Buzz
October: The creepiest month of the year, building suspense until the 31st. As this spooky date approaches, the weeks are filled with haunted events, costume planning, and of course, endless horror film marathons. While to some a scary movie is simply a film, the following ten stand out, as the behind-the-scenes tales and eerie occurrences during production are even more terrifying than the films themselves.
10. Ghostbusters
The iconic 1984 comedy Ghostbusters was filled with strange occurrences on set, one of which made its way into the film. In particular, the famous scene where Dan Aykroyd encounters a ghost and his cigarette falls from his mouth, yet miraculously stays balanced on his bottom lip, was said to have been an unscripted moment, without any special effects or adhesives involved.
Though it's reasonable to believe that saliva had a part to play. Aykroyd explained that no trickery was involved in keeping the cigarette in place, stating, 'That was a total the-gods-are-with-you comedian moment. I had the [cigarette] there, and I did the look. And they got the shot. No glue, no tape, no glycerin.' While this explanation may sound questionable, Aykroyd remains firm in his story, insisting that no special effects or saliva were to blame for this once-in-a-lifetime shot. You can decide for yourself.
9. The Innkeepers
Ti West's indie horror film The Innkeepers (2011) follows two young hotel employees at the Yankee Pedlar Inn who are determined to uncover the truth behind their workplace’s haunting. In a chilling twist, the real-life location that inspired the movie, the Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington, Connecticut, is known for its own ghostly legends. During filming, the cast and crew encountered a series of baffling paranormal occurrences.
Director West, who identifies as a skeptic, was left unnerved by doors slamming shut by themselves, TVs switching on and off without explanation, and light bulbs constantly burning out for no apparent reason. Even stranger, every person on set experienced intense and vivid dreams each night. Actress Sara Paxton shared that she often awoke in the middle of the night with the feeling that someone was in her room. After taking a break from the set, West noticed that the unsettling dreams returned when he went back: 'Being a skeptic, I tend to not believe it as much,' he said. 'The dreams came back the first day I walked in. The vibe was there.'
8. Candyman
The 1992 film Candyman, about the vengeful spirit of a lynched slave with a hook for a hand, left audiences terrified both in the U.S. and internationally. One scene is particularly chilling, as it was inspired by real events that took place five years before the film's release. In the film, two women investigating one of Candyman's crime scenes make a horrifying discovery—learning that the ghostly killer entered the victim's apartment through a medicine cabinet.
This was the fate of 52-year-old Ruthie Mae McCoy, who tragically lost her life in her apartment in 1987. The killers gained entry by crawling through a hidden passage behind the bathroom mirror, a detail that is also reflected in the film. Several elements from McCoy's murder are incorporated into Candyman, such as the setting of Chicago public housing. Additionally, one of the characters shares a name strikingly similar to the real-life victim: Anne-Marie McCoy.
7. The Sixth Sense
M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 blockbuster The Sixth Sense is often considered his first—and possibly only—true masterpiece. With its Hitchcockian tone and a jaw-dropping twist that stunned audiences worldwide, the film's production had a disturbing effect on one of its lead actors. Toni Collette, who portrayed the mother of Cole, a young boy haunted by spirits, began experiencing insomnia during the shoot, something she had never faced before.
Even the nights when she managed to sleep were filled with dread, as she would wake up at strange, repetitive hours. Collette shared with Slant Magazine in 2012, 'I had a couple of weird things happening. In the hotel room I was staying at in Philadelphia, I started meditating a lot, and then I would wake up at night, roll over, and look at the clock, and it was always a repeated number—1:11, 3:33, 4:44. That started to really spook me.' Despite her resistance to superstitions, this unsettling pattern returned years later while filming Hitchcock, a 2012 biographical drama about the making of Psycho in 1959.
6. Paranormal Activity
Director Oren Peli’s low-budget film, Paranormal Activity, which centers on a couple’s home being overtaken by a demonic force, was making its rounds to various studios in early 2008 when it caught the attention of Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, a co-founder of DreamWorks, was unsure whether his studio should get involved with this supernatural thriller. After watching the film, he had a chilling encounter at his Pacific Palisades home. His bedroom door mysteriously locked from the inside, prompting Spielberg to call a locksmith.
The eerie incident left Spielberg so shaken that he refused to keep the DVD in his house. The following day, he returned the film to DreamWorks in a trash bag. Despite this unsettling experience, Spielberg remained excited about the film and decided to acquire the rights. Paranormal Activity went on to become one of the most profitable films of all time in terms of return on investment.
