Latest news with #TheWizardofOz
Time of India
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
NYT Mini Crossword Hints and answers June 18: Solve today's compact challenge with this quick guide
With its brief yet sharp format, the NYT Mini offers a daily dose of cognitive engagement. Whether used as a morning brain teaser or an evening unwind, it has secured its place in the day-to-day habits of readers globally. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads The NYT Mini: A Brief Overview Hints for NYT Mini Crossword – June 18, 2025 Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads 1 Across: Hit the stores — Ends with 'P' 5 Across: Cross one's fingers — Begins with 'H' 6 Across: Here's a thought! — Starts with 'B' 7 Across: Old episode — Ends with 'N' 8 Across: Request for a follow on social media — Ends with 'E' 1 Down: Tear to pieces — Ends with 'D' 2 Down: Be bad at throwing things away — Starts with 'H' 3 Down: Drug referenced in The Wizard of Oz — Begins with 'O' 4 Down: Tubular pasta — Ends with 'E' 6 Down: Measured in cups — Ends with 'A' Complete Answers to NYT Mini for June 18, 2025 1 Across: SHOP 5 Across: HOPE 6 Across: BRAIN 7 Across: RERUN 8 Across: ADDME 1 Down: SHRED 2 Down: HOARD 3 Down: OPIUM 4 Down: PENNE 6 Down: BRA FAQs What is the NYT Mini Crossword? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads When does the NYT Mini refresh each day? For puzzle enthusiasts, the NYT Mini Crossword has become an integral part of the daily routine. A faster, more compact alternative to The New York Times' full crossword, the Mini challenges solvers with its concise yet clever clues. As of Wednesday, June 18, 2025, puzzle solvers are once again navigating the clues of the day's grid, seeking a balance of wit and speed to finish before the next refresh at 12:30 p.m. The Crossword remains a staple among paid subscribers, the NYT Mini has grown into a much-loved daily ritual. Compact and accessible, it offers a quicker challenge—perfect for those on the move or looking for a quick mental warm-up. Each day, a new set of words across and down offers both familiar and tricky NYT Mini refreshes each evening, distinct from games like Wordle and Connections, which reset at midnight. Wednesday's puzzle brought a blend of straightforward prompts and cleverly disguised definitions, keeping solvers assist readers without giving away the full grid, here are subtle clues to help with today's puzzle:These hints aim to steer solvers in the right direction without directly revealing the those who've given it their best shot—or simply need the solutions—here are the confirmed answers to today's NYT Mini Crossword, as mentioned in a report by Parade magazine:Each clue in today's puzzle encouraged both lateral thinking and a broad vocabulary. For example, 'Request for a follow' cleverly led to ADDME, while HOARD was a tactful reference to holding on to unnecessary items—a modern habit many are familiar NYT Mini Crossword is a daily, compact version of The New York Times' full crossword puzzle. It features a smaller grid and takes just a few minutes to complete, offering a fast yet satisfying mental workout for solvers of all skill Wordle and Connections, which reset at midnight ET, the NYT Mini Crossword refreshes daily at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time. A new puzzle is released at that time for players to enjoy.
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Review: ‘You Will Get Sick' at Steppenwolf is a slow reveal that's worth the wait
In a graduation speech I heard this May, the physician-writer Abraham Verghese talked about his experience as a small-town doctor during the AIDS era and how he found, to his amazement, that rural emergency rooms had filled up with AIDS patients even as everyone assumed the crisis was restricted to large cities. But many of these mostly young gay men had chosen, Verghese said, to come home from New York or Chicago to the likes of rural Tennessee to die. And for the most part, he observed in another stereotype-busting comment, he found they were treated by their families with compassion and love. The word AIDS is not mentioned in 'You Will Get Sick,' a rather unusual play by Noah Diaz that opened Sunday night at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company with Amy Morton (making a long-overdue return to Steppenwolf) and Namir Smallwood in the two leading roles. All we know is that the central character, known only in the script as #1, has been given a diagnosis of imminent death from an affliction that is never described. But Verghese's speech did come floating back into my head, because this is a play about how we handle not just death itself, but the period of our lives in chronological proximity to our inevitable exit. To understand the incontrovertible truth behind show's title — not exactly a box office seduction — you have to put the emphasis on the . Moreover, there are powerful themes here of working towards acceptance, of finding the courage to tell loved ones you are leaving. Diaz draws imagery from, believe it or not, 'The Wizard of Oz,' but Dorothy takes a long time to reveal herself, and nothing is solved by any clicking of heels. Here is the initial setup. Smallwood's sick character, #1, is having such difficulty communicating about his fatal illness that he chooses to hire someone to do the job for him. He puts out an advertisement to that effect and gets an answer from a woman, Morton's #2, a matter-of-fact opportunist who negotiates hard for