The Poltergeist Curse: Inside the Mysterious Death of Heather O'Rourke & Other Chilling Chapters (Episode 139)

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
We're back. This week, we're conjuring up
all the spooky facts and mysterious myths surrounding the
Poltergeist movies. Throughout the 1980's, the
franchise scared audiences sillywith its relentless thrills and
chills, and it grossed a frightening amount of money at

(00:22):
the box office. But did its success come with an
even bigger price tag? Behind the scenes, the land of
make believe turned into real life terror.
Each installment saw the untimely death of a major cast
member, The eerie list includes Dominique Dunn, Will Sampson and

(00:43):
Heather O'Rourke. Was it all just bad luck and
coincidence or was there something darker at play?
Consider us your gateway to the truth behind the poltergeist
curse that's today on Death in Entertainment.
Live from Los Angeles. 911 What is your emergency?

(01:06):
They're in Hollywood now. Two counts of murder.
Injury and death, Oh my. God, shocking new details.
It has stunned the entertainmentworld.
This makes me a little nervous. The hair stood up on my arms
just like in the movies. What do?
You call this thing anyway. Death in.
Entertainment. Greetings, Dead O universe.

(01:26):
Hi. What's going on?
That's great. That is great.
That's great news. Yeah, I'm glad that works out
for you. That I'm glad something worked
out for somebody because this episode, not a lot of good
things are happening. Almost nothing good.
Well, the good thing is that we're back.
What's going on, everybody? My name is Kyle Plouffe.
And I'm Alejandro Dowling and. Today we discussed the Curse of

(01:49):
the Poltergeist films. Actually, something good is that
the franchise has grossed a lot of money.
Yeah, I guess that's good for the people who made the movies.
The people that survived. Yeah, can count their shekels
over the graves of four people that have died.
More than four. Oh wow, yeah, see, I'm learning

(02:10):
things here as well. Four major ones.
Wow. But there are a couple other
sprinkles on the cake. Wow.
And where before we eat this cake, we got to let you know
that this is a true crime comedypodcast.
So don't leave us any messages or comments saying I can't stand
you laughing because there will be laughs, OK?

(02:30):
If you don't think it's fun to go chuckling in the graveyard.
Then go eat another cake. Go watch a different movie than
Poltergeist. That's.
Right. Maybe stick to the Brave Little
Toaster. That actually has one of the
scariest, and we'll talk about this in a Patreon episode coming
up very soon. The things that scared us as
children. That scene where the toaster is

(02:53):
having like this fever dream andthe clown goes run and
everything's on fire around them.
Oh, that's one of the scariest things that's going to be in
there. Little tease right there.
Yeah, now that you mention that,that's a pretty infamous moment
run. Yeah, it's very scary, but yeah.
So without further ado, let's get into the actual scary stuff.

(03:15):
OK. OK.
Kyle, I have a question for you.I might have an answer.

(03:38):
Have you seen Poltergeist first?Or have you heard of the curse
first? I saw the movie first.
I heard of the curse first. Oh wow, it you're a curse first
guy. I am a curse first.
You always go curse first. I guess so.
So it always looked very intriguing to me, but it wasn't
until I was older that I actually saw it.
Oh wow, I saw it young and it made me scared of trees near the

(04:01):
window. Yes, made me scared of clowns.
Uh huh. As did the Brave Little Toaster,
which we already discussed. It made me scared of, you know,
just static TV and little kids. That was good stuff.
So to remind people that haven'tseen this movie, it's about a
family that's being haunted. They're called the Free Leans.

(04:22):
Oh. But they're not so free, no,
because they open a portal to this demonic world.
Which apparently was caused by an Indian burial ground.
Yeah, that's what you find out later in the movie, that this
whole suburban development was above an Indian burial ground,
and the developer had claimed that they moved all the graves

(04:43):
over. But then Craig T Nelson of Coach
fame, he's the patriarch of the family.
He finds out that they only moved the headstones.
Yep. And they left the bodies.
So that's what caused this poltergeist, this disturbance.
They're in the pool. The girl of the, the little

(05:03):
girl, her name is Carol Ann Sheilan.
She's kind of like the Haley Joel Osment.
Yeah. Of the crew.
She can communicate with the spirit.
She calls them the TV people. There he.
Yes, she has that famous scene and then she gets kidnapped for
a while. So that's the movie.
In real life. No, in the movie she gets

(05:24):
kidnapped in the by the spirit. Yes that have never seen a TV
before and then all of a sudden can manipulate it to bring
people in. And then there's a glaring plot
hole. That is one of them.
Well. How far do you want to go with
this? Yeah, the Freeling family is the
only house on the block that is being terrorized.

(05:44):
Well, there's a lot of other houses that are built on this
burial ground nearby. How come they're not being
terrorized? Well, you know, maybe they were
and we just didn't see it. No, come on.
Or they're just lying like that.It didn't happen to us.
We're we're totally fine over here.
The movie literally ends with the house being swallowed into
the ground. Yeah, you would notice.

(06:04):
Yeah, that's true. It got great reviews when it was
first released. Massive.
Roger Ebert gave it thumbs up. Wow.
Quote. Hooper and Spielberg hold our
interests by observing the everyday rituals of this family
so closely that since the familyseems real, the weird events
take on a certain credibility byassociation.

(06:26):
Yeah, Time magazine and Newsweektag summer of 1982 when
Poltergeist opened the Spielbergsummer because as we discussed
in last weeks episode, ET openeda week later and both of these
movies dominated the box office.Iconic.
And it was originally given an eye rating, but Spielberg

(06:48):
appealed to the MBA and got it down to a PG.
This is a couple years before the PG13 rating was invented.
Back in the day, it was either PG or R Yeah.
So there's a lot of really intense movies that were PG,
like Jaws. The writers, Michael Grace and

(07:08):
Mark Victor, had wanted to make the movie a little more violent
and dramatic. They had intended to kill little
Caroline in it. Wow.
But instead they opted to kill her pet bird named Tweedy
instead. And if you can believe it,
that's the only death in the entire movie.
What, the pet bird? Wow.

(07:30):
And the movies line there here was voted as the number 69 movie
quote of all time. 69. By the American Film Institute.
Wow. They're.
Here. Sweetheart, last night when you
said they're here. I take my goldfish to school

(07:52):
you. Know maybe the fault I was just
directly under our house. Certainly.
Would that be a scream? The show got crimes all over my
bed. Sweetie.
Remember last night? Do you remember when you woke up
and you said they were here? Well, who did you mean?
Who's here? It's crazy because there's like

(08:51):
so much crosstalk. Yeah, that it's just like you
could tell it was just an early movie.
Right, there's not an economy ofdialogue going on.
No, it's just everybody's talking at the same time.
And you heard a little bit of Dana, the elder sister played by
Dominique Dunn. Yes.
So did you know that this story was inspired by a real incident?
Whoa. From the 1800s. 1800s.

(09:15):
Yeah. So we're going to travel to
Colorado. They got sucked through the TV
in the 1800s. Well, you'll hear in Colorado,
Denver area developers wanted tomake a Grand Park in a area
where there was already a cemetery.
They put out notices they were going to relocate the

(09:35):
gravestones. And then a bit into the project,
the contractors got tired, so they just started moving the
headstones only. And the city was about to finish
the project when one of the workers opened their big mouth.
So then the contractor in chargewas arrested.
Oh wow. Word spread and suddenly the

(09:57):
city couldn't afford to tear down the building they had built
and dig up the bodies, so they just decided to finish it.
Currently there are unmarked graves under this development.
That's fun, It's called Cheeseman Park.
The graves are all under the Greek Pavilion.
Cheese man. It sounds like something from my

(10:18):
neck of the woods. Sounds like something from Mama
Song. Yeah, Mommy saw the restaurant
that Dominique Dunn's boyfriend worked at.
Slash murderer. We'll get to that in a little.
Oh yeah. But but we already went over it
and. Yeah, a lot of early day out.
Last week. So have you heard last week's
episode? You already know this, Yes?
The house in Poltergeist is located in Simi Valley, Oh, not

(10:44):
too far from us. It's a few miles.
And they get a lot of visitors, I'm sure.
They're here. Again, get out.
And then a minor controversy with this movie is that whole
business of Spielberg versus Hooper.
So Toby Hooper had directed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a few

(11:04):
years earlier, and Steven Spielberg was a fan.
When it came time to make Poltergeist, Spielberg was told
by Universal, which was funding ET.
Really. The bigger of the movies?
Yeah, they said you can't directboth of these movies at the same
time. Wow.
So then he hired his buddy Toby Hooper to take on the

(11:26):
directorial reigns of Poltergeist.
But Spielberg was very much interested in the project.
Still, he was almost like a front.
Yeah, exactly. You know, collect some checks.
That's pretty nice. Because they were shot very
close together and in close proximity, both productions.
Wow. Hence why they were released a
week apart in summer 1982. ET phoned the bank.

(11:50):
I'm doing both of these movies. Yeah, Spielberg, in an
interview, said Toby isn't a take charge sort of guy.
If a question was asked and an answer wasn't immediately
forthcoming, I'd jump in and saywhat we could do.
Toby would nod in agreement and that became the process of our
collaboration. That sounds good to me.

(12:10):
He's like, hey buddy checks in the fucking mail.
You just do whatever I say. I could direct poltergeist.
Yeah, you just ask a few questions and then he tells you
what to do and you go, yeah, sure.
A great idea, boss. That's awesome.
Yeah, that sounds good. Of course, Hooper didn't like
the sound of that, so then Spielberg backtracked and he
wrote a public letter in Variety.

