Many of you will have been watching Dead Set this week – and awesome it’s been so far – but there are times when, during the filming or broadcasting of horror films, weird and inexplicable things happen for real.

There are literally hundreds of reports of minor but spooky incidents happening on movie sets, but by the far the most chilling were those that happened during filming of The Ring 2 and even worse events surround the entire Poltergeist series of movies.

In fact, during the filming for The Ring 2, a Japanese Shinto minister was especially flown in to perform a purification ceremony on-set. The incidents that frightened the cast and crew so much were almost identical to those featured in some of the scenes in the movie.

Most of the incidents happened while The Ring 2 was being shot in the scenic American seaside town of Astoria, which in the north-west state of Oregon.

The Ring 2 brings back the vengeful and troubled spirit of Samara, a girl with matted black hair and the ability to kill her victims via a video tape.

The film’s director, Hideo Nakata, said the strange incidents on set began with the film’s production office being flooded after a water pipe inexplicably burst in a wall. Not that spooky you’d think but then, the make-up truck that Watts and her co-stars – including another Australian actor, Simon Baker – used each day was also flooded.

To top it off, a nineteen litre water container also burst in the same production office that flooded weeks earlier. No cause for it was ever discovered.

The floodings were almost identical in natures to scenes in The Ring 2 where Samara uses her supernatural powers to fill rooms with water.

“Because we were making a film about cursed water, evil spirited water, when we had the floods the crew freaked out” Nakata said.

“I’m from Japan and my assistant is from Japan so we arranged a Shintoist. It’s a traditional way of purification in Japan. All the crew felt much better.”

However, the creepy incidents, similar to those in the script, kept occurring.

Next up was a swarm of thousands of bees which invaded a prop truck. The prop workers were evacuated but soon afterwards, the bees fled too.

Then, at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, a costume department employee came face to face with a huge antlered buck deer. The buck, just like one in a scene of the film, charged at the employee.

Nakata, who directed the original Japanese Ring horror films, Ringu and Ringu 2, on which the American Ring films are based, is used to weird happenings on-set.

“During the shoot of Ringu 2 we think we overheard a ghost’s voice,” Nakata said.

“Nobody could explain it. A microphone was put on the surface of the sea and we could hear a young man’s voice calling a woman’s name. It seemed impossible. Maybe there is a scientific explanation, but I don’t know.”

However, by far the weirdest stories of horror coming true are those connected to the Poltergeist films.

It all began during the filming of the first – and best – of the movies. Actress Jobeth Williams wasn’t keen on doing the swimming pool scene because it was wet, slippery, and muddy and there were electrical wires and lights everywhere. Bottom line was she didn’t want to get electrocuted, which is fair enough really. The director, Spielberg, decided to try to make her feel better by jumping into the water with her. He said, “Now if a light falls in, we will both fry.” Apparently that was consolation enough and she finally agreed to do the scene.

For those of you who don’t remember the scene, or have never seen the film, the actress’s character was outside looking for help when she fell into the muddy swimming pool and the bodies from the forgotten cemetery surfaced up from underneath the mud and into the pool with her. What she didn’t know at the time was that the props used to simulate the corpses, were in fact, real corpses. This is not a rumour, according to many sources, it’s an “undisputed fact”. She was told about it after the fact, and has done many interviews on the subject.

Needless to say, neither she nor Spielberg were very happy when they found out about that, but unfortunately, the damage was done. Taking karma into consideration, and if you believe in that sort of thing, it can’t be a good plan to use real human corpses for entertainment purposes. Granted it seems to be working for Bruce Forsyth, but there are always exceptions.

Anyway, that’s where the believers of the ‘Poltergeist Curse’ say it all began. They also say it’s why there were so many deaths amongst the cast and crew…

Four cast members died within six years of the release of the first film and two of them died at young ages; just 12 and 22 years old.

The actors who are supposed victims of the curse include Dominique Dunne, a 22 year old actress who played the oldest sister Dana in the first movie. She died after being strangled by a jealous boyfriend in 1982. The boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, was later convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.

Julian Beck, a 60-year-old actor who played Kane in Poltergeist II: The Other Side, died in 1985 of stomach cancer, but he’d been diagnosed with the disease before he accepted the role.

Will Sampson, who was 53 years old, played Taylor, the Medicine Man, in Poltergeist II. He died of post-operative kidney failure and pre-operative malnutrition problems in 1987.

Probably the most tragic death was that of Heather O’Rourke, the actress who played Carol Anne in all three Poltergeist movies. She died in 1988 at the age of 12 after what doctors initially described as an acute form of the ‘flu, but later changed to septic shock. At the time, she’d suffered an acute bowel obstruction that was initially diagnosed as Crohn’s disease.

There are many other weird occurrences that have been attributed to the ‘curse’, including the fact that the house in Simi Valley, California which was used for exterior shots of the Freeling home, was damaged by the Northridge earthquake of 1994. Other houses around it were not damaged.

Also, JoBeth Williams, who played mother Diane Freeling, claims she returned home from the set each day to find pictures on her wall askew. She would straighten them, only to find them crooked again the next day.

Actor Will Sampson, who is a Creek Indian and shaman, performed an exorcism on the set of Poltergeist II to rid it of “alien spirits”. A year after Poltergeist II was released, he died too. Finally, Brian Gibson, the director of Poltergeist II, died of bone cancer at the age of 59 in 2004.

Other freaky incidents include the time when Robbie Freeling, played by Oliver Robins, was choked by a toy clown in his room, the mechanical prop malfunctioned and Robins was actually choked.

Then, during a photography session for Poltergeist III, it was discovered that one shot of co-star Zelda Rubenstein had shining light obstructing the view of her face. Rubenstein claims the photo was taken at the moment the actress’s mother died.

Again, during the making of Poltergeist III, a movie set of a parking garage was destroyed by fire, injuring all but one of the crew.

Also, Heather O’Rourke once starred in a ‘Rainbow Brite’ commercial with another child actress, Judith Barsi. Judith died at age 10, five months and 24 days after Heather died. She was murdered along with her mother by her father.

So if you’re going to be watching any of these spooky films this Halloween, maybe get some holy water in or have a priest on stand-by. A bit of caution never hurt anybody… unlike the deadly spirits who are due to venture out from their long sleep tonight…

Enjoy!