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15 Cursed Behind-The-Scenes Horror Movie Facts

Source: E! OnlineView Original
entertainmentMarch 21, 2026

by Kelly MartinezBuzzFeedBuzzFeed Contributor

Sometimes the scariest part of a horror movie isn't what happens in front of the camera. From unexplained paranormal incidents on set to eerie tragedies, some horror films just feel truly cursed.

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Here are 15 behind-the-scenes facts about horror movies that just might be more terrifying than the films themselves:

1.

First, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) was inspired by a news article about a real child who died in the middle of having a nightmare.

New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection

"I’d read an article in the LA Times about a family who had escaped the Killing Fields in Cambodia and managed to get to the US," writer-director Wes Craven said in an interview with Vulture. Suddenly, the young son was having very disturbing nightmares. He told his parents he was afraid that if he slept, the thing chasing him would get him, so he tried to stay awake for days at a time. When he finally fell asleep, his parents thought this crisis was over. Then they heard screams in the middle of the night. By the time they got to him, he was dead. He died in the middle of a nightmare. Here was a youngster having a vision of a horror that everyone older was denying. That became the central line of Nightmare on Elm Street."

2.

The radiographer in the infamous hospital scene in The Exorcist (1973), Paul Bateson, was sentenced to prison for murder just a few years after the film's release.

Warner Bros.

In 1979, the movie extra and real-life radiographer was convicted of the murder of Variety reporter Addison Verrill. He was also suspected of killing a number of other victims, but no additional charges were brought against him.

3.

The set of Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was reportedly decorated with hundreds of pounds of real animal corpses, made even more horrific by the extreme Texas heat.

Vortex / Everett Collection

4.

Vic Morrow and two young child actors were killed in a helicopter crash on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

Con Keyes / Getty Images

Following the incident, director John Landis, producer George Folsey Jr., and three other defendants were charged with involuntary manslaughter. They were ultimately acquitted of all charges.

5.

The Omen (1976) star Gregory Peck, screenwriter David Seltzer, and producer Mace Neufeld were ALL on planes that got struck by lightning. Producer Harvey Bernard also narrowly dodged being struck by lightning while filming in Rome.

20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection

6.

The set of The Possession (2012) mysteriously burned to the ground after filming wrapped.

Lionsgate/Courtesy Everett Collection

"We had all of our props a couple days after we finished wrapping — they put everything in storage for if you’re gonna do reshoots or anything," Jefferey Dean Morgan told The Hollywood Reporter. “It burnt to the ground. It was investigated, and there were no signs of arson, no electrical fire.”

7.

The Hereditary (2018) scene where Peter (Alex Wolff) smashes his head on the desk involved real blood.

A24

Wolff actually volunteered to break his own nose for real, explaining to TheWrap, "I said to Ari [Aster, director] when that scene was coming up, 'I will do it on a real desk, just tell me.' And he said, 'I love you and thank you, but that is definitely not allowed.'"

While Wolff settled for using a foam top desk, it still wasn't painless: "It had a foam top but it was hard on the bottom, and there were only two of them, and I had to nail it perfectly," he added. "I had to have the blood shoot out perfectly out of my nose and jump back and do that whole thing. I remember after, I was just panting, my voice is gone, blood is dripping down everywhere, and blood is gushing down my knee — real blood gushing down my knee, because I slammed it against a chair."

8.

While filming Annabelle Comes Home, the cast had multiple spooky experiences. For starters, McKenna Grace claimed to inexplicably wake up one morning with a "weird, small cut" on her forehead "in the shape of a triangle."

Warner Bros / Courtesy Everett Collection

Grace also recalled unexplained power losses, shadowy figures, and a random bloody nose. But perhaps the creepiest story of all is that, according to the production crew, a piano bench on the set "moved overnight on several occasions, though no crew members were working, and the stage was locked."

9.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980) was so disturbing and realistic that it was actually seized by the Italian judiciary because they mistook it for a snuff film.

Trans American Films /Courtesy Everett Collection

"I found myself summoned to court, where they screened the film," director Ruggero Deodato said in an interview with Nanarland. "I was terrified, and my lawyers didn't know what to do. I thought to myself, 'Okay, I'm going to leave the courtroom in handcuffs!' At the end, the prosecutor stood up and pointed at me, shouting, 'Y

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