In the subculture of horror movie fandom, “cursed” films are movies whose troubled production histories enable horror fans to appreciate the film through the lens of superstition. Under this overarching assumption, on-set mishaps are often attributed to the presence of an unseen malevolent force, or alternately a spiritual force that is attempting to prevent the “evil” energy of a horror film from being released into the world. 

A popular example of a cursed film is the 1973 supernatural horror film, The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin. The film stretched long past its planned schedule and budget because of multiple on-set accidents, including injuries suffered by the cast and crew. Several people associated with the cast and crew also died around the time of production, resulting in further delays. Whether consciously or not, Friedkin himself engendered speculation about the film’s cursed status by citing the film’s subject matter, demonic possession, as a possible cause for these incidents in magazine interviews. Critics have later attributed these statements to marketing, intended to build morbid curiosity around the resulting film. This exposes a critical flaw in the cursed film theory, which downplays or exploits the real suffering of film workers for the sake of the film’s box office profitability.