred and it caused injuries to a maintenance worker and two firefighters and like tons and tons of damage. Um, and then also during filming, Heather O'Rourke had been ill. She was undergoing treatment for she had been diagnosed with Crohn's disease um a little while before. And so she was taking cortisone uh shots and she just, you know, was not feeling well, was was just generally ill, suffering from a lot of uh a lot of like gastrointestinal issues during shooting. Um, they finished principal photography uh in June of 1987, and everyone took a break. Um but Heather O'Rourke, she so she had some time off. Let's talk about Heather a little bit before we talk about what happened to her. Um so she was born December 27th, 1975 in San Diego. And so she was discovered by Spielberg when she happened to be eating at the MGM Commissary because she was there with her older sister, who was also an actress. Um, she was there shooting something. So she got discovered, started. That was the beginning of her career. Um, everyone talked about how outrageously smart she was. She was, you know, she was like six years old, five years old when they were produ or in shooting the first movie. Apparently, she would go in, read the scripts, no problem, never flubbed lines, was like an immediate. Yeah, she was everyone called her an old soul, talked about she was just like amazingly smart. She wanted to become a director, so she was a talented actress. She everyone always said she gave such amazing performances in all the movies in all the poltergeist movies she was in. She did lots of TV work, she was on Happy Days for like a year, playing kind of a daughter figure to the Fonz. Um, so she had a really great career.

Angela 28:57

Wait, so how old was she when she was doing Poltergeist 3?

Daniel 29:00

She was uh around 12, 11, 12 old.

Angela 29:03

For some reason in my head, I was picturing her to be like an adult.

Daniel 29:06

No, no, no. So she was still very young.

Angela 29:07

So she was that young and she was dealing with Crohn's disease.

Daniel 29:10

Yeah, well, well, they thought she had Crohn's disease. So we'll get to yeah. So um she was absolutely wonderful, you know, seemed like had a super, super bright future in front of her. I actually on the poltergeist three set, she kind of was shadowing the director, saying, like, hey, when I'm not in scenes, I want to watch you because I want to learn how to direct. So she was just incredibly ambitious and just like an amazing person. But unfortunately, she had these struggles with gastrointestinal issues. And on January 31st, 1988, she had flu like symptoms. Um, she wasn't feeling great. Um, but she had been, you know, lots of talk with her doctors over a long amount of time. Her parent, her mom checked in with their doctor, said, Hey, should I bring her in or what should we do? And they said, you know, let's let's see what happens. The next morning, she felt even worse. And eventually um her mom did call for medical services. She went unconscious, went into cardiac arrest. They they did get her heart started, they brought her to a hospital. And at the hospital, what the doctors there said is that she had a congenital intestinal blockage or um stricture, uh a type of narrowing or something, and that they needed to um um operate on it immediately. So she went into emergency surgery um and did go through surgery, but unfortunately while recovering, went into cardiac arrest again, and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. So she did pass away at the age of 12. So incredibly sad story. Um even sadder because it turns out that that diagnosis of Crohn's disease was likely a misdiagnosis, and what she did have was that congenital, a birth defect, a congenital um intestinal blockage. That apparently can be fixed with a very simple surgery. The surgery they eventually did, but it had she had, you know, they think earlier in the the uh on the Friday before this happened at school, um, she had to do a a mile run at school, but she apparently she was never a complainer, so she likely wasn't complaining about how bad she felt. They think that that led to some sort of rupture and then she went into septic shock. So there was a documentary that would that was released just this year, um, and it has some amazing, heart-wrenching but amazing interviews with her family and her friends talking about her and what happened, but this in this misdiagnosis that it was really an unfortunate, unfortunate situation that she she likely could have could have been helped and um you know this is why we don't do true crime and why we don't do like how some like this is this is such a bummer. Yeah, it yeah, it really was. I mean it really was. The documentary, I watched the whole thing, I recommend it highly. It was it's a tough watch. Sorry, it's called it's called Heather O'Rourke. She was here. I rented it for a few bucks on Amazon, so I I think it's available on all like the rental services and everything. Um was very good. She, I mean, it was just she seems like such a wonderful person, and and it was really great to watch. I mean, the end credits, for example, like over the end credits, it's this like footage they found in her. She had started carrying a video camera around, trying to like learn how to be a director right before her death. So like the end credits, it's and it's interviews with her like elementary school and middle school friends and everything, and it it was really wonderful. And I think great for the family to get to sort of tell her story properly. Yeah. Um, but obviously the tabloids when she died were relentless about this curse idea. Yeah. So, and that's you know, we'll get back to it, but the in the documentary that the family talks about that coverage, of course. So, you know, more people are talking about a curse, and even they start to lump in other things of people who are like slightly related.