(12:32):
What recanting? While apologizing for what he
said. Wow, I'm very sorry.
Toby Hooper's not my bitch. He says, regrettably, some of
the press has misunderstood the rather unique creative
relationship you and I shared through the making of
Poltergeist. And then Zelda Rubenstein, who
plays the clairvoyant Tangina. This house is cool.

(12:54):
Yeah. She basically said that
Spielberg was the director. Wow.
And that when she was on set, she remembers Hooper would set
up the shots and then Spielberg would make adjustments.
Oh, Spielberg is probably so pissed.
Like I could fucking get someoneto fill your tiny little shoes
so quick. She also made some digs at

(13:16):
Hooper. Oh, she shitting on them both.
And, well, no, she was shitting on Hooper.
Oh wow, yeah. Well, 'cause she was basically
saying, yeah, he wasn't the director.
But she was also giving up Spielberg, so no, that's almost
shitting on him. No, I think she wanted in with
Spielberg. Oh, she's giving all credit to
him. Oh all praise be.
And then she insinuated that Hooper may have had a bit of a

(13:38):
drug problem. Wow, shots fired.
Yeah, but other cast members said that Hooper said.
Action and cut. I mean, sure.
And that, you know, he was the director.
Yeah. So this is still pretty murky,
although the general consensus is that Spielberg is the main

(14:00):
force behind it. Yeah.
And then another thing that was kind of unfair to Hooper is that
in all the advertisements and then the movie itself, you know
how I usually would say a film by Toby Hooper or a Toby Hooper
film? Toby Hooper, Joint.
Instead, it's a Steven Spielbergproduction with no directorial

(14:20):
credit to Hooper. That's what I.
Was going to say I've never seenhis name attached to.
This like he gets credit but notin that.
Yeah, he's in the scrolling credits at the end.
Not in the spot you want to be, exactly.
Yeah, what an egomaniac. One might say that, yeah.
You know what else happened? Summer 82 when these movies
opened. No, The Twilight Zone helicopter
disaster. Oh, that's right.

(14:41):
Which was also a Steven Spielberg production.
Oh, he wasn't there though. He's only there when good things
happen. So Spielberg was also heavily
involved in the casting. You want to hear how little
Carol Ann got the role? Probably a child brothel if I
know Steven Spielberg. Oh God.
All right, let's hear an interview with Heather O'Rourke.

(15:05):
This guy came up to us. We didn't know who he was or.
Anything. Can I actually preface this
clip? Heather O'Rourke, born in 1975,
December 27th, so sort of a Christmas baby.
She was joining her mom and sister at The MGM lot.
Her sister Tammy was an actress.Tammy O'Rourke.

(15:27):
And she was appearing in a moviecalled Pennies from Heaven
starring Steve Martin. It's actually a very powerful
musical drama. And it's everything that Joker
for Leah do wanted to be, but failed at shots fired.
So if you want to see an actual good musical that is very dark,

(15:47):
Pennies from Heaven, there you go.
So Heather O'rourke's sister Tammy is in that.
So that's why they're there at MGM.
And this is very odd. Tammy and her mom went to grab
the lunch from the counter or something.
So they left Heather all by herself at the table.
And in this interview, she describes a man coming up to her
out of nowhere. Possibly with glasses, a hat and

(16:10):
a beard. This.
Guy came up to us, he didn't know who he was or anything, and
he said have you ever been in any movies?
And he said no. And we were not interested in
talking to this stranger at all.We said we just wanted to eat
our lunch. So he said well can I just
interview you for this part? I said like.
Fucking seven years old and she's like hey creep, fuck off,

(16:32):
I'm trying to eat food. Not even 7.
Wow, chill, why not? It was for a six year old and I
was only 5 at that time. And when we got in there, I had
to be frightened of this pink fish and this purple pig.
And I just thought it was hilarious.
I just laughed. And so he didn't think that was

(16:52):
very good of me. So he told us to come back again
and he told my mom to bring in like a storybook and we had to
read that. And I had to scream and cry and
all this. And I just said I could not
handle it much more that day. When we came in, we saw those
posters, you know, from close care third kind jaws.

(17:14):
And then we realized who this man was.
So we we thought we were just totally fools.
Total fools. So, cats out of the bag.
Yeah, Steven Spielberg discovered her.
He likes I'm young. Well, he was looking for the
perfect little girl. Yeah, he was for.
Poltergeist. Oh, for Poltergeist, Yeah.
Are you hinting at something more sinister, Kyle?

(17:37):
Yeah, he's a pedophile. Oh my God.
OK. Allegedly.
I didn't think we were going to get so spicy so early.
It's getting spooky in here. Look, let's hold off for a
second, yeah? That's what you got to tell him.
Yeah, you're going to get sued. Hey pal, let's hold off a little
bit with the kid touching. Oh my God.
That's I know. Alright, hold that.

(17:57):
Let's just. Yeah, hold on.
Where we are in the store. Hands in your pockets, pal.
He's casting a movie that is heavily reliant on this little
girl. Being on the casting couch.
Looking beatific, a little Angelwith blonde hair, completely
innocent, and she fit the bill. And yes, he wanted the innocents

(18:17):
to go away. Hollywood's so weird.
Like he kept bringing her into audition until she sufficiently
screamed and cried. No shit.
It's so disturbing. It is very disturbing.
And then when she's sufficientlyterrified.
OK, great. You got the part.
Yeah. Get out.
Go celebrate. My wife just got tighter.

(18:38):
You want a lollipop? Oh.
God. I I don't even have any innuendo
with that. And you're just assuming all
these things. Yeah.
So, yeah, that's how she got thepart.
And that is incredible, really, because not only the movie
advertisements and the actual movie itself, but think of the
poster. It's her in front of the static

(19:01):
TV. Iconic.
And her line is the tagline. They're here.
They're here. So in that sense, as a
businessman and a creative genius, that was a very good
choice. It was.
It sold the movie. You know what you're getting?
You're getting this creepy suburban nightmare.

(19:22):
Yeah. Where?
Oh, my God, that little girl's going to be terrorized.
Where do we buy tickets? In an interview I read with
Oliver Robbins, who plays her older brother, he said Steven
Spielberg toasted Heather on herbirthday while on set with a
bottle of wine, which he shared with all the adults.

(19:43):
Don't get too excited Gal, only the adults.
I'm not excited. He's excited.
And then Spielberg looked at Heather and said, hey, kid, when
you're 21, I'm going to buy you your own bottle.
Wow. Do you have anything to say
about that? He probably said 18 because I
think the drinking age was probably 18 back then.
Well. According to Oliver Robbins,

(20:04):
yeah, he said 21. That's what you have a problem
with. And.
That when you turn 12 at 21, I'mgonna really fucking buy you a
bottle. Wow.
That's Spielberg talking. Of course.
Yeah. OK, so we've set up the movie.

(20:25):
It's. Set up a number of things.
It's a cultural phenomenon, yeah.
And Heather O'Rourke is now a young superstar.
Really. Yep.
But things would soon take a dark turn.
I don't like that. Last week essentially was Part 1
of the Poltergeist Curse. Yeah, and we went through the

(20:47):
entire depressing saga of Dominique Dunn.
She was murdered by her boyfriend months after this
movie was released. In fact, it was still playing in
some theaters when she died technically on November 4th,
1982, but was strangled by her boyfriend John Sweeney on

(21:08):
October 30th. Yeah, in front of a terrified
David Packer who instead of calling 911, called the
non-emergency line to a police station.
That was the wrong police station.
And then when that didn't work, he called his friend instead of
just dialing 3 numbers. It's so aggravating.
Somebody help me. Someone's being choked outside.
Are you in danger? I think so.

(21:29):
The doors locked. God I hate that guy.
To be fair Kyle, he only had 6 minutes to save Dominique.
Yeah, no shit. That's not much time at all.
Plus the slapping and everythingbefore is probably about 15.
So that's horrible, what happened to her.
And we went into the entire trial where he got convicted of
manslaughter, yeah, and spent two years in jail.

(21:52):
And the judge was just so pro John Sweeney, which is insane.
And after the manslaughter charge was upheld and you know,
he was actually sentenced to 7 1/2 years, only had to serve 2.
But as soon as the jury came outand said if they had the option
for murder they would have 100% given it to him, he would have
been in jail for the rest of hislife.

(22:12):
And then the judge came out and said oh this is a miscarriage of
justice. Even though he was doodling and
playing hangman during the closing statements.
Someone wrote on our episode on YouTube that that judge was
demoted to traffic court after. I saw that.
That's very interesting because I know his career was derailed.
He was good. He should have even had one.

(22:34):
He had designs of probably beingon the Supreme Court one day.
Yeah. And boy, did that crash and burn
good. I think that John Sweeney, I
don't know, like he had some kind of influence on the owner
of Mamasan and that Shapiro, that lawyer that worked for the
restaurant, somehow got to the judge.
They were all in cahoots and thought John Sweeney was this

(22:57):
big deal. I didn't mention this on the
episode, but he had actually been the sous chef of Wolfgang
Puck. Oh man.
A prestigious chef? Fuck that.
Yeah, offer still stands. John, if you're listening to
this, you want to step into a ring, try to hit somebody that
can stand up for themselves. You come swing at me, baby.
I support that. Raise some money for charity.

