While no one from the cast of the 2015 reboot of “Poltergeist” died, director Gil Kenan says there definitely was paranormal activity on set. During a Reddit AMA, Gil revealed that strange things happened on the field surrounding the house where they filmed, like lights and equipment randomly not working.
“Lights that could turn on anywhere else in the neighbourhood would blow out the second you’d try to light them on this plot. Also, I used a lot of aerial drone photography in the film, and the drone pilots were never able to lock in the GPS signal in this field. We would have to move 10 feet away to launch the craft. I was too afraid to find out what the land used to be,” he wrote.
Everett Collection
“Insidious” was also filmed at Linda Vista Hospital and at one point when some of the crew were working in the basement, they suddenly started feeling very ill. Things got so bad that they temporarily had to stop. “When we were set dressing in the basement [of Linda Vista] for ‘Insidious,’ there was this room full of crazy old [patient] records from the’40s and ’50s. We were moving them around to do our set dressing, and everybody in the room started feeling sick and weird and heavy. We had to take a break because everyone felt overwhelmingly unwell,” production designer Jennifer Spencer recounted to Cosmopolitan.
Everett Collection
“The Lords of Salem” cast and crew also spent time filming at Linda Vista Hospital in Los Angeles, which production designer Jennifer Spence says she believes is haunted. She explained that there were times when a buzzer would go off in patients’ rooms when there was no one in the hospital, among other things. “I’m sure there was something in there, especially in the basement. I never liked filming in there. It always gave me the creeps. On the second or third floor, the buzzer to one of the rooms would go off all the time when nobody was up there. There were no patients, but the buzzer at the end of this hallway would go off all the time and freak us all out,” Jennifer told Cosmopolitan.
Everett Collection
“The Possession” star Jeffrey Dean Morgan says that working on the film actually changed his beliefs about the supernatural. While filming, Jeffrey says bizarre things occurred, like lights exploding in the middle of filming multiple times and random bursts of wind flowing through a closed set. It all concluded when props from the set were put in a storage unit and it burned to the ground.
“All of our props, the Dybbuk box included, were put into storage in Vancouver so we could go back if we had to and do reshoots we’d have everything there. A week after we wrapped filming the storage unit burned to the ground and it was investigated. It wasn’t arson, it wasn’t an electrical fire – it started from within. That’s all I’m gonna say,” Jeffery told NBC.
Everett Collection
6 / 9
Annabelle Comes Home
There were plenty of eerie occurrences on the set of “Annabelle Comes Home” too including a moving piano bench and mysterious injuries — but one particular instance stood out. During one of the first times the cast was on set, the power suddenly went out and when the lights turned back on, star Mckenna Grace had an uncontrollable nosebleed.
“When all of us were on set together for the first time, the lights went out and we were all freaking out and asking, ‘Annabelle, are you there?’ Then, the lights turned back on and my nose was bleeding so heavily. It happens sometimes because of allergies but not this heavy — as soon as I left set to get a tissue, it stopped,” Mckenna told TheWrap.
Everett Collection
“Annabelle” was partially shot in an old apartment building in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, where some spooky occurrences went down. Producer Peter Safran says at one point an actor portraying a janitor in the film had a light fixture fall on him moments after the actor playing the demon walked by…in the exact hallway his character was set to be murdered in during the film.
“We shot in this amazing, old apartment building near Koreatown and we had some funky stuff go down. In particular, the first day that the demon was shooting in full makeup, we brought the demon up in the elevator. He walks out and walks around to the green room to where we’re holding the talent, and just as he walks under — a giant glass light fixture is being followed by the actor playing the handyman of the building — and all of a sudden the entire glass light fixture falls down on his head, the janitor‘s head. And in the script the demon kills the janitor in that hallway. It was totally freaky,” Peter told THR.
Everett Collection
During the filming of “The Exorcist,” the sets of the MacNeil family’s house burned down in a devastating fire. Director William Friedkin says the fire happened in the early hours of the morning while they were filming the movie’s exorcism scene. While almost all of the set had burned to the ground, the only room that was left standing was Regan MacNeil’s demon-possessed bedroom. Production had to be shut down for six weeks.
“Interestingly, it was while we were shooting the exorcism scene…That’s the only thing that happened during the entire film that I thought was some kind of bad karma,” William said during an Oscars event.
Everett Collection
While filming “The Conjuring,” star Vera Farminga experienced some paranormal activity that involved mysterious claw marks — similar to that of the demon in the movie. Vera says she first saw the claw marks the day she accepted the role and continued to see them until the day she finished, when a claw-shaped bruise appeared on her leg.
“The strangest occurrence for me personally, on the first one, was the day I had a creative conversation with [director] James Wan. I had just been researching Lorraine. I wasn’t familiar with her, and so before our phone call, I was on the computer, and I had closed it. We had our conversation…I said, ‘If Patrick Wilson is in…then I’m in.’ I just wanted to be sure that Patrick was going to be my partner. So we agreed, and then we said goodbye, and I opened the computer screen and there were three digital claw marks, from the upper right diagonal to the lower left,” Vera told CinemaBlend.
Everett Collection