The year was 1982. E.T. had ignited the box office, becoming the highest-grossing film in cinema history. The marquee was full of titans catering to nearly every taste, and anyone looking for a horror movie had a must-see at Poltergeist. An instant classic with two sequels and a remake, Poltergeist became associated with many legends, and one of them claims that real skeletons were used in its scenes…
Imagine for a moment that the “summer season” in cinema has already begun, and you have things like Conan the Barbarian, Rocky III, Star Trek II, E.T., Blade Runner and The Thing. Your hands would definitely be full, but the truth is a name is missing there: Poltergeist. The film already carries several curious details from the start. Its director was Tobe Hooper, but if we go by the statements of the protagonists, Steven Spielberg (screenwriter and producer) did the heavy lifting. For contractual reasons, Spielberg couldn’t work on anything other than E.T. (hence the famous “Spielberg’s summer,” with two hits a week apart), but basically he got away with it, and rumors of a possible directors’ strike were strong at the time, so nobody objected.
A Cursed Classic
Poltergeist also has its disturbing side, and I’m not referring to the content. The film was surrounded by strange events, unexpected deaths, and waves of rumors that made it “one of the most cursed” in cinema. First, actress Dominique Dunne (Dana Freeling) was murdered by her ex-boyfriend just five months after the premiere. In 1988, after having finished her scenes for Poltergeist III months earlier, Heather O’Rourke, little Carol Anne Freeling, died at 12 from a cardiac arrest caused by septic shock from a misdiagnosed intestinal stenosis. The family sued for malpractice and reached an out-of-court settlement. As for Oliver Robins (Robbie Freeling), he almost ended up strangled by the robotic clown that torments him during the film, and only saved himself thanks to Spielberg’s quick response.
The Real Skeletons
But there is something extra: the skeletons. One of the most memorable scenes in the film shows Diane Freeling, JoBeth Williams’ character, falling into the pool while escaping the forces that terrorize the family. Trapped in mud and water, Diane discovers the skeletons buried under the house, in a solid demonstration of special effects… but how solid? In a 2002 interview with VH1, Williams explained:
I had to get into this mud tank, with these skeletons... which, by the way, I thought were plastic, but then I found out they were real skeletons. It was a real nightmare.
Six years later, in another interview for the program TV Land: Myths and Legends, Williams provided additional details. The scene required approximately four or five days of work. Throughout that time, Williams had to be covered in mud and slime, surrounded by skeletons and screaming. In what she called “her innocence and naivety”, she made the erroneous conclusion that the skeletons were made of plastic or rubber... but Williams and the rest of the crew found out the hard way that the skeletons were real, because “it was too expensive” to make them.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/urjYdYXYXJQWhile we have no major reasons to doubt Williams’ words, confirmation came through Craig Reardon, makeup artist and member of the special effects team. Reardon had to testify under oath in the lawsuit that faced Spielberg against writers Paul Clemens and Bennett Michael Yellin. Clemens and Yellin accused Spielberg of having used (not to say “stolen”) different parts of a script they had prepared in 1980. A humble translation of Reardon’s testimony says:
I acquired a number of biological surgical skeletons, that’s what they’re called. They are for hanging in classrooms. These are real skeletons… of people. I think the bones were brought from India. Anyway, we received 13. And we dressed them so they wouldn’t look like screwed, clean, bleached skeletons, but like disintegrating corpses.
I think that clears up any doubt. Poltergeist used real skeletons in one of its scenes. There are not a few who believe that the “curse” was caused by them. What remains to be known… is what you think.