(23:18):
I beat the shit out of Dominic Dunn's killer.
Dominique Dunn's killer. Jesus.
You just said the dad's name. Yeah, which is what the lawyer
did too. Yeah, to psych him out.
And then you had a little bit ofa problem with the dad writing
about it for some reason. Oh, yeah, He was driving around
her car. He, she was paying his rent.
He was a bum. Oh, and then his daughter gets

(23:38):
murdered and he's like, I need to write about justice.
You. Are so full of.
Shit, he's walking in justice. He was fucking siphoning his
daughter. I'm glad, he wrote.
Even through her death. I love his work.
The other thing is, think of howexcited Dominique was that
summer when it got released. Her brother Griffin Dunne had

(24:00):
just starred in An American Werewolf in London, directed by
John Landis by the way. But how cool is that two
siblings starring in iconic horror movies?
It's pretty cool. Yeah.
And then she goes and meets JohnSweeney.
So that's what kicks off the poltergeist curse.
That's the first major incident.Yeah.

(24:22):
And another thing connected to Dominique Dunn is her aunt and
uncle, John Gregory Dunn and Joan Didion.
That's right. So we talked about how Joan
Didion wrote a book about John Dunn's death called The Year of
Magical Thinking. Brilliant.
Why don't we apply that to Poltergeist for a second?

(24:42):
What is magical thinking? It's the idea that maybe there's
life after death, maybe mind over matter, the law of
contagion, that objects can carry essences in terms of bad
luck in real life, Could something have happened on the
set that kicked all this into motion?

(25:05):
Perhaps, perhaps one of the rumors is that a supernatural
portal was opened because in thescene where Diane Freling, the
mom played by Joe Beth Williams,by the way, she goes into her
backyard and is thrown into the swimming pool, and inside the

(25:27):
swimming pool are a bunch of skeletons.
Well, those were not props. Spooky, scary skeletons.
They were actually skeletons from India.
Yeah, real people. So it really was an Indian
burial ground. Yeah, and she wasn't told that
they were real until after filming.
Good God. People and they look real when

(25:48):
you see the movie. It's very effective.
Yeah, it's weird, I guess. It's very expensive to make a
model of a skeleton. I mean, we have one here in the
studio. It's cheaper to get real
skeletons from India. Apparently.
Wow people just give it away. Their fucking Nana.
Yeah, who's donating these skeletons to be in Poltergeist?

(26:10):
Shipping them to the US to Universal Studios.
Yeah, so this is actually a common practice.
Toby Hooper had done it in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Whoa. And other classic movies like
The House on Haunted Hill and Frankenstein had also used real
cadavers. Wow, You said you did it in

(26:31):
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yeah, that actually on Friday
was the 50th anniversary of its release.
Wow, you imagine it's 50 years old?
That feels about right, actually.
I don't know it's it just seems so long ago.
That really is such an influential movie.
Yeah, to put it in perspective, this is before Halloween even.

(26:52):
There really wasn't any blueprint before that.
Yep, before Freddy Krueger, before Jason.
Well, Freddy came after everything.
Well, you know what? He did it the best.
No offense at all. He did it the best until
Terrifier just came out. Yeah, the the third one's out
now. That's right.
So that's one theory is that these skeletons were disturbed

(27:16):
spirits. So they killed a lot of the
actors but nobody goes after thepedo that made the movie
interesting. Do not denigrate Toby Hooper
like that has done anything. Nice misdirection, I like it.
What? And then there was some other
weird things. I'm not just talking about
Dominique Dunn because I know I'm aware.

(27:37):
It's almost sinister and disingenuous, I would say, to
suggest that the pool scene caused her death.
Yeah, because John Sweeney was amonster regardless of
Poltergeist. Really.
I would talk at the bad timing. It's just the things add up is

(27:58):
the problem with this franchise.So other things that happened
during production, you know, thefamous clown scene, It attacks
Robbie in the bedroom. Frightening.
Terrifying. Well, the clown's arms became
very tight and started to actually choke the actor Oliver
Robbins, and he screamed out, I can't breathe.

(28:21):
And so both Steven and Toby had thought he was dad living at 1st
and told him to look at the camera.
Then they noticed his face was turning purple.
Oh my God. And they ran over and removed
the arms from Robins neck. Jesus.
Robin said that if Spielberg hadn't done that, maybe he

(28:41):
wouldn't be here today. The clown puppet is on display
at Planet Hollywood in Caesar's Palace, incidentally.
Ohh, very. Much.
If you wanna check that out. I've been to Caesar's Palace.
Where the hell is? That I don't know.
It's hiding in the corner somewhere.
Maybe. Maybe it's gambling hitting the
slots, so that must have been weird to have both guys

(29:03):
constantly as director. Yeah, but I mean it sounds like
there it wasn't. Because in the pool scene as
well, Joe Beth Williams said, I'm not getting in that pool
with all the electrical equipment around us.
And Spielberg said, oh, well, I'll jump in with you.
Oh God, so if you're electrocuted, then I'm
electrocuted. He should have jumped in first

(29:24):
then. I think that's one moment where
Toby Hooper was like, all right,have fun.
Yeah. And then Joe Beth Williams,
while we're Speaking of her, shesays she had a supernatural
experience herself while filming.
Whenever she would go home from set, the pictures on the walls
of her house would be crooked. So she'd fix them and then the

(29:46):
next day come home and they'd all be crooked again.
It's probably earthquakes. That's what happens.
There's a lot of them out here. And then Zell the Rubenstein.
Of course she has to jump on this bandwagon where something
weird happened to her. Sure.
You wouldn't expect her to not have a weird experience, right?

(30:08):
So she said she had a vision of her dog saying goodbye to her
goodbye. And then hours later, her mom
called her and told her that herdog had passed away.
Oh boy. Kyle.
That's such a lame fucking story.
Keep it together. I know this is shocking.

(30:28):
Yeah, we knew the poltergeist curse was gonna be intense.
I had, yeah, it's something happened to me too.
I just thought of my dog and he's dead.
And then they asked Craig T Nelson about his supernatural
experience, and he said, Nope, didn't have one.
Yeah, I'm good. He sort of did later on, but
we'll get to that. Oh.

(30:48):
Boy. So those are the main stories
surrounding the first one. To put this in a nice package
with a pretty bow, they use realskeletons on set.
The subject matter is supernatural and involves angry
ghosts, so that sort of invites angry ghosts in real life, is
the idea. OK.

(31:10):
And then the major incident is Dominique Dunn being murdered
shortly after the movies release, right?
So that kicks off the curse, right?
Yeah. Alright, well, what have I told
you? It's not just Dominique Dunn
from the first one. There's also Lou Perriman, who's
credited as Pugsley, but Diane refers to him as Bluto in the

(31:32):
movie. What?
So there's a scene he's one of the construction workers who
very grossly oggles Dominique Dunn's character at the
beginning, and she flips him off.
And then a few minutes later, he's seen testing out the mom's
pasta sauce through the window, and she catches him and calls

(31:53):
him Bluto. He's a tall guy, Mustache.
If you watch the movie, you'll notice.
Yeah. So something weird happened to
him on April 1st, 2009. He was living in Austin, TX.
And this guy named Seth Christopher Tatum, who was
parolee with a long history of substance abuse.

(32:15):
Oh, this sounds fun. He was randomly in the area
looking to create some havoc andhe broke into Lou's house and
proceeded to chop him up with anaxe.
Jesus sure it wasn't Robert Durst.
And then later on it was revealed that he had gone to his

(32:36):
house completely by chance. Earlier, he had attacked his
mom's ex-boyfriend with garden shears.
Oh, Yum. He confessed to killing Lou
Perriman and said that his motive was to steal his car.
You don't have to chop somebody up to do that.
And he was sentenced to life in prison.
Oh, that's good. So yeah, I don't know if that's

(32:57):
the curse or not, but. I mean, it's something.
He was 67 years old. Imagine making it to 67 and some
asshole just wants your car and cuts you into a million pieces.
You're about to retire. You got the pension, You're
probably making your own pasta sauce now.
God. At least he made it to 67
because Dominique Dunn only madeit to 22.

(33:19):
Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, now we come to Poltergeist
2, the other side. The bitch is back.
Released in 1986, the year we were born.
Oh, yeah, And twice the budget grossed $40 million, so about
half of the first one, but stillvery good.
Yeah, it got bad reviews, though.

(33:40):
Oh, Gene Siskel said. Quote.
It does nothing for me, absolutely nothing, to see
little kids screaming horror as special effects, clouds and
horrific creatures swirl around them.
Well, it does something to Spielberg, I'll tell you that.
He. Was really bothered by the

(34:00):
children in peril situations andmovies.
Oh, he doesn't like that. Well, no, he doesn't like
anything now because he's dead, but yeah, and that is not
because of the poltergeist curse.
No, that's unrelated. So the plot of the sequel, The
Freeling Family, is back, and the screenwriters had written
Dana Dominique Dunn's character as going away to college, but

(34:24):
she's never mentioned in the movie.
So they said it's sort of as a out of respect for her.
But yeah, you could have done a little tribute, maybe.
Yeah, there's no curse at the college.
Well, that's all you have to do to escape the curse.
Go to university. Yeah, but then again, it's not
even mentioned. Yeah, so could be anything.