piecemeal rates as she sets about her weird job, some of which involves her client's self-involved sister (Sadieh Rifai). Amy Morton is back on stage in 'You Will Get Sick' at Steppenwolf Theatre. What took her so long?That all might sound straightforward but Diaz freights the play with a much heavier symbolic load, including an amplifed, off-stage narrator who voices the things that #1 cannot bring himself to say, stepping pretty much on top of his lines. That takes a good while to understand and for it to become in any way comfortable as a theatrical experience. Meanwhile, #2 has her own eccentricities; she's a sometime actor who turns this truly bizarre assignment into fodder for her actor's studio and perpetual auditioning for her local community theater production. Other people show up (the cast also includes Cliff Chamberlain and Jordan Arredondo), but the less you know about them in advance, the better. Both Morton and Smallwood are superb here, not least because they are two Chicago actors of different generations who share an obsessive interest in finding the humanity in unusual people and then listening not just to what their character is saying to them, but also to others with whom they share the stage. They're both a real pleasure to watch. I think the play's symbols and metaphors get a bit too dense and oblique in places and this is one of those shows (it recalls the work of Noah Haidle) where you need a lot of patience before it becomes clear what the playwright wants to achieve. It's the kind of show that actors easily understand, being so suffused with the iconography of the theater, but it occasionally crosses the line of self-indulgence; I suspect some subset of the Steppenwolf audience might be a bit too baffled to care. Although sometimes moving, director Audrey Francis' production could have used some sharper edges and more of a forward thrust, especially in the studio scenes. But if you hang in there for just 85 minutes, not only are there twin beautifully crafted performances for you to enjoy but the surprise-filled last few minutes really pays off, not just in the writing but in set designer Andrew Boyce's visual landscape Certainly, you'll leave the theater thinking about what Diaz clearly wants his audience to think about. More specifically, it's hard not to watch this show and think not just about sickness but about how it is described and communicated. By a society at large. By oneself. After all, most of us won't be able to get home without having to tell someone where we are going. Perhaps the hardest cut of all. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. cjones5@ Review: 'You Will Get Sick' (3.5 stars) When: Through July 20 Where: Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes Tickets: $20-$136.50 at 312-335-1650 and
The Advertiser
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Stephen King, the master of doom, leaves room for light and joy
Stephen King 's first editor, Bill Thompson, once said, "Steve has a movie camera in his head." So vividly drawn is King's fiction that it's offered the basis for some 50 feature films. For half a century, since Brian De Palma's 1976 film Carrie, Hollywood has turned, and turned again, to King's books for their richness of character, nightmare and sheer entertainment. Open up any of those books at random, and there's a decent chance you'll encounter a movie reference, too. Rita Hayworth. The Wizard of Oz. Singin' in the Rain. That King's books have been such fodder for the movies is owed, in part, to how much of a moviegoer their author is. "I love anything from The 400 Blows to something with that guy Jason Statham," King says, speaking by phone from his home in Maine. "The worst movie I ever saw was still a great way to spend an afternoon." Over time, King has developed a personal policy in how he talks about the adaptations of his books. "My idea is: If you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut," he says. The most notable exception was Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which King famously called "a big beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside". But every now and then, King is such a fan of an adaptation that he's excited to talk about it. That's very much the case with The Life of Chuck, Mike Flanagan's new adaptation of King's novella of the same name published in the 2020 collection If It Bleeds. In The Life of Chuck, there are separate storylines but the tone-setting opening is apocalyptic. The internet, like a dazed prize fighter, wobbles on its last legs before going down. California is said to be peeling away from the mainland "like old wallpaper". And yet in this doomsday tale, King is at his most sincere. The Life of Chuck, the book and the movie, is about what matters in life when everything else is lost. There is dancing, Walt Whitman and joy. "We understand that this guy's life is cut short, but that doesn't mean he doesn't experience joy," says King. "Existential dread and grief ... are part of the human experience, but so is joy." It's telling that when King, our preeminent purveyor of horror, writes about doom times, he ends up scaling it down to a single life. While darkness and doom mark his work, The Life of Chuck is a prime example of King, the humanist. "An awful lot of people assume, because he writes so much stuff that's so scary, they kind of forget the reason his horror works so well is he's always juxtaposing it with light and with love and with empathy," says Mike Flanagan, who has twice