A real-life haunted hotel. A fired director sneaking back on set in disguise.
A car crash near a road sign that looked like the handiwork of the devil. Even when
horror movies aren't very scary, sometimes the stories behind their productions absolutely are.
The New Mutants was supposed to explore a brand-new exciting corner of the X-Men film
universe. This would be the first legitimate horror release in the history of the franchise.
Director Josh Boone oversaw production in 2017 for a projected April 2018 release date,
cleverly, or perhaps foolishly, timed to coincide with Friday the 13th. Everything
seemed to be lining up nicely, until the post-production process began.
"You have a whole bunch of really traumatized teens."
That was when the first of several release date delays occurred, with The New Mutants initially
postponed to February 2019 to make room for lengthy reshoots that were reportedly meant to
make the final cut even scarier. This worrisome, but by no means fatal, development quickly got
worse and worse as the delays continued and the reshoots never actually happened. Then a
planned April 2020 debut was derailed thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, and ultimately The New
Mutants died a quick death in theaters in August 2020 instead. Perhaps something weird was going
on at the old mental hospital where the film was shot, as Boone told IGN in 2017 that every
crew member reported strange happenings on set, though the director himself remains skeptical.
The 2010 take on The Wolfman was already off to a turbulent start when original director
Mark Romanek left during pre-production. A mad scramble ensued to get a new director
signed on so that the film could still come out in 2009 and reap the rewards of a buzzy
cast that included Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, and Emily Blunt. By February 2008,
Joe Johnston had signed on, with filming set to begin just a few months later.
But things only got scarier after the initial principal photography. Reshoots were eventually
enacted that lasted for a whopping six months and drastically overhauled the film. Perhaps
most baffling of all was the indecision over the score. Danny Elfman's original compositions were
discarded, and he was subsequently replaced by Paul Haslinger. But Haslinger's score didn't
pass muster either, so Elfman's music, along with new material by other composers, was brought back.
The tepid reviews for The Wolfman made it clear that the final cut of this creature feature wasn't
particularly scary, but at least there were plenty of frights in the tortured production history.
The supernatural horror flick The Innkeepers takes place in a haunted hotel,
so director Ti West was looking to shoot in a spot that would enhance the spooky atmosphere.
That's when he got the idea to return to a location he'd used in a prior film:
the Yankee Pedlar Inn, a haunted hotel in Torrington, Connecticut. West had first
encountered this hot spot while making his 2009 film The House of the Devil, and he ended
up experiencing some inexplicable events while staying there. As he admitted to The Morning Call,
"I'm a skeptic. Spending time at the Yankee Pedlar was the closest I've come to believing."
"You know, I was like, I should write a movie about all the s---
that happened when we weren't shooting House of the Devil,
and that's what this movie is, and then they let us go back to the actual hotel and shoot there."
Years after The Innkeepers finished filming, lead actor Sara Paxton told Dead Talk News
that she'd had several weird experiences while filming the movie inside the hotel,
including a TV inexplicably turning on in the middle of the night. She wasn't alone,
as she claimed that nearly everybody who worked on the movie inside the Yankee Pedlar
had something strange and frightening happen to them. Clearly, Ti West was
playing with fire when he filmed a haunted hotel movie inside an actual haunted hotel.
1956's Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its 1978 remake are two of the most famous
sci-fi horror films in history. But lightning didn't quite strike again a few decades later.
Despite the presence of actors like Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, the 2007 remake The Invasion is
far less revered. It scored dismal reviews and tanked at the box office, a fate almost
as petrifying as the twisted production behind its road to getting released.
While Oliver Hirschbiegel was the credited director, lengthy reshoots featured scenes
written by the Wachowski siblings and directed by James McTeigue. Unusual filming techniques
emulating documentaries apparently went over poorly during test screenings,
necessitating the reshoots and a 12-month delay from an initial August 2006 release date.
The production turmoil was exacerbated during the reshoots when Kidman suffered an on-set
car crash that broke some of her ribs. In the end, no amount of retooling could make
The Invasion anything resembling a critically acclaimed darling.
Before he directed 2016's Doctor Strange, Scott Derrickson was the filmmaker behind Deliver
Us from Evil, a horror feature about demonic possession and the idea of terrifying forces lying
in wait in plain sight. The movie was based on an actual New York City cop who supposedly had real
encounters with the supernatural. Derrickson's attempt to convey these concepts didn't result
in much in the way of critical acclaim, but the on-set atmosphere was plenty dreadful.
"I've had darkness growing inside me like a f---ing cancer."
In a set report by Bloody Disgusting, Derrickson emphasized that Deliver Us from Evil was filmed
in authentically grimy locations, with many scenes captured in intentionally cramped spaces.
This was all done to provide an intimate air on the set while also trying to ensure that Deliver
Us from Evil wasn't sanding off the edges of the real-world locations it was supposed to evoke.
But this resulted in a cramped filming space that couldn't have been easy to act or work
in. There's a commendable dedication to realism and intimacy in this approach,
so it's unfortunate that it didn't actually result in a spookier movie.
