10 Secret Details That Make Horror Movies Even Creepier

Surely you have to do a lot of weird things during a career as an actor, but usually you wouldn’t expect sharing a pool with a handful of real decaying skeletons to be one of them.

In one scene, JoBeth Williams (as matriarch Diane Freeling) falls into a hole in the ground destined to be the family’s pool. It begins filling with rainwater and around her a group of decaying corpses start popping up.

Williams already didn’t want to film the scene because of the weird atmosphere on set and the few accidents that had already occurred, but after being convinced to get in the water she was still none the wiser that the skeletons beneath her were not props.

It wasn’t uncommon at the time to use real human remains on set, often due to costing reasons. Despite this being common practise though, Williams didn’t find out until after the film wrapped that her poolside pals were very real.

With the following years bringing a host of terrible accidents and deaths upon members of the cast and crew, many people believe that Poltergeist’s use of real corpses brought a curse upon the film. Curse or no curse, you still have to admit that unknowingly swimming with a bunch of corpses is very very creepy.