(34:45):
True. So the Freeling family is now
living in Arizona. Should be safe, right?
They're not living above any unmarked graves.
Yeah, nothing safer than Arizona.
But unfortunately, the supernatural forces follow them
there. In this heat.
And they first visit in the formof a crazy preacher named Henry

(35:10):
Kane, who is a bit of a cult leader.
Yeah, he creeps me out. And he wants to claim little
Carol Ann because she's the one with the powers.
So in order to save their daughter, the free Leans enlist
the help of a Native American shaman named Taylor.

(35:32):
This is the Platter Poltergeist 2.
Why don't we hear a little bit of the trailer?
OK, let me eat. What in the hell?

(35:52):
Won't you leave us alone? Yeah, that's another thing we
could talk about on the Patreon episode, but old people being
scary really scared me as a kid.Well, yeah, I would say that
that character of Henry Kane, the cult leader, what a

(36:15):
terrifying character. Yeah, my mom worked in a nursing
home when I was growing up, so Isaw a lot of old people being
scary, and so it was just very real.
Yeah, it's that where the wild things are sort of thing, where
for some reason as kids, old people just look really
distorted because all the features are really exaggerated.

(36:39):
Yeah. And you're mixing them, acting
the part, and it's an indelible image.
Yeah. So the new cast members of
Poltergeist Two were Will Sampson, who played Taylor.
The old wise shaman named Taylor.
Yeah. I mean, I guess it's, you know,
very progressive of them not to use like running water or

(37:02):
something. Dances with Wolves.
Yeah, exactly. And he was a shaman in real
life. Oh, that's nice.
And you might be looking at his photo saying haven't I seen him
in something before? I know what I've seen him in.
He played death mute Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest. A murderer.
And if you ask me, that's one ofthe most powerful endings in

(37:26):
cinema. Oh.
Isn't that you know what I'm talking about?
Yes, when he breaks through the wall.
God, that's great. And the score?
Just Yeah. Really.
That's a fucking movie. Yeah, fuck Joker too.
And then the other new cast member was Julian Beck.

(37:48):
He had done a lot of theatre work, heavily involved in the
theatre scene. The.
Theatre. And had done bit parts here and
there, but this was his real bigmeaty role.
Yeah. And that of course, is the
villain, Henry Kane, who he looks like death in it, and
that's because he was dying. I am become deaf.

(38:10):
Which is it seems like that would be problematic.
You would think the insurance onthe production wouldn't go for
that. What to have a dying man?
Yeah, Julian Beck was battling stomach cancer.
Oh, wow. And it was terminal and so.
And they knew. Everybody knew this going in.
Oh, wow. And that's why he's so effective

(38:32):
in it. He gives a great performance the
way he was, the lines. I think it's above and beyond
what was required of the role. Other actors would maybe say
something like you're all gonna die.
But though his effect is so strange, you're all gonna die.
Yeah, exactly. So he really gives it this
interesting flavor. And then, I hate to say it, but

(38:54):
the fact that he's dying, he's gaunt.
He looks the part, and he embraces it fully.
Yeah. Like he knows this is his last
role and he acts the hell out ofit.
Yes. He was so effective that little
Heather O'Rourke burst into tears the first time she saw him
on set. That's what you were talking

(39:16):
about, just seeing an old personand he was like, oh.
God, yeah. Well, on the first day of
production they were using real skeletons again.
Oh my God. And the film stock from the day
came back from the lab completely black, unusable.
So the studio was not so happy. You go and you get me some real

(39:39):
cadavers. Yeah.
And so the night before they were going to do the reshoots,
Will Sampson playing Taylor the shaman, and he's a real life
shaman. He offered to perform an
exorcism. So he said, leave the doors open
for me, I'm going to go there overnight.
He gets there at 4:00 AM and performs this exorcism to get

(40:02):
rid of the evil spirits. And this kind of ramps up the
idea that there might be a curse.
Yeah. Well, thank you, Taylor.
And then he gave the set Muskogee Indian blessing.
In the movie, the villainous Henry Crane was the prophet of
his sect. But his prophecy in the end

(40:23):
never materializes. So that makes him what, Kyle?
What a false prophet. And you know what happens to
false prophets? They're gonna die.
And they lead their followers tomass suicide.
That's his back story. The old Jim Jones.

(40:43):
And for the part of Taylor, there was a lot of interest in
Hollywood. In fact, none other than Dennis
Hopper also auditioned for the role, claiming that he was part
Apache. Hey, I'm a shaman hotshot.
Pop quiz Hotshot. Check out this rain dance.
How many feathers do I got to burn to perform this exorcism?

(41:08):
So you might be thinking, Kyle. All right, let's get to the
curse. Because so far, all I heard
about was film that went bad. Yeah, Well, sadly, as I told
you, Julian Back was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
Yeah. In 1983.
He was thrilled to have one morerole before he kicked the
bucket. Poltergeist 2 wrapped in May

(41:31):
1985. Beck died months later on
September 14th at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City, age 60.
It's crazy that he was 60 years old.
He looked so old. He looked like he was 120.
Yeah, looked like he was dying of cancer or something.
I I don't know if it's that or if it's just that people looked

(41:53):
older back then. It's probably both.
Some people say that I've seen BuzzFeed articles that asked did
people used to look older back then?
It's all the same thing. If you think about it,
especially in movies that take place in high school like
Blackboard Jungle. What's up, fellow kids?
And they look like they're 50 years old.
Yeah. Like, hey, I'm a greaser and

(42:16):
he's got a bald spot. Yeah, and then Will Sampson, the
shaman, he suffered from Scleroderma.
That's a degenerative condition that affects the heart, lungs
and skin. Quite awful.
Yeah. And so he was ill for a while.

(42:37):
His weight fluctuated and there were other complications due to
malnutrition. So after Poltergeist 2, which
was a big thing for him, he underwent a heart and lung
transplant at the Houston Methodist Hospital.
Wow. And then died on June 3rd, 1987

(42:58):
due to post operative kidney failure.
He was 53 years old. Jeez.
And we have a clip here from theE true Hollywood story of
Poltergeist. And in this clip, Joe Beth
Williams and Craig T Nelson speak of Will Sampson.

(43:18):
When I heard that he had passed,I was, I was deeply saddened and
very shocked 'cause he had seemed like, you know, big
strapping God. Not that I'll.
He was buried in the reservationand and so I happened to be in
the area and I wanted to pay my respects to him.
And so they had given me directions to how to get to the

(43:40):
place where he was, but I couldn't find it.
I've been out there 4 1/2 five hours looking.
I finally just stopped off at the store and I said, you know,
I'm looking for for Will Sampsonof where he was buried.
And the guy next to me is his cousin in line.
The cousin LED Nelson to Sampson's gravesite.

(44:01):
I can remember vividly there wasa the reservation burial ground
and Will had had been interred maybe at two days and the
cicadas were like just it was a cacophony sound.
And I walked up and I said, hey,Will, it's Craig.

(44:21):
And immediately it was this still.
This wasn't really still. I said, come on.
I kind of laughed and it's pretty amazing.
So he scared the cicadas into silence.
That's nice of him. Come on.
Come on, yelled so and so. That's what I thought too when

(44:43):
he told the story. Come on.
Don't you think that Will Sampson would do something
cooler if he could then just make the cicadas shut up?
Like maybe the cicadas turn into$1.00 bills.
And shoot up your ass. $1.00 bills filled with coke.
Yeah. Oh, now we're talking.

(45:04):
So yeah, shocking, but not shocking, right?
These two deaths, What do you think?
Yeah. I mean, people, you know, get
sick sometimes, Do they? Yeah.
Right after making Poltergeist too.
Yeah, I think we should be looking into whatever the what's
in the water in Los Angeles. Skeletons.
Yeah. OK, well, are you keeping track

(45:26):
of everything? We got Poltergeist 1.
Poltergeist 2. Dominique Dunn, Yeah.
And Lou Perriman. Poltergeist 2.
We got Julian back. And Will Sampson.
Yeah, that brings us to Poltergeist 3. 33 and a third.
Released in 1988. Wow, quick turn around on these,

(45:48):
especially with BEB press. The first sequel could have been
a little faster. It was a four year difference.
Yeah, in the olden days, generally it was like 3 years.
The Star Wars model. Yeah.
So the plot of Poltergeist 3. The rest of the cast wasn't
interested in coming back. They were paid a lot to return

(46:09):
for Part 2. But this time around, Joe Beth
Williams and Craig D Nelson saidno thanks.
Everybody's dying. We're pretty good with this.
Yeah, put a bow on it. And I think the second one
pretty much wrapped things up. I mean, the first one kind of
wrapped things up too. Right, there really wasn't a
need for a second. One No.
Although fun because we got Taylor the shaman and Kane the

(46:33):
evil spirits. Yeah, great characters.
Sure. So Part 3, it's just Carol Ann.
So this is Heather O'Rourke top billing.
She said it was kind of sad returning without the other cast
members. Yeah, now she's on a set alone
with Steven Spielberg. No, he actually has nothing to
do with this anymore. Yeah, I bet.
No, really. He and Toby Hooper opted out of

(46:57):
Poltergeist. They weren't interested.
Oh wow. In fact, Hooper went on to make
a sequel to his own, The movie he really directed, Texas
Chainsaw Massacre 2 with Dennis Hopper, by the way, Hot shot.
So Dennis Hopper lost out on onesequel and gained another.
There you go. I have a theory on why Steven
Spielberg didn't want to continue.

