The house seen in the movie in real life does not and never actually did exist. The film-makers could not find a suitable mansion to use for the film so, at a cost of around $200,000, the production had a Victorian gothic mansion façade attached to the front of a much more modern dwelling in a Vancouver street. This construction was used for the filming of all the exteriors of the movie’s Carmichael Mansion. The interiors of the haunted house were an elaborate group of interconnecting sets built inside a film studio in Vancouver.
Category: horror
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Horror Cinema Trivia: Night of the Living Dead
One of the original script ideas called for Barbara to be a very strong, charismatic character. Instead, George A. Romero and the producers loved Judith O’Dea’s portrayal as a terrified young girl much better, and edited the script to accommodate the part.
The idea of Barbara being a strong, central character was revisited in Night of the Living Dead (1990).
Find more behind-the-scenes facts about this zombie classic at IMDb Trivia: Night of the Living Dead (1968).
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Horror Cinema Trivia: Pet Sematary (1989)
The role of Zelda, Rachel’s terminally ill sister, was played by a man. Director Mary Lambert wanted Zelda and her scenes to frighten the audience but did not believe that a 13-year old girl was scary so she cast Andrew Hubatsek in the role to make something be “off about Zelda.”
Read more about this casting choice at Bloody Disgusting: [It Came From the ’80s] The Traumatic Nightmare of Zelda in ‘Pet Sematary’.
Find more behind-the-scenes facts at IMDb Trivia: Pet Sematary (1989).
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Famous Accused Witch: Petronella de Meath
Petronella de Meath was the first woman in Ireland to be burned for heresy in 1324.
She was the hand-maiden of Dame Alice Kyteler, the famous witch of Kilkenny. Dame Alice was married four times, and each husband died. On the death of her last husband, Sir John le Poer, Alice’s children accused her of using poison and sorcery to kill him. They brought their case before the Bishop of Ossory, Richard de Ledrede, in 1324 in the hope that their mother would be arrested and they would gain her fortune. It was ordered that Alice be burned at the stake.
Unfortunately for Petronella, Alice fled. This left a large, baying crowd standing outside Kilkenny City’s Tholsel. To satisfy the crowd, Petronella was made to take Alice’s place. She was burned alive and that would be the end of Petronella de Meath, the first woman in Ireland burned for heresy, a claim that should have fell to Dame Alice.
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Horror Cinema Trivia: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
At the first cast meeting called by producer and director Francis Ford Coppola, he got all of the principal actors and actresses to read the entire Bram Stoker novel out loud to get a feel for the story. According to Sir Anthony Hopkins, it took two days to complete.
Gary Oldman said that when he first read the script, he decided it would be worth doing the movie just so he could feel what it would be like to say, “I’ve crossed oceans of time to find you” to someone.
In August 2018, Winona Ryder expressed concern that she might be legally married to Keanu Reeves. Apparently, Coppola wasn’t happy with their wedding scenes in the movie and, to achieve greater authenticity, he re-shot the sequence with a real priest.
Learn more about the making of Coppola’s adaptation of Dracula at IMDb Trivia: Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
The Devil's Muse 