Angela 32:57

There's like grasping at straws, like anything tangentially related. Yeah.

Daniel 33:01

There's an actor, Luke Perryman. Uh, he he appears as a construction worker in a few scenes in the first movie. He was murdered in 2009 in a random murder by a guy who murdered him for his vehicle after, you know, going off his mental health medication and getting in a fight. Yeah, just yeah, like fought with his stepfather and fled, and then like just apparently chose a house at random and and to get a car. Yeah, really awful. Um, so that happened in 2009. Another actor, Richard Lawson, who played a paranormal investigator in the first movie, he was involved in a uh 1992 US Air Flight 405, which crashed uh leaving LaGuardia, crashed right after takeoff. But he survived. So that's like I mean, a little bit of curse, but like he survived. Um, and then Brian Gibson, the director of Poltergeist 2, died at 59 from cancer. But again, like this is just yeah, someone gets a good thing.

Angela 33:55

This is sort of just like a long-term medical history of a like smattering of people. Yeah.

Daniel 34:01

But the one thing that really set people off to be able to talk about like the poltergeist curse is there was this thing that people started to say this is what caused it. And it was eventually this story about some of the skeletons used on set of the first movie. In 2002, I couldn't find an earlier story of this, but it feels like something people were probably talking about for a while. But I could see in 2002, actress Joe Beth Williams, um, she was the actress who plays in the first movie, she winds up in a they're making they're digging a pool, and eventually they find all these skeletons, and she winds up in this muddy water with all these skeletons with her. Oh, and she's talking about that scene says, you know, I went into this huge tank of what I thought of what of what I thought were these skeletons, which by the way, I thought were plastic, but later found out they were real skeletons. It was a real night.

Angela 34:48

Oh my god.

Daniel 34:49

She later in 2008 talked about it. She said, You have to understand this took four or five days to shoot. I was in mud and goop every day, and these skeletons were all around me. And in my innocence in Nayavate, I assume that these were not real skeletons. I assume they were prop skeletons made out of plastic.

Angela 35:04

Two entire directors, and this slips through the cracks.

Daniel 35:09

Yeah.

Angela 35:09

Well.

Daniel 35:10

But I I mean, if a if a human's skeleton is something like curses you, then like wouldn't all of our like high school science classes be cursed? I mean, there was a human skeleton. Were those real skeletons? Yes, that's a and in interview with like the the special effects guy in 2017. I found an interview with special effects artist Craig Reardon. He says everyone was using real skeletons. That was the no one was paying for there were no good fake skeletons. Everyone that you would go to medical supply companies and get skeletons, there's tons of them available, and that's what everyone was doing. So it's like this can't be it's just like he was really annoyed that people tried to blame the curse on that because it's just like that's not that ridiculous. There's there are dead bodies all over. People's skeletons get used for everything. People sell their skeletons for stuff.

Angela 35:57

But like, what a psychotic um, like guy just sitting there like shrugging and being like, we use dead bodies for everything. There's just human remains everywhere, guys. I don't know what you're so concerned about.

Daniel 36:09

He, I mean, but he does say here's something I guess most people don't know, and that's the fact that human skeletons have been used in movies for years and years. So regardless of what we think about it, it can't be the cause of a curse, right? I mean, if everyone's doing it.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

So you're saying I still have a shot at Hollywood if I put my cards right?

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Yes, you you could be on the silver screen.

Angela 36:31

An Oscar with a human skeleton.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Those rattling bones.

unknown 36:35

Yeah.

Angela 36:36

Well, well, what a bummer of an episode with a bright outlook.

Daniel 36:42

Yep. So obviously, people are just kind of looking for everything they can. But there, you know, they remade the movie in 2015. Sam Raimi produced it, Sam Rockwell stars in it, Jared Harris is in it, Rosemary DeWitt. They all seem fine to me.

SPEAKER_05 36:56

Yeah.