(47:17):
I think the Twilight Zone disaster spooked him so much
that he didn't feel like workingwith kids for a while.
Yeah, he's like, I got to stop touching these kids and killing
them. Working with them.
Way working. Because he did The Color Purple
and Indiana Jones. Color of his cock when he would
get. Indiana.
All flustered looking at a child.
Indiana Jones movies. And the Temple of Hardcock.

(47:40):
And he ended the 80s doing a movie called Always.
Which always hard for kids. Which is it's a real old timey
kind of melodrama. Yeah, so he's staying away from
anything young with. Richard Dreyfuss playing a dead
firefighter who comes back to make sure his wife gets laid
while he's gone. Ohh, wow.

(48:02):
I mean, there was controversy about Indiana Jones too with him
because him and George Lucas wanted Harrison Ford to have sex
with like a 15 year old. What?
Yeah. You didn't hear this?
No, when they were creating the characters like, oh, he's you
know, it's been a while since they've had sex and she's like
23 now and it's been like 8 years.
So it's like they were saying hewas fucking a 15 year olds and

(48:24):
they thought that was totally cool.
So, Poltergeist 3, I don't know what to say, you know?
Well, I'll have to pull up that.That's shocking to me.
Well, at least not to me at. Least it wasn't in the movie.
Correct? That was just an idea.
Could have been. All right, but it didn't make it
to the final cut. It could have.

(48:45):
It could have. What it either is or it isn't.
It's not correct. OK, no, correct that it is or it
isn't. All right, I I'll will return
to. That moving on, yeah.
So Poltergeist 3 really doesn't have anyone from the original
involved except for Heather O'Rourke, and director Gary
Sherman convinced Zelda Rubenstein to come back.

(49:09):
She and Heather are the only ones in all three movies.
Oh wow. So in Part 3, Caroline is now.
Caroline is a little older, yeah.
So the flimsy plot of Poltergeist 3 is that Caroline,
now an 1112 year old, she's sentto live with her aunt and uncle

(49:30):
in Chicago, I guess so that she can deal with her issues
speaking to a psychiatrist thereand change the scenery or
something. You know, when parents are fed
up with their kids and they're like, we don't want to deal with
you for a little while. Get this kid we messed up out of
here. Yeah.
And then of course, the supernatural forces follow her

(49:50):
there. They can travel, yes.
OK. But this movie sets it up where
it's the first time, because there's no one else involved in
the originals, that there's people that don't believe her
that any of that happened. It's one of those.
They followed you all the way here, huh?
Yeah. Visually though, there are some

(50:11):
very effective things in this movie because it was shot with
all practical effects stuff thatthey did in the moment.
And then it was inspired by Alice through the Looking class.
So there's a lot of mirrors in it, but the mirrors were
actually windows to replica rooms and body double s.

(50:31):
Right. So some of it is kind of fun.
The movie really takes a nosedive eventually.
Laura Flynn Boyle is in it in anearly role, and she's named
Donna, just like her future TwinPeaks character.
Wow, Donna, do you wanna? Yeah, so Poltergeist 3 ended up
grossing 14,000,000, the worst of the three.

(50:53):
And then it also got bad reviewsagain.
You know Janet Maslin in the NewYork Times wrote quote.
Gary Sherman, who directed and Co wrote the film, has no notion
of creating a coherent universe through the looking glass.
He is content with fiery or bodyshattering effects interspersed
with irritating small talk and accidental humor.

(51:14):
I mean, is it really accidental?I wonder because it's very
campy, but it feels like it sortof a wink, wink.
Yeah. And the director, Sherman, said
that Heather told them so. Watching the movie, you see
Carol Ann in peril a lot again. Well, Siskel's not having that.
And so you might be thinking, that's awful that Heather

(51:37):
O'Rourke had to go through that.But director Gary Sherman says,
actually, she had a ball. Yeah.
And she told him, I really like the way you direct.
And I'm going to be a director someday, so I'm going to study
how you work. I like when Steven Spielberg's
not here. And she was having fun with the
practical effects. Oh, I'm sure.
For instance, there's a part where she sees her evil

(51:58):
reflection and then it says we're back and then grabs her
and then she slides up and down on the mirror and she she said
that was so much fun. There was like a roller coaster.
Oh nice. So I would think it'd be kind of
fun to be in a horror movie as akid, but it would have to be
that kind of horror movie, I think.
Oh, for sure. Really campy.

(52:19):
Like Troll 2. Yeah, this is sort of like Troll
2. Oh my God.
If you want a comparison, yeah. It does take a dip though, which
we'll get into. But suddenly Heather disappears
in the movie for a while. Not too many weird things going
on on this set. There was a scene where there's

(52:42):
a car chase inside the building and then the car explodes and
the set caught fire and so and acrew member almost perished.
Oh wow. But then nothing ended up
happening. Bad Oh survived.
So all's well and ends well. No, but then when Heather showed
up the next day, she had heard about this fire and was very

(53:05):
relieved and no one was hurt. But then she asked her director,
did you get the shot? Oh boy.
Isn't that cute? A near death.
She didn't care about no person that almost.
Died you make you got that right, fuck.
Another piece of trivia with this movie is Carolyn name is

(53:26):
spoken well over 100 times. It's just nonstop.
The spirits like Carolyn ends out the Rubenstein.
It's like Carolyn. And again, what a career.
She starts off being the face ofPoltergeist, then becomes the
face of the franchise, and now she's carrying the third

(53:46):
installment at 11 years old. In the Sears Tower.
The John Hancock building, Oh, that's the other thing.
That's. Boston.
No, the Hancock Tower. There's a John Hancock tower
also in Chicago. You're nuts, Kyle, because the
Hancock Tower in Chicago, it's one of the most famous buildings
in the world and one of the tallest, thought it was serious

(54:09):
and it's where Chris Farley died.
Oh, that's right. But that's another plus for this
movie, the Chicago setting, because it imagines the Hancock
Building as this utopia where there's a shopping mall inside,
there's parties going on, there's businesses there.
Like, you never have to leave the building.

(54:29):
Yeah, so I like that aspect of it for a kid.
I think it's kind of like a pretty solid kids kind of horror
movie where you imagine, like, wouldn't that be cool if you
lived in that building? Kind of like Dunston checks in.
Yeah, which I know is a sore spot for you.
Still hurts. Do you want to quickly tell the
audience why? Oh yeah, I was, I my mom was mad

(54:52):
about something I did at school or and she made me do all my
homework while her and my sisterwatched Dunston checks in in the
other room and they were laughing and having the best
time and I couldn't see it. I found out about this story
because one time I'm like, you remember Dunston checks in and
Kyle was very bitter. Yeah.
So this is the Dunston checks inof horror movies.
Oh great. So there was something else

(55:14):
going on during production that I have to tell you about old.
Sticky fingers came back. No, in early 1987 Heather was
plagued with flu like symptoms. Everything was treated carefully
and several tests were performedat Kaiser Hospital.

(55:35):
So about a month and they discovered that she had some
kind of parasite in her. This sounds like the plot of one
of the Poltergeist movie. Yeah, for real.
Because in the second one her dad throws up a worm.
Yeah. That becomes a demon.
Yeah, that's fun. So yeah, that's kind of odd.
And she was diagnosed as having Crohn's disease, which is a type

(55:57):
of inflammatory bowel disease, and it causes inflammation in
the digestive tract. So I found this interview with
Heather while making Poltergeist3 and she speaks about this
illness she was suffering duringproduction The.
Reason why I'm here because I know how it feels to be sick
because in February I was very sick and I almost died because I

(56:21):
got these stomach pains and we, my parents took me to the
hospital and they said that I just had a bad case of the flu.
One day I came back home from school and my feet were all
swelled up. They were really fat and so my
parents brought me back to the hospital and they admitted me
right into the hospital. They took all these blood tests
and X-rays until they found out that I got a parasite from

(56:42):
drinking water in in the mountains where we used to live.
And so they gave me all this medication and all that, and I'm
feeling much better now. Yeah, that's hard to listen to.
It how'd she get a parasite and the whole family didn't.
I do not know. Just from mountain water.
Yeah, so she talks about living in the mountains.

(57:02):
Before Poltergeist, her family lived in a trailer park in
Anaheim, CA. And so, by Poltergeist 3,
Heather purchased a home for everybody in Big Bear Lake, CA.
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I don't know how I feel
about her momager, but I haven'tI.
Know how you feel. No, but I haven't heard anything

(57:24):
bad, except that of course she benefited from Heather's career.
Yet you're totally fine with Dominic Dunn.
What does that have to do with amomager?
He's worse. He wasn't even taking advantage,
he was just taking the money without putting any work in you
and then stealing her car when she's dead.
Listen, Kyle. Driving to and from.

(57:46):
Dominique was an adult. A young adult, mind you, but.
She was a minor. 22 years old. When she was started filming all
this stuff. Poltergeist.
She was 21. Anyway.
I'm talking about a momager thatthrust their five year old into
the spotlight. I would argue that's better than
Dominic done. Well, I'm so glad that you and

(58:09):
you alone think that. I don't know that I'm.
Nobody else agrees with you. This is not.
A This is a hot take. This is not a song from Live.
I Alone Love You. I alone will steal your car when
you're dead. And like I would do to an actual
live song, I'm going to mute. You all right?

