Few ghost movies have garnered as much acclaim as 1982’s Poltergeist. The Freelings are confronted by several skeletons emerging from the ground in the final scene of Poltergeist, skeletons that formerly belonged to actual people.

Off-screen, some of The Poltergeist’s scariest moments occurred. The 1980s horror sensation is scary to see, but it’s much scarier when you consider how many people linked to it have died. At least four of the actors who appeared in The Poltergeist or its sequels died tragically early. There were also several jobsite incidents.

The Poltergeist is about a family named the Freelings who live in a house that is tormented by spirits. They appear particularly smitten with Carole Anne (Heather O’Rourke), the youngest Freeling. Diane Freeling, the matriarch, falls into a deep hole in the yard and realizes that the house was constructed on an ancient burial place in the film. Skeletons float to the surface of the pit, which was supposed to be a swimming pool, as it fills with rain.

Special effects makeup artist Craig Reardon stated under oath that the skeletons in “Poltergeist” were genuine human remains, according to Snopes. According to his statement, “I acquired a number of actual biological surgical skeletons is what they’re called. They’re for hanging in classrooms in study. These are actual skeletons from people. I think the bones are acquired from India.”

JoBeth Williams, on the other hand, had no idea about this at the time. She was more concerned about being in a swimming pool with electrical equipment around her. Steve Spielberg also jumped in to alleviate her concerns. The scenario took four or five days to shoot, which was especially difficult because Williams had to repeatedly get into the muck.

The Poltergeist

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The fact that real skeletons were utilized in the scenario was not revealed to JoBeth Williams until after she had done filming. Williams remarked in a December 2002 interview on the entertainment channel VH1:

“I would have to go into this huge tank of what I thought were mud with these skeletons — which, by the way, I thought were plastic, but later found out they were real skeletons. It was a real nightmare.”

In a different interview that aired as part of the TV Land episode TV Land: Myths & Legends in 2008, Williams went on to elaborate on it. She stated, “You have to understand that this sequence took probably four or five days to shoot. So I was in mud and goop all day every day for like four or five days with skeletons all around me [as I was] screaming. In my innocence and naiveté, I assumed that these were not real skeletons. I assumed that they were prop skeletons made out of plastic or rubber. I found out — as did the whole crew — that they were using real skeletons, because it’s far too expensive to make fake skeletons out of rubber. And I think everybody got real creeped out by the idea of that.”

According to Screen Rant, JoBeth Williams had additional reasons for refusing to film the sequence. On set, things were already strange. A clown strangled Robbie, one of the other performers who played the middle Freeling youngster. The device was intended to make him appear to be strangled by an evil clown toy, but it malfunctioned and began strangling him for real. Steven Spielberg had to detach him from the clown.

After a series of misfortunes befell the performers in The Poltergeist movies, people speculated that the use of actual skeletons was to blame. People believed that Spielberg’s faux cursed burial place resulted in a real curse for the actors involved. Williams didn’t presumably didn’t believe in the curse.

The catastrophes that befell the cast of The Poltergeist had nothing to do with the film’s production. Unfortunately, owing to a misdiagnosis, young O’Rourke perished. A third cast member died of kidney problems, while another died of cancer. Dominique Dunne, who played the oldest Freeling daughter, was slain by her violent lover.