Daniel 36:57

Um, apparently the Russo brothers have talked about reviving it. That was back in 2019, so maybe there's just not much happening with the series. There, I did see someone was going to do a documentary called The Curse of the Poltergeist. Um, but it seems like that just never happened, so maybe they themselves were cursed. But it really does seem like they're just kind of grasping at straws.

Angela 37:16

And then two podcasters were making a podcast episode about a cursed movie called Poltergeist. And the entire time they were trying to make that episode, their internet kept cutting out. Every time, Daniel, I swear, every time you started talking about the cursed aspect of it, our internet cut out and everything went wonky and crazy. So turn on the cameras. It's time for the documentary. We have a new story to tell.

Daniel 37:41

Yes, I won't lie, I am not looking forward to this edit particularly, but we'll see how it goes. But what I will say then, and I'll say, you know, internet going out. That's as cursed as what everyone here is doing. I this is one of the first curses I've looked at where I'm just like, this is so much people just looking at things and tabloid nonsense. Um, and that's kind of, you know, that's basically what all the people involved with the movie say that the the guy, the the special effects guy, he's like, this curse nonsense is stupid. Craig T. Nelson, he said, Oh, this is all such nonsense. And, you know, the the the people's families involved, they themselves have said, you know, like this is the curse has nothing, it's not real. You know, that that documentary that again I highly recommend, it was nice because it really did let the people get to kind of give their perspective on this whole cursed idea. You know, for example, the the director of Poltergeist 3, he talked about how the the whole curse concept is just sort of like nonsense and unfair to to Heather's memory, to Dominique's memory, uh, to everyone's memory. Yeah and it for and Zelda Rubinstein, an actress from the poltergeist movies, she says in the documentary, I owe it to Heather to present her case as most honestly and lovingly as I can. I love this child very much, and I am still very grieved at her passing. I think that it's pretty much a courtesy to put an end to this superstitious crap. So I do kind of really appreciate everyone just being it willing to say, like, let's this is not real. Let's be done with it.

Angela 39:05

Well, I guess that I'm assuming leads into the part where we say whether we think it's a curse or not. I feel like I know exactly what you think, and I'm going to agree. I feel like whoever it was that was setting out to make a documentary around the cursed aspect of the movie probably got to the same conclusion and was like, there's no story here. Like, if I were trying to make a documentary about it, I guarantee I would be looking at everything you told me and I would say, there's there's no thread. There's no story here. I don't think it's cursed. I mean, I think there's a smattering of unfortunate events that have occurred that, you know, honestly, stuff like that happens all the time. Like, I know people who've experienced multiple people in their lives dying. Like, it's it's not that uncommon that amongst a group of 25 to 30 people over a span of 30 years, a couple of things happen. Of course, again, it is very, very unfortunate what happened to Dominic Dunn. Uh yeah, I hope that the judge who um judged that case against John Sweeney never feels a cold pillow against his face and gets parking tickets every single day of his life for the rest of time to come if he is still on this earth with us.

Daniel 40:19

And I hope worse for John Sweeney.

Angela 40:21

Yeah, I hope worse for John Sweeney. Yeah. And hopefully he also is having a fucking awful time.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

Yeah.

Angela 40:28

Um, and yeah, and I'm glad that there's a documentary about Heather because it sounds like she was a really special kid, but I don't think there's anything else going on here besides that, except for people just trying to sell some National Enquirer magazines, which sucks.

Daniel 40:42

Yeah, really, and I think if anything, you know, obvious there is no poltergeist cursed. It's tons of people involved with movies over, you know, and a couple couple horrible things happen. Like you said, there's there's no thread there. There's very harrowing and very touching stories and events that happen, but there is no supernatural curse or anything. I mean, the only to me, the only thing that is cursed is how, you know, people saying it has kind of muddied the waters of these tragic events.

Angela 41:12

Real quick question. Um, do you think do you think our podcast is cursed?

Daniel 41:16

I mean, I'm starting to worry. Poltergeist definitely not cursed, but our cursed ish, maybe cursed, maybe not.

Angela 41:22

Maybe not. Okay, we'll see you next week.

Daniel 41:34

Cursed dish is an ish media production. It explores stories of alleged curses, historical mysteries, and supernatural claims. While we do investigate the history and the evidence behind these stories, ultimately you should decide for yourself what to believe. If you have questions, comments, or your own accursed tales to share, send us a hex at uh oh at cursed dish.com. That's uh oh h all one word at cursedish all one word.com