(58:30):
Good. So she has this parasite, and
I'm not talking about Spielberg.Yeah, that worm.
And it's just awful for a while.Pain in the abdomen, severe
diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss, all of the above.
And so she was prescribed cortisone, a steroid to stop the

(58:52):
inflammation, reduce the pain. And as you can tell in that
clip, it worked for a while. She said she was feeling much
better there. So she's able to film
Poltergeist 3 in Chicago and forthe most part was having a good
time. There was a side effect to the
medication though, which was swelling.
So in Poltergeist 3 her face is puffy and she has what they call

(59:15):
chipmunk cheeks. Is that what the doctors called
it? Which did 'cause her insecurity.
You've been diagnosed with chipmunk cheeks.
Imagine having to your face is going to be slapped all over the
marketing and you know you got these fat cheeks on the
medication. Yeah, that sucks.
Plus, you're about to go throughpuberty.

(59:37):
That was just an awkward time. Yeah.
Plus you have to pay for your whole family, including your
momager and your older sister who's not as successful as you.
Wow, now you're really thrown salt in those wounds and.
The parents were divorced by Amicable.
Amicable, by the way. That doesn't really have much to
do with it. Thought I'd throw that in there.

(59:59):
That brings us to Super Bowl Sunday 1988.
Who was playing, you might ask? And, I guess, the bears.
Washington Redskins versus the Denver Broncos, and do you
remember who won? Broncos.
The Redskins? Whoa.
I'm getting everything wrong. By the way, now known as the
Commanders. I'm sorry if anyone was offended

(01:00:22):
by me saying that. Taylor was offended.
So they're watching the big gameand Heather's throwing up every
two hours. She drinks Gatorade per her
doctor's orders because there's some electrolytes, a bit of
protein and that the next morning, she's getting ready for
school and her mom prepares her some toast to eat because she's

(01:00:45):
hungry but also feeling kind of queasy.
Yeah. So they're hoping that helps.
Some nice buttered wheat toast is good when you're sick.
Yeah, yeah. Heather tries to eat it, but she
can't swallow, and now her fingers and toes turn blue and
her breathing is very heavy. Her mom panics and calls the

(01:01:05):
local clinic, and they advise her to come right over.
Heather goes to her room to get dressed, but then she falls to
the ground. She's conscious, but her heart
is pounding and she has extreme shortness of breath.
When paramedics arrive, she tells them that she doesn't need
oxygen. She's OK, but it was clear that

(01:01:26):
she did, so they give it to her anyway.
Jesus. Outside, she throws, goes up yet
again and then apologizes to everybody.
Oh man. In the ambulance she suffers
cardiac arrest and her heart is successfully restarted.
And then she's flown by helicopter to a much larger
Children's Hospital where she undergoes an operation to remove

(01:01:49):
the obstruction in her intestines.
But by that point, all the toxins have ravaged her system
and it's all too much, and it's entered the bloodstream and she
dies on the operating table, dead at 12 years old.
And she had just turned 12, remember, on December 27th.

(01:02:10):
Wow. So this is now.
Not even two months. February 1st, yeah.
She's. Yeah.
Barely over a month being 12. Turns out she didn't have
inflammation of the bowel, but it was a blockage of the
intestine. On her final morning, it turned
into a complete blockage, and her system was backing up.

(01:02:32):
And so that's what caused her togo into septic shock.
This blockage was discovered during the emergency surgery.
So it was a complete misdiagnosis.
It wasn't Crohn's disease. It was just there's a blockage
and you need to perform surgery.Yeah.
Had that surgery been performed a year earlier when she first
was looking for help, it would have saved her life.

(01:02:54):
Kaiser released a statement after her death.
Quote. This is a very tragic case for
all concerned. It's also an extremely complex
case complicated by a number of factors not given to simple
answers. We have reviewed the case
extensively. We are confident that the course
of action taken by our doctor was entirely appropriate.

(01:03:15):
So they said hands clean, we didn't do anything wrong.
Kathy O'Rourke, Heather's momager, I mean mom, she He sued
Kaiser Permanente for wrongful death.
The case went to arbitration andwas settled for an undisclosed
sum. Here's an eerie fact, Robbie,
from the first poltergeist, you know, Carolyn's brother.

(01:03:39):
In his room is a poster for Super Bowl 22, which had not
taken place yet. And you know when Super Bowl 22
did take place in 1988? Whoa.
When Heather O'Rourke started dying holy.
Shit. Why would you have a futuristic

(01:03:59):
poster in your bedroom? Isn't that eerie?
That is weird. You're saying in the movie?
Yeah. Yeah, but the poster in the
original Poltergeist is for a Super Bowl that had not taken
place yet, and it happened to bethe same one that coincided with
Heather's eventual death. Jeez.
So O'rourke's family and agent said at the time that her scenes

(01:04:22):
for Poltergeist 3 had been completed all the way back in
June 1987. It's now early 1988.
But for some reason director Gary Sherman has maintained that
it had not been finished and that they needed to make script
changes in order to accommodate her death.
And he said that it was a complete shock, like he knew

(01:04:42):
that he she had some health issues.
It was a septic shock. But thought it was resolved.
So when she died, it's like, oh,my God.
And he didn't want to even continue with the film.
Wow. He went to the funeral.
He was one of the pallbearers. And he discussed with some other
crew members, like, yeah, we should just.
I think this should be shelved. Like, nobody was in the mood

(01:05:04):
anymore. Wow.
But MGM said, not so fast. Hey, my dear boy.
Yeah. Because if you don't finish it,
we'll find someone that will. Oh.
So they came up with a new ending and brought in a body
double for Heather O'Rourke. Gary Sherman talks about it in
this clip from the Shutter series Cursed Films.

(01:05:28):
We just decided in that room that day, the day before the
funeral, that we were not going to finish the film.
Film's over. I can't go back into the cutting
room or watch this film with this dead 11 year old in it.

(01:05:48):
Afterwards the the board at MGM just said to us, you're going to
finish the film. We got a lot of money invested
in the film. You're going to finish the film.
So they said you'll have to comeup and do an ending that won't
involve Heather. So we came up with the idea for
the stupid ending that's on the film now.
Stupid. And use the double for Heather.

(01:06:13):
That was the creepiest thing I've ever gone through in my
life, having this little girl dressed up as Heather keeping
her face away from camera. I really just did not want to
finish the film. None of us would go along with
the studio and and do any publicity for the release of the

(01:06:35):
movie. Wow.
None of us wanted the movie released and that it was.
Poof, that's powerful. Yeah, and there is a dedication
to Heather O'Rourke, but it's not a prominent credit, much
like Toby Hooper's in the original Poltergeist.

(01:06:56):
Wow. So it has the usual scroll at
the end, and then somewhere in there it says in memory of
Heather O'Rourke, which is kind of odd considering she was the
life force of the franchise. Yeah.
So Needless to say, that puts a damper on the whole thing.
Some other people have said thatthe movie was finished and they

(01:07:18):
just came up with a new ending. Yeah, that they liked better.
But anyway. God.
If you watch it, it's very weird.
She disappears from most of the latter half of the movie and
then suddenly when everything's solved at the end, the uncle is
holding a body double with her face not being shown like

(01:07:38):
smiling. They're all like happy family
they. Yeah, they all hug.
Yeah, the ghosts are gone. Another weird thing about that
movie is they wanted to bring back the evil Henry Cain and
Julian Beck obviously wasn't available so they used a mask
that looked like Julian Beck andput it on another old actor.

(01:08:00):
Yeah, they showed a piece of himin that that footage and it does
not look anything like him. No, and the rumour is that they
did a cast of him after he died.Whoa, yeah, I don't like that.
So. Hey, can we dig this guy up so
we can make a mask of them? Yeah, in.

(01:08:21):
Case we want to crisp and Gloverhis ass in here.
So if you're keeping track rightthen Poltergeist one Dominique
Dunn, Lou Perriman, Poltergeist 2 Will Sampson, Julian Beck and
Poltergeist 3 Heather O'Rourke. You think it's so tragic that,

(01:08:43):
you know, the youngest person that'll die is Dominique Dunn
and then, God, someone 10 years younger than her.
Yeah. So are they saying that?
I know you said it wasn't Crohn's disease, it was the
blockage. But did they misdiagnose the
tapeworm like that was the blockage?
That's what I think. Wow, so she didn't even actually

(01:09:03):
have a tapeworm, it was just. Well, they called it a parasite.
Parasite. Yeah.
So maybe the infection to them looked like it was caused by a
parasite? I'm not exactly sure, but the
mom said it was a complete misdiagnosis and when
Poltergeist 3 was released therewas a lot of talk about the
curse. Yeah, at that point.

(01:09:25):
And it's something that really bothers the living members of
the cast and crew, right? So Zelda Rubenstein took to the
media and gave an interview about it to Showbiz today on
CNN. My dog died.
Let's see what she has to say about the whole thing.

(01:09:46):
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.
Heather died because of an undetected congenital anatomical
defect. Julian Beck died from cancer in

(01:10:10):
his mature years. Will Sampson passed away after
receiving a heart lung transplant.
It's my understanding he had an environmental disease and
Dominic Dunn died at the hands of of a extremely I'll directed
passionate boyfriend. These are reasons I do not call.

(01:10:31):
This. A Jinx I.
Passionate. I'll directed.
That's one way. That is very That's a very bad
way to say. It yeah.
No, the first movie was ill directed because they couldn't
even decide on a director. This guy was a complete fucking
lunatic. Directed.

