Film lore is filled with strange, tragic stories: unsolved murders, on-set catastrophes, gruesome accidents and bizarre twists of fate. Sometimes a string of calamities line up like an arrow of grim fate pointing at one particular film production. Over the years, the film develops a reputation: part urban legend, part cautionary tale. The movie is cursed!
Of course, we know that curses aren't real, but we humans innately find patterns in random events and focus on evidence that supports an exciting or lurid narrative. Bad things happen on almost every film set, and chance dictates that sometimes a bunch of bad things all happen on the same set. When that happens, we point to events that are otherwise unrelated and fold them into the story of "the curse." And there's no denying that they make for great stories.
Advertisement
It's tricky to define what exactly counts as a cursed movie. Some movies have such a reputation for tragedy that they're frequently linked to a curse story ("Poltergeist" anyone?). Yet other productions are beset by chaos and difficulty but never acquire the curse title. Still others are marked by a single tragedy (read: "The Crow"), but they don't have the long series of misfortunes that make up a proper curse. Finally, some films are said to be haunted. While a haunting isn't necessarily a curse, a few cursed movies also seem to contain elements of a haunting. We'll cover all of these different instances.
Now make some popcorn and get ready for 10 of the most cursed movies in film history.