10 Spookiest Hollywood Stories And Urban Legends

5. The Titanic Poisoning

Titanic movie
20th Century Fox

James Cameron is a notoriously hard taskmaster. So much so that Kate Winslet famously said that she would need to be paid a substantial amount of money to work with him again after Titanic. It's not all that surprising then that someone decided to take revenge on the director and his $200 million production.

During a break in filming, the cast gathered for their dinner. Amongst the catering options on offer was a decidedly dodgy seafood chowder that would have failed a food safety check. It had been laced with the hallucinogenic drug PCP, and soon after consuming it, various cast and crew members began acting very strangely indeed.

James Cameron was stabbed in the face with a pen by one member of the production team. Production ground to a halt as crewmembers vomited, laughed and cried but the chaos didn't end on set. Taken to hospital, the 60-odd cast and crewmembers hopped from cubicle to cubicle and raced wheelchairs down the corridors.

The culprit was never found, but Cameron believes it was the work of a disgruntled crew member. He told Vanity Fair that the day before they'd had to fire someone for causing issues with the catering company. Cameron believes the newly unemployed crew member laced the chowder with PCP in an act of revenge.

Contributor
Contributor

Citizen of the Universe, Film Programmer, Writer, Podcaster, Doctor Who fan and a gentleman to boot. As passionate about Chinese social-realist epics as I am about dumb popcorn movies.