(01:10:54):
She's got more to say. Think that it's pretty much a
courtesy to put to an end this superstitious crap.
OK, if you say so, Zelda. I hate to break it to you, but
it's kind of a big deal that Heather O'Rourke died out of the

(01:11:14):
blue. Yeah.
And that brings us to final thoughts.
Don't get involved with Steven Spielberg.
My God, I heard that you might have some blind items for us.
Yes, OK, because the death is just so weird of Heather
O'Rourke. Yeah, these span over the years,

(01:11:35):
recent years where people have come out of the woodwork and
given a new take on how Heather O'Rourke actually died.
And it ain't good. So if you're offended by, you
know, certain things, trigger warning here.
Major trigger warning, you can just turn off this episode at
this point. Yeah, we'll see you next week.
Because I think these blind items are going to be very

(01:11:56):
shocking and involve not so nicethings.
Yeah. And I'm sure a lot of people
have heard about this, if they're familiar, if not very
upsetting stuff. So I've kind of alluded to it.
But in November 2017, there was a blind item that was published.
I believe I'm crazy days and nights.
OK and it comes out swinging right away.

(01:12:18):
The first 3 words are molesters killed her back in the mid 80s
was peak child molesting time inHollywood.
There was no Internet, There were very very few mobile
phones. Children came to the set where
they were left alone by their parents for the next 8 hours.
They were subject to every kind of horrible thing you can
imagine. Drugs were commonplace.

(01:12:39):
They were used to try to get thekids to not be so hysterical
when being assaulted. Producers loved casting shows
with kids and tweens. Oh my God.
And this, you know, it was before tweens was even a word.
Right. If someone pitched a show that
involved a handful of tweens with a dozen tween extras per
week, it would get a green light.
Even if the show was going to suck and everyone knew it was

(01:13:00):
going to suck, if you got the right pedo at a studio, he would
say yes just to come for the casting and the taping of the
pilot. As sad as it is to say, there
were a lot of parents who told their kids to go off with the
nice man in the suit and do whathe says.
It was a sick, sick time. Yeah, the 80s was full of all
kinds of shows with kids. Yeah.

(01:13:22):
It was just past the mid 80s when a producer came up with the
idea of a tween show that not only would feature a rotating
cast of extras, but would make the studio a bunch of money
because they would film quickly and not hire any adults.
Further, the faster they filmed,the more time they would have to
molest all the kids from the first day.
It was the worst place on earth if you were a kid.

(01:13:43):
The studio where the show was filmed also had several other
shows being filmed there, most of which featured lots of
children. Executives would drive over to
Hollywood right before lunch andwould stay at the studio for
several hours each day. So actually the show is Rocky
Road that they're referring to, and it's the same studio
apparently, where Jeopardy was filmed.

(01:14:05):
Oh wow. Hollywood Center Studios.
Jeez. Anyway, on this particular show,
there was a special guest star. Still not a tween.
Everyone knew who she was. Executives flocked to the studio
that day to see her. Heather O'Rourke.
She was first molested when she was 5 or 6 and had continued to
be molested throughout her hit movies and also on a previous

(01:14:26):
show. The previous show is Webster.
Wow, one of the stars of the show who has spent her life
bouncing in and out of rehab because of what she saw,
described the atmosphere that day as a bunch of fucking pigs.
Marcy Anne Warman is supposedly this older actress.
The witness this. Yeah, she says.
They're a bunch of fucking pigs.I had just turned 12 or 13.

(01:14:48):
I was the same age as the actress coming in, maybe a
little older. We had been shooting for months,
and I was old news. Yeah.
So as soon as they're turning, you know, about to hit puberty,
then they're old news, she says.They knew I would do what they
wanted, but they always wanted someone new.
This was someone new and someonethey all knew.
They had it set up like a Peep Show almost.

(01:15:09):
She had finished shooting that morning and they brought her out
on a stage. The stage was used most of the
time for a game show that was taped there.
That's the Jeopardy. That game show is still on
today. I can't watch it knowing what
happened to her there. What did Alex Trebek have to do
with that? Jesus.
I know what she means though. It's.
Getting molested on the set of Jeopardy while no one was there,

(01:15:32):
That's insane. Yeah, maybe not exactly this.
I was already turned around and.All that.
Well, yeah, but it's still. The same, I don't think it was
on Alex podium. Yeah, I'll take no thank you for
500 Alex. They brought her out in the
front. 4 rows of this theater was filled with guys who are
already rubbing themselves. The girl was wearing a bikini.

(01:15:53):
The show took place around a beach just so they could make
the girls wear next to nothing. They had to walk around under
the lights. The lights were focused on her
and she couldn't really see out to the audience.
She was squinting. It must have been blinding for
her. They had her walk back and forth
and they had her start dancing. All of these guys were doing
what another star at the same studio got busted for.

(01:16:14):
Oh shit, this is alleging the other star was Pee Wee Herman.
Yeah. Oh no.
Well, we know that he had vintage European.
Classy boy porn in print. Physique magazines.
Yeah, and those were discovered during the Jeffrey Jones
investigation. Yes.

(01:16:36):
This went on for about 20 minutes.
Then three guys took her to a different area of the studio.
She didn't see what happened, but about 45 minutes later one
of those guys came running out and needed a set medic.
Apparently they had inserted something inside the girl and
things were bad. The medic came and the ambulance
came. The parents of the girl were
told some crap story. That crap story ended up killing

(01:16:56):
the girl because the parents believed the executives. 2 weeks
later the show finished shooting6 episodes all at once and then
everyone was sent on their way forever.
No one wanted the kids around orany witnesses to what had just
happened. So yeah, that's about Heather
O'Rourke. So because of what they did to
her, that caused the blockage. Yeah, that's what they're

(01:17:17):
saying. But that's also if there was
something inserted and was stuck, that's something that
doctors would have found. Right.
And reported back on what they found in there.
They just said it was a blockageso I'm guessing it was just.
I don't think they mean literally, Kyle, that they left
something up there. I think that they just messed
her system up. OK.

(01:17:39):
That's what the implication is, because obviously they would
have found whatever it was an actual.
Well, I thought that's what theywere getting at, that they
lodged an object and it got, well, stuck.
They said that, but I'm saying Ithink that just messed things
up. Yeah.
That was sort of like the nasty rumor.
Was that horrible things that happened to her.

(01:18:02):
Yeah. And that's what led to her
getting sick. Now, I'm not a doctor.
Yeah. I don't know how that would lead
to her intestinal failure and all that.
Well, if you get a perforated colon, then you get all the
toxins leaking into your system and bloodstream and it's not
good. Right, so her sister Tammy has a

(01:18:23):
daughter and so this is technically Heather's niece.
Yeah, she took to social media to call all the sexual abuse
rumours complete crap. Tammy's daughter did.
Yeah. Wow.
Saying that it's a disservice toHeather's memory.

(01:18:43):
Wow. To substantiate those rumours.
I mean, that is a huge claim. She was never abused, says
Heather's niece. That her mom took good care of
her. Oh, so it's an ego thing?
And. For her mother.
All the people on set, includingSpielberg, took care of her.
I want to know where Spielberg was, though, when she was dying

(01:19:04):
because he made a lot of money off her likeness.
Yeah. Why didn't he step in?
Who knows? There's another one.
This one's quick, but they're pretty much comparing this girl,
Lucille Rickson, to the Heather O'Rourke story.
Yeah, she had been, you know, forced to play adult roles and
do adult things. And this was in the silent movie

(01:19:27):
era. Yes, she was used and abused and
was dying and slowly died of tuberculosis.
And her mother died of grief because she knew she allowed
these things to happen to her for fame and money.
A couple weeks after the mom died, the actress died.
Yeah, I completely see how that can destroy a family.
The same thing happened to Shirley Temple when she was a

(01:19:48):
little kid. Her and her mother were brought
to the studio, and one of the studio execs was like, all
right, why don't you come to my office?
We have some business to talk about with your daughter, Then
we're going to make a deal for movies.
And Shirley Temple and her mother were raped in separate
rooms by studio executives. Yeah.
Oh my God, you're really liftingthe veil of Hollywood here.

(01:20:12):
Yeah, it's brutal. She was assaulted.
I don't know if she was fully raped, but Shirley Temple and
her mother were both assaulted at the same time in different
rooms. They were separated.
So I completely see how this happens, even when the mother
was there and it happened to her.
November 2020. This one says the tomb.
For nearly a decade, the things that occurred at the tomb of

(01:20:34):
this deceased. A list child * Heather O'Rourke
actually resulted in her body being permanently moved to an
unmarked grave in 2001. She was originally placed in an
above ground mausoleum at the Westwood Memorial Park, which is
still marked with her name and at which people still leave
flowers and teddy bears. The weird stuff began happening
the day after her internment. A man was seen after sundown

(01:20:57):
taking a bouquet of flowers fromher grave, but he fled before he
could be identified. In the summer of 1988, someone
used red spray paint to write all worn out RR, meaning Rocky
Road. Which is the show that Heather
was on. And the other blind item you
went over Rocky Road. I'd never even heard of that
one. Yeah.

(01:21:18):
So they really made these ridiculous shows just for the
sole purpose of nefarious activities.
Yeah. Allegedly.
Supposedly. That's a wild idea, though.
Jesus. Yeah.
My God. That explains half of the weird
kids shows out there. Yeah.
Gosh, Pickle Boy. The family was notified, it was

(01:21:41):
photographed, and then over the course of five hours, the vault
was cleaned. The police were called, but they
didn't think it was important. For whatever reason, the
photograph didn't develop properly.
Sometime in the fall of 1988. Another man, probably the same
as before but there's no way of knowing, was spotted kneeling in
front of her tomb after dark. He also fled when spotted.
On the anniversary of her death in 1989, her family gathered at

(01:22:03):
the tomb to remember her. It was very somber.
They held hands and the sister placed a little stuffed Dumbo in
front of the grave. As they were about to leave, a
man approached them and said something which frightened the
mother. Her dad and stepdad each took
her by an arm and LED her away. Could you imagine if the guy
looked like Julian Beck? Yeah, you're going to die.
He's like, hey, it's just Craig T Nelson.

