Fatal Attractions

These cursed movies were plagued by doom, disaster and even death.

Poltergeist (1982) Star JoBeth Williams recalls that paintings in her home would be crooked when she returned home each day from shooting the scare flick about a modern haunted house. Dominique Dunne, who played the family’s oldest daughter, died shortly after the release of the film, when her boyfriend strangled her. And Heather O’Rourke, who played the younger daughter, died in 1988 at age 12 of septic shock due to a misdiagnosed bowel obstruction. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) All three stars of the teen-angst classic—James Dean, Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood—died tragic accidental deaths that led many to believe their appearances in the movie cursed their fates. Dean, 24 at the time, fatally crashed his Porsche Spyder into another car on U.S. Route 466 near Cholame, Calif., in 1955. Mineo was stabbed at age 37 during a robbery near his West Hollywood apartment in 1976. And, at 43, Wood drowned under mysterious and suspicious circumstances in 1981 while on a boat trip with her husband, Robert Wagner, and actor friend Christopher Walken. Atuk This fish-out-of-water comedy about an Alaskan hunter’s struggles to adapt to life in New York City was so badly cursed that it never got made. All of the stars ever attached to it—John Belushi, Sam Kinison, John Candy and Chris Farley—died (from drug overdoses, a car crash and a heart attack).

The Crow (1994) A series of disastrous events plagued the production of the action film, including the electrocution of a crew member, a hurricane and the accidental shooting death of the star, Brandon Lee, 28, when a real bullet mistakenly left in a prop gun was fired into his abdomen. Lee’s untimely death was eerily similar to that of his father, martial-arts film legend Bruce Lee, who also died while working on a movie, at the age of 32.