Even in myth-making Hollywood, the Poltergeist curse stands apart – a chilling legend forged from real-life tragedy.
The deliciously eerie 1982 horror movie left audiences terrified, but the true horror unfolded off set as four cast members – including two child stars – tragically died within six years of its release, sparking decades of conjecture that the hit supernatural movie was haunted.
Now, Oliver Robins, who played young Robbie Freeling, is opening up about the tragedy that followed the cast, revealing that he, too, faced real-life horror when a stalker terrorized him as a child.
But while the shocking string of deaths has fueled endless speculation, Robins insists there was never a curse – only heartbreaking coincidence and disturbed individuals.
‘I don’t believe there’s a curse,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘Tragedy happens on many movies and in life, but there wasn’t any specific exorcism or crazy thing on set where there’s now a curse on everyone involved with the movie.’
But his revelations about creepy phone calls, being watched and a heroic FBI neighbor sound straight out of a horror film.
Within just six years of Poltergeist’s 1982 release, four cast members were dead – including two of its child stars – sparking decades of rumors that the hit movie was haunted (Pictured: Dominique Dunne (left), Craig T Nelson (center back), Oliver Robins (center front), JoBeth Williams (right) and Heather O’Rourke (right front) in 1982)
Now Oliver Robins (pictured in 1981), who played young Robbie Freeling, is opening up about the tragedies that followed the cast
Robins (pictured) revealed that he, too, faced real-life horror when he was terrorized by a stalker as a child
Poltergeist, directed by Tobe Hooper and produced by Steven Spielberg, became a pop-culture phenomenon, starring Craig T Nelson, JoBeth Williams, Heather O’Rourke and Dominique Dunne as the suburban Freeling family whose home is plagued by evil spirits.
But for those involved, the supernatural nightmare didn’t end when the cameras stopped rolling. A string of grisly cast deaths soon followed, fueling fears of a curse.
Yet Robins told the Daily Mail that his brush with horror was no ghostly legend, but the sinister ordeal of a real-life stalker who began targeting him soon after Poltergeist made him a child star.
‘Because my parents were so protective, I didn’t know this until adulthood,’ he explained.
‘Somebody was watching me and stalking us. They called up my parents and said stuff like, “We see what you’re doing. We know what Oliver is wearing.” They were watching our house.
‘It sounds like a movie, but our good friend and neighbor was an FBI agent, and he began looking into it. And, lo and behold, it stopped. I don’t know how it stopped, but it did.’
He said his parents ‘never really talked about it’ until he was older, when they thought he would better be able to understand the situation.
‘I was so neurotic – I really was nervous about everything – that they didn’t want to burden me with it.’
Just months after Poltergeist hit theaters, 22-year-old Dunne, who played eldest daughter Dana, was strangled outside her West Hollywood home by her ex-boyfriend, sous-chef John Sweeney.
She fell into a coma and died five days later. Her killer was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served less than four years in prison – a sentence so lenient it drove her father, producer Dominick Dunne, to reinvent himself as one of America’s most famous true-crime writers.
‘I couldn’t even, you know, at that age – I couldn’t fathom what death really was, to be exposed to that,’ Robins recalled to the Daily Mail. ‘And I also couldn’t fathom how someone could be murdered.
‘At that point, my parents were very protective, and I didn’t really learn the details about it.’
Another devastating blow came five years later.
The film – directed by Tobe Hooper and produced by Steven Spielberg – became a pop-culture phenomenon
Just months after Poltergeist hit theaters, 22-year-old Dunne (right), who played eldest daughter Dana, was strangled to death outside her West Hollywood home by her ex-boyfriend, sous-chef John Sweeney
O’Rourke – who played Robins’ little sister Carol Anne and became a horror icon for whispering the line ‘They’re here’ – died suddenly at age 12 after being misdiagnosed with Crohn’s disease. A congenital intestinal blockage led to septic shock and cardiac arrest during emergency surgery.
‘I really wasn’t exposed to death that much at that point, and most of my friends were just still teenagers, so I was in shock,’ Robins said.
