The Poltergeist series has long been rumored to be cursed, reportedly due to the fact that real human skeletons were used in a scene from the original film . Since then, five actors who were involved with the franchise have died, some under circumstances that sound straight out of a horror movie. Take Dominique Dunne, who played Dana Freeling in the first entry, for example. Five months after Poltergeist premiered in 1982, Dunne was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, outside of her West Hollywood home; she never regained consciousness.

Then there’s Julian Beck, best known to Poltergeist II fans for portraying Reverend Henry Kane. Beck died from cancer eight months before the 1986 sequel hit theaters. His co-star, Will Sampson—a real-life shaman hired to play one in the movie—followed suit in 1987, a result of post-operative kidney failure (he’d just undergone a heart and lung transplant).…