5. 1408
Praised as one of the best horror films of 2007, 1408 follows the story of a paranormal skeptic, played by John Cusack, who ventures into a grand New York hotel known for its haunted room, 1408. Though the movie seems like a typical Hollywood creation, it was actually inspired by parapsychologist Christopher Chacon’s real-life investigation into the haunting of the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego.
The Hotel del Coronado, a favorite of Hollywood’s elite, is also where Kate Morgan tragically took her life in 1892. After checking into the hotel under an alias on Thanksgiving, Kate’s body was found five days later on a staircase. Since then, guests and staff have reported strange occurrences in the room she stayed in, including disembodied footsteps and moving objects. Chacon, intrigued by the haunting, set up infrared cameras and magnetic meters in the room and documented 37 strange occurrences, such as glasses flying off counters. His chilling findings inspired Stephen King to write the short story "1408," which went on to be a major box-office hit.
4. Session 9
The 2001 psychological horror film, Session 9, stands out from other horror movies because it was shot within the real, abandoned Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts. Established in 1878, the hospital gained notoriety for being one of the most brutal asylums in the United States. The already eerie setting was enhanced by the fact that many of the film's props were simply items that had been left behind in the decaying building.
Production notes reveal that actor Dave Caruso experienced something unsettling while filming at the abandoned site: "I saw something pass my window," Caruso recalled, though he hesitated to share this experience to avoid drawing unwanted attention. Actor Peter Mullan also reported strange occurrences, particularly while filming on the roof. Mullan claimed that a voice in his head urged him to jump off the building to "see what would happen." He went on to describe the hospital as evoking a disturbing sense of "overactive curiosity." Fortunately, the decaying structure of the asylum was demolished in 2007.
3. Poltergeist
The Poltergeist series (1982-1988) is often remembered not only for its supernatural horror but for the chilling real-life events that seemed to plague its cast. Over the span of six years, four cast members tragically passed away. The most notable was Heather O'Rourke, who died of septic shock at the age of 12 in 1988. Earlier, Dominique Dunne, who portrayed O’Rourke’s older sister, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 1982. Julian Beck, who played the evil reverend Kane, succumbed to stomach cancer in 1985, while Will Sampson, who portrayed Taylor the Medicine Man, passed away in 1987 from post-surgical kidney failure.
Almost 20 years later, Lou Perryman, who played Pugsley in the 1982 original Poltergeist, was tragically murdered with an axe in his own home. This event contributed to what is now known as the "Poltergeist Curse." Many believe the use of real human skeletons as props in the first film could have invited this malevolent force. Could the spirits of those whose bones were used in the production be haunting the franchise, or is it just an eerie coincidence?
2. Crimson Peak
In 2009, Guillermo del Toro, the acclaimed Mexican filmmaker, was scouting locations for the Hobbit trilogy in New Zealand when he stumbled upon the Waitomo Caves Hotel. This grand, Victorian-style mansion, built in 1908, was vacant due to the off-season. As a self-proclaimed ghost enthusiast, del Toro persuaded the owners to let him explore the property, which had a notorious reputation for being haunted. That very night, he heard terrifying screams and whimpering coming from a vent that led to an empty room.
Del Toro recalled, "I heard a horrible murder being committed in the room. I was actually terrified. I didn’t sleep at all that night. What was strange was the next morning, I was not tired, but I was wired and scared. I never imagined having those fears. It was absolutely terrifying." Interestingly, this chilling experience became the foundation for his 2015 film, Crimson Peak. Del Toro explained, "There is the moment where you hear a murder in the bathtub. It comes directly from that moment in New Zealand."
1. The Conjuring
While filming The Conjuring, which is based on Ed and Lorraine Warren’s 1971 investigation into a haunted Rhode Island farmhouse, the cast and crew began to experience their own unsettling paranormal events. According to Warner Bros. production notes, strange gusts of wind would swirl around the set, yet nothing in the environment seemed to be affected—such as the leaves on nearby trees. Additionally, every time screenwriters Chad and Carey Hayes tried calling Lorraine to discuss the case, their conversations were disrupted by static unlike anything they encountered during other calls.
During the early stages of production, the entire crew had to evacuate their hotel after an unexplained fire broke out. Director James Wan endured sleepless nights when his dog would growl incessantly at something invisible in the room. However, it was actress Vera Farmiga who seemed to be most shaken by the experience. She discovered five mysterious claw marks slashed across her laptop screen. As she recalled, "I don’t know how to explain it. I do know I hadn’t dropped the computer, and my children hadn’t stepped on it. So I gingerly closed it, put it away, and then my brain just went berserk." Throughout the rest of the shoot, Farmiga refused to read the script at home or at night, only reading it in "fits and spurts" to avoid being overwhelmed by fear.