(01:22:24):
Hey, I just got this mask. Just wanted to say hi.
I'm doing coach now. Yeah, What are you guys up to?
Oh, nothing. The unidentified man stayed
behind and picked up the little Dumbo that the sister left and
stuffed it into his pocket before taking off.
Now here's where things get strange.
Oh. Now.
There wasn't much activity around her grave for several

(01:22:45):
years. Then, in about 1991, her body
was exhumed. By who?
It was done in the dark so no one would notice.
Her body was returned to the tomb three days later.
Oh my God. How do they even know that in
1992 her body was exhumed the second time?
This is all speculative, by the way.
Yeah, this is a blind item. These are blind items.

(01:23:06):
One of the police present was asked why they were exhuming her
again. He said what do you mean again?
Turns out the first exhumation wasn't legal, even though they
had looked like real police and had really good paperwork.
Oh my God, that's how people steal palm trees around LA.
They put on the orange vest and go out there at night and cut

(01:23:27):
down the palm trees like they work for the city, right?
Because I guess they're worth a lot on the black palm market.
Oh boy. But what are they exhuming her
for? That's what they say here, they
said. What did they want with the body
of a deceased 12 year old? Surely it would warrant an
investigation, right? Nope.

(01:23:47):
Anyway, the coroner's office kept her for about a week before
she was brought back and we reinterred her 1994 Somebody had
smashed the face of her tomb, removed the body, cut some hair
from her head, and fortunately placed her back in the crypt.
A worker there saw the corpse and said she looked remarkably
well preserved. Now we know that worker looked

(01:24:07):
like Julian Beck. Yeah, he started to float the
possibility that her body had actually been replaced with a
replica. Oh no.
The police investigation went nowhere.
Which is like Poltergeist 3 through the Looking Glass.
Yeah, where there's the alternate universe version of
her. Jesus.
In 1999 there was another vandalism of the tomb.

(01:24:27):
It wasn't another smashing, but red spray paint had been used
again to write BK Killed Me. BK.
Bruce Kane. A developer, apparently.
In the summer of 2001, her family had her body moved to an
unmarked below ground grave. Sounds like a good idea after
all that. Who the hell is Bruce Kane?

(01:24:49):
It says some kind of developer. Let me find link.
He's known for Rocky Road. Oh no, he's one of the producers
of that. Now I got to look up Rocky Road
after all this talk. He's the creator of Rocky Road.
So there were 71 episodes of Rocky Road starting in 1985, and
IMDb says it's about three siblings, Jessica, Robbie and

(01:25:12):
Cindy, who run an ice cream parlor that they inherited from
their recently deceased parents.Oh my.
So it's a show about kids without parents?
Because in the blind item it also mentioned that they like
creating shows that didn't need adult actors if they could.
I literally just got the chills.Yeah, that's really fucking.
Creepy. I really.

(01:25:32):
Oh, I just got it again. OK, I can't.
I can't. This is supposed to be a comedy
podcast. Yeah, this is.
This is a little too creepy. Oh God, that's get the shit out
of me too. OK, October 2021.
This is the last one before we get the hell out of here I
guess. While filming a documentary,

(01:25:53):
Heather O'Rourke, she was here about her child actress sister
Heather O'Rourke who was brutally murdered.
She, Tammy O'Rourke, said she regrets every single day the
lunch she was having in a commissary with her sister when
this A+ list director Steven Spielberg walked up and joined
them. The actress would still be alive
if she hadn't let the director sit down.

(01:26:16):
She said that on camera, it sounds like.
We got to look into this further.
The thing is though, Kyle, before you rush to judgment of
Mr. Spielberg, she could be justsaying, oh, isn't that
interesting? If Heather hadn't been
discovered for Poltergeist, maybe, like the butterfly
effect, the whole world would bedifferent.

(01:26:36):
You know, if she had done something else.
I mean, she could have said it like that or she could have said
it like I fucking she said she regrets every single day.
You know, it's all a blur at this point, I'm sure.
What a creepy little system. By the way, there is one more
really short blind item from August 2023.
OK, it says. Does it seem strange that the

(01:26:57):
little girl actress who died in such a horrible way had a very
large collection of gifts and personalized items from the
illiterate action * Heather O'Rourke?
Sylvester Stallone. What?
So now we're going to ruin Rockyfor you too.
Say illiterate. Alliterate.
Oh, alliterate. Alliterate like Sylvester

(01:27:19):
Stallone. Damn that's crazy if it's he's
illiterate and got best screenplay.
Oh, Adrian. I can't read, get over here.
Bring your 12 year old sister. Yeah.
So if that's true, this reach isfarther than we even thought.
This is going from Spielberg to Stallone.
What have we done? To the Bruce Kane.

(01:27:41):
We've opened up the portal. I think a bunch of pedophiles
going to start falling through. I need to close the portal.
Yeah, I do. Have any final thoughts on any
of this? Let's.
Well, we know our thoughts on these blind items.
We're very creeped out right now.
Extremely. But how about the poltergeist
curse itself? Is there a curse or was it all

(01:28:02):
just coincidence and bad luck? I mean, I just think it's
horrible shit luck that Dominique Dunn and Heather
O'Rourke died. Right, because the other two,
the other 3 deaths were age appropriate.
Like it's not so tragic when it's someone that's above 65.
Although Will Sampson was in hisearly 50s.

(01:28:23):
I was going to say 50s, it's still too early, but still kind
of like, yeah, you know, it happens, you know, But yeah, I
don't know. Curse no shitty situations,
Absolutely. Yeah, because saying there's a
curse, that would be us admitting that we believe in
magical thinking and the supernatural.

(01:28:44):
Which I don't. So I'm going to say I don't, but
I know the moment I say this, I'm going to run into Julian
back outside. You're going to die.
I don't believe in the devil, but I fear him.
You're better. OK, what is that sound though?

(01:29:04):
You've got mail. Sounds like a mailbag.
We got some good ones here. Wah wah we wah.
On Apple there's a review from Tabi Hustlin titled I Love You 5
Stars. I've never been so captivated by
a podcast before. Yours is the only one I think
about and keep checking back fornew episodes.

(01:29:27):
Hooked. Wow.
Then on our last episode Dominique Dunn Poltergeist Curse
Part 1 if you will, Super Ray Gun wrote.
Excellent episode. I've always been fascinated and
saddened by this case. I remember going to the library
trying to look up more info on the outcome when I was a kid.
Poltergeist was a childhood favorite of mine too.

(01:29:49):
So much so that my MA forbid me to watch it on cable for a while
because she was so sick of it. Super Ray Gun.
I like that. Yeah, Ray Gun's the really bad
hip hop dancer from the Olympics.
OK. And so super ray gun that means
like they're really, really bad.Oh.
Wow. And then super Van Emily
Peterson, super. We missed you.

(01:30:11):
Glad you're healthy again. Bye bye whooping cough.
Yeah, we're both very happy to be here.
Me and Kyle were stricken with it.
And my son. I know how's he doing.
He's his. He coughed a little bit today,
but it was like the tiniest little thing and he was done.
Wow, that's great. So good to hear.
Yeah, it's kind of like our lingering coughs too.

(01:30:31):
Yeah, not as bad as it wasn't ifyou listen to the Tiger King
episode. Oh, you can hear how sick.
That was me almost two months inand I still sounded like that,
so we're very happy to be here. Thank you, Emily.
And then finally, from Far PointStation, this is a hard case to
get your hands wrapped around, but you guys really laid it out
well. It seems like everyone around

(01:30:52):
Dominique recognized she was in the grip of domestic violence,
but choked when it came time to stop it.
That's a lot of gallows humor. Appreciate your guys take and
quality episodes like this will keep me throttling that like
button. Yeah, I didn't miss the all the
the grip. Wrap your hands around and
choke. That soak.
I didn't even notice that while reading.

(01:31:14):
It I know you're reading it, I'mlike, you're really.
Now I got the chills again, actually.
That's brilliant though. Yeah.
Wow, this was a lot. It was a lot.
Oh my God, and you really came in hot and.
Unsold Spieli. And the most prolific and
powerful producer in the historyof Hollywood.
So I think you ruined your chances of starring in Hook too.

(01:31:38):
All right, I mean, he didn't getalong with what's her face,
Julia Roberts. That's true.
He called her Tinker Hell. That could be the new
Tinkerbell. There you go.
It's a new world out there. OK, and it's an old world in
here because we are death and entertainment.
We're here every Wednesday, Yes,and you know where to raid us
Wherever you are, whatever the star system is.

(01:32:01):
Five stars. It was the Max.
Yes. And spread the word.
That's right, tell your friends.And until next week.
Don't go dying on us, Bye. You have just heard a true
Hollywood murder mystery. I have never seen anything like
this before. The movies, Broadway, music,
Television. All of it a place that

(01:32:22):
manufacturers nightmares. OK everybody, that's a wrap.
Good night. Please drive home carefully and
come back again soon.

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