Polterheist (Story)

Perhaps the most striking illustration of the "Don't flirt with the devil" tenet is the behind-the-scenes story of the movie Poltergeist, the first part of which was filmed in 1982 (the second and third parts appeared, respectively, in 1986 and 1988). Here are a few facts.

Writer James Kahn was commissioned to make a "novel" version of the film. And so when he wrote, "Lightning ripped through the night sky," lightning actually struck his house! The cover of the air conditioner that was hanging behind his back blew off and hit the writer right in the face. He spent several months in hospital.

The fate of some of the performers of the main roles was much more tragic: Dominick Dunn, an actress who played the eldest daughter in the Frieling family, settled in a house built on the site of an old Indian cemetery (which is why their house was possessed by spirits - translated from the German "poltergeist" means "noisy spirit"), strangled by a jealous boyfriend.

Young actress Heather O'Rourke, who played the youngest daughter, died of heart failure during the filming of the third "Poltergeist". She was only twelve years old and buried it in the same cemetery as Dominick Dunn. The heart also failed actor Will Sampson - he also died while filming the third "Poltergeist" (movie buffs remember Sampson for his role as Chief in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest").

In between the second and third "Poltergeist" actor Julian Beck died and the public began to talk about "The Curse of Poltergeist. Actress Janet Williams, who played the role of the mother of the family, felt this curse from the very first series: every time she returned from filming, all the pictures in her house hung crooked and askew. She corrected them, left in the morning to go to the set, and in the evening all over again. When she starred in other films, the picture behaved perfectly normal.

And the house itself, which "played" in the picture of the Freeling family home, was destroyed during the Los Angeles earthquake of 1994.