If you only looked at the critical reception of The Possession, you'd probably come to the
conclusion that there's nothing terrifying about this Sam Raimi-produced flick.
A PG-13-rated movie dropped in the final weeks of summer 2012, The Possession hasn't left much
of a lasting mark on American horror, but its behind-the-scenes troubles have become
a tad more infamous. While trying to make a film about a demon and a haunted dybbuk box,
the cast and crew ended up having some truly spooky encounters themselves.
While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, leading man Jeffrey Dean Morgan recalled how
there was an assortment of unexplained frightening events during production,
including lights exploding and a feeling of cold wind on a closed set. Even more mysteriously,
a fire burned up all of the movie's props just a few days after principal photography was finished,
including the dybbuk box itself. As Morgan explained,
"It was investigated, and there were no signs of arson, no electrical fire."
Come to your own conclusion about whether or not anything truly supernatural was going on,
but there's no denying that making this film was a blood-curdling experience.
"You have this mysterious entity coming in and being part of life."
The primary antagonist of The Ring films is a dead little girl who perished when
she was drowned in a well. It was a grisly demise that informed a popular pair of horror
titles in the early 2000s. And behind the scenes, in a series of eerie coincidences,
life imitated art on the set of The Ring Two in 2004.
As reported by Made in Atlantis, the set was flooded one week into filming.
The issue was a mundane one: a simple burst pipe. But having such a disaster occur on a movie about
a little girl perishing from drowning was enough to put the people working on the film on edge.
Director Hideo Nakata, who also made the original Japanese version of The Ring, was spooked enough
that he brought in a Shinto priest for a Japanese purification ceremony. But this wasn't the end of
the liquid-based calamities for The Ring Two, as a few weeks later a jug of water exploded
and further flooded a part of the set that had already been underwater in the last catastrophe.
So that's two water-based disasters for a film that involved a young girl who had
drowned in a well. And we've yet to mention the strange behavior of animals like bees and
bucks that occurred during production. Reviews criticized The Ring Two for its lack of scares,
but those needing a chill up their spine can easily be sated by these on-set horror stories.
We can thank the movie-mocking TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 for the fame achieved by
the 1966 film Manos: The Hands of Fate. An ill-advised attempt at a horror movie,
Manos didn't provide scares, but it did inspire plenty of unintentional guffaws.
With stiff line deliveries, bizarre costume choices, and a never-ending opening credits
sequence, there are more inexplicable parts of this no-budget movie than there are stars
in the night sky. And behind the scenes, it had a truly tumultuous time getting finished.
Many of the hardships had to do with the director, fertilizer salesman Harold P. Warren, who also
played the lead character, Michael. Warren could only muster up $19,000 for the budget,
which ensured, among other limitations, that cinematographer Robert Guidry couldn't obtain
proper lighting or redo subpar shots. It also meant that Guidry wouldn't be getting paid.
Meanwhile, Warren's disagreeable behavior towards the crew included throwing a slate at Guidry and
screaming at the women hired to portray the wives of the villainous Master.
"And the Master wouldn't approve."
The sights on display in 1996's The Island of Dr. Moreau are supposed to make your blood curdle and
offer an ominous warning about meddling in God's domain. But far more petrifying is the
saga of how this H.G. Wells adaptation was realized. The film was a passion project for
director Richard Stanley. But his refusal to attend production meetings and clashes with
cast members led to him being replaced by John Frankenheimer after only three days of filming.
But any hopes that a new director could right this sinking ship were sadly dashed,
as Dr. Moreau fell into even greater chaos. Just like Stanley, Frankenheimer also had trouble
with hot-headed leading man Val Kilmer, but that was nothing compared to Marlon
Brando in the title role. He reportedly came up with strange character choices,
refused to learn his lines, and occasionally just couldn't be found. On top of all that,
Stanley was later able to sneak back onto the set, get dressed up as a man-animal hybrid,
and covertly participate as an extra in a key set piece. Who needs the ominous words of
H.G. Wells when you've got an unforgettable filmmaking-gone-awry story like this one?
The Omen was a pop culture sensation when it was released in theaters back in 1976.
The story about a father grappling with the fact that his son may be the spawn of Satan
wasn't without its detractors, but it was largely well-received for its creative
frights and committed performances from actors like Gregory Peck.
But even the most ardent fan of this fright flick is bound to admit that the onscreen chills
are overshadowed by some seriously scary happenings that occurred while making it.
These odd occurrences are legion. One involved a sequence in which rottweilers attack Peck's
character. Things went awry when the dogs refused to stop attacking the stuntman when they
were instructed to do so. Another peculiar event occurred when crew members went out to get dinner,
only to learn that the restaurant had exploded earlier that day.
And even after they left the set, horrific events befell key members of the cast and
crew. The most tragic incident was that of a special effects designer losing his wife in a
car crash that proved eerily similar to a death in the film. He claimed that it occurred near a
road sign that indicated that a town called Ommen, spelled with two m's, was 66.6 kilometers away.
With no shortage of scary events connected to the making of The Omen, there will probably
always be debates about whether or not the literal Devil was behind it all.
"Look at me, Damien! It's all for you!"
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