‘I could not believe that could actually happen. And you try to wrap your mind around it, thinking, “How could this, if there’s any justice in the world, how could this possibly be?”‘
‘I always think of what Heather would’ve become later in her life. She was so smart and so intelligent. I mean, you had a five-year-old who was taking direction from Tobe Hooper.
‘She was so precocious and very kind, and we were friends and we used to hang out. She used to come over to my house.’
Still, the tragedies didn’t stop there.
Julian Beck, who delivered a terrifying performance as Reverend Henry Kane in Poltergeist II: The Other Side, died from stomach cancer in 1985 shortly after filming.
‘People think of him as this very scary character – and he was,’ Robins said. ‘But when we were on set, he was the sweetest, kindest man.
‘I was around 14 or 15 years old at the time, and I remember we were told he was dying of cancer. On set, he seemed like the happiest man there. And I came to the conclusion, even at that young age, that he just loved acting so much.
O’Rourke (pictured as a child in the movie) – who played Robins’ little sister Carol Anne and became a horror icon for whispering the line ‘They’re here’ – died suddenly at age 12 after being misdiagnosed with Crohn’s disease
‘I always think of what Heather would’ve become later in her life. She was so smart and so intelligent. I mean, you had a five-year-old who was taking direction from Tobe Hooper,’ Robins told the Daily Mail
‘He got to do what he loved, and he treated every day on set as a gift. He wasn’t depressed or upset – at least not that anyone could see. I can only believe that was because he was doing what he loved most.
‘And I think that really shines through in his performance. When the cameras rolled and he turned it on, as we all know from that performance, he was absolutely terrifying.’
The following year, actor Will Sampson, who portrayed the shaman Taylor in Poltergeist II, died at 53 from complications following a heart and lung transplant brought on by scleroderma, a chronic illness.
Then in 2009, Lou Perryman – who appeared as a construction worker in the first film – was brutally murdered in his Texas home by a mentally ill ex-convict wielding an axe.
After leaving acting, Robins went on to become a filmmaker, turning his lifelong fascination with writing and directing into a creative career behind the camera.
Most recently, he has written Sunset Scares, a heartwarming children’s book that puts a gentle twist on monster mythology.
‘So I was at one of these horror conventions, and sometimes young people come up to me, like this seven-year-old little boy who said he loved Poltergeist. I asked if he was scared by it, and he shook his head no, he absolutely loved the movie,’ Robins said of how the idea for his book came to him.
‘She was so precocious and very kind, and we were friends and we used to hang out. She used to come over to my house,’ Robins (left) said of O’Rourke (right)
Robins (pictured in the movie) said his own brush with horror came not from a curse, but from a real-life stalker who began targeting him shortly after Poltergeist turned him into a child star
‘Somebody was watching me and stalking us – they called up my parents and said stuff like, “We see what you’re doing. We know what Oliver is wearing.” They were watching our house,’ Robins revealed
Most recently, he has written Sunset Scares, a heartwarming children’s book that puts a gentle twist on monster mythology
‘And that got me thinking: “What would happen if all the classic monsters from the past became outdated? If they felt like they didn’t have a purpose anymore because they weren’t scary to a new audience?”
‘What happens to those monsters? Where do they go when their only purpose – to scare people – no longer matters?
‘Well, of course, they go to a monster retirement home.’
So Robins came up with the idea for Sunset Scare, a retirement home for monsters who feel they have lost their purpose.
He said the main message is that everyone always has a purpose in life.
‘You never lose it,’ he explained. ‘You just redefine it as you go.’
Meanwhile, Robins said he tries to look at the positive side of things in general. Even with the legend of the Poltergeist curse, he sees ways for audiences to find joy amid tragedy.
‘Someone might know nothing about Poltergeist or know nothing about cinema and they hear about this curse and they eventually watch the movie. And now they’re not really thinking about the curse so much anymore,’ he explained.
‘They’re getting the joy of watching this movie,’ he said, calling it a ‘gift,’ ‘a joy to be able to watch,’ and ‘a great piece of cinema.’