before adapted King (Doctor Sleep, Gerald's Game) and is in the midst of making a Carrie series for Amazon. "You forget that It isn't about the clown, it's about the kids and their friendship," adds Flanagan. "The Stand isn't about the virus or the demon taking over the world, it's ordinary people who have to come together and stand against a force they cannot defeat." King, 77, has written about 80 books, including the just released Never Flinch. The mystery thriller brings back King's recent favorite protagonist, the private investigator Holly Gibney, who made her stand-alone debut in If It Bleeds. It's Gibney's insecurities, and her willingness to push against them, that has kept King returning to her. Never Flinch is a reminder that King has always been less of a genre-first writer than a character-first one. He tends to fall in love with a character and follow them through thick and thin. "I'm always happy writing. That's why I do it so much," King says, chuckling. "I'm a very chipper guy because I get rid of all that dark stuff in the books." Dark stuff, as King says, hasn't been hard to come by lately. The kind of climate change disaster found in The Life of Chuck, King says, often dominates his anxieties. "We're creeping up little by little on being the one country who does not acknowledge it's a real problem with carbon in the atmosphere," King says. "That's crazy. Certain right-wing politicians can talk all they want about how we're saving the world for our grandchildren. They don't care about that. They care about money." The original germ for The Life of Chuck had nothing to do with current events. One day in Boston, King noticed a drummer busking on Boylston Street. He had the vision of a businessman in a suit who, walking by, can't resist dancing with abandon to the drummer's beat. King, a self-acknowledged dancer (though only in private, he notes), latched on to a story that would turn on the unpredictable nature of people, tracing the inner life of that imagined passerby. Chuck first appears, oddly, on a billboard that haunts and confuses a local teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who's struggling to get his students to care about literature or education with the possible end of the world encroaching. It's a funny irony that many of the best King adaptations, like Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption, have come from the author's more warm-hearted tales. The Life of Chuck, which won the People's Choice Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, is after a similar spirit. The Stephen King industrial complex, meanwhile, keeps rolling along. Coming just this year are series of Welcome to Derry and The Institute and a film of The Long Walk. King, himself, just finished a draft of Talisman 3. "There are some days where I sit down and I think, 'This is going to be a really good day,' and it's not, at all," says King. "Then other days I sit down and think to myself, 'I'm really tired and don't feel like doing this,' and then it catches fire. You never know what you're going to get." Stephen King 's first editor, Bill Thompson, once said, "Steve has a movie camera in his head." So vividly drawn is King's fiction that it's offered the basis for some 50 feature films. For half a century, since Brian De Palma's 1976 film Carrie, Hollywood has turned, and turned again, to King's books for their richness of character, nightmare and sheer entertainment. Open up any of those books at random, and there's a decent chance you'll encounter a movie reference, too. Rita Hayworth. The Wizard of Oz. Singin' in the Rain. That King's books have been such fodder for the movies is owed, in part, to how much of a moviegoer their author is. "I love anything from The 400 Blows to something with that guy Jason Statham," King says, speaking by phone from his home in Maine. "The worst movie I ever saw was still a great way to spend an afternoon." Over time, King has developed a personal policy in how he talks about the adaptations of his books. "My idea is: If you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut," he says. The most notable exception was Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which King famously called "a big beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside". But every now and then, King is such a fan of an adaptation that he's excited to talk about it. That's very much the case with The Life of Chuck, Mike Flanagan's new adaptation of King's novella of the same name published in the 2020 collection If It Bleeds. In The Life of Chuck, there are separate storylines but the tone-setting opening is apocalyptic. The internet, like a dazed prize fighter, wobbles on its last legs before going down. California is said to be peeling away from the mainland "like old wallpaper". And yet in this doomsday tale, King is at his most sincere. The Life of Chuck, the book and the movie, is about what matters in life when everything else is lost. There is dancing, Walt Whitman and joy. "We understand that this guy's life is cut short, but that doesn't mean he doesn't experience joy," says King. "Existential dread and grief ... are part of the human experience, but so is joy." It's telling that when King, our preeminent purveyor of horror, writes about doom times, he ends up scaling it down to a single life. While darkness and doom mark his work, The Life of Chuck is a prime example of King, the humanist. "An awful lot of people assume, because he writes so much stuff that's so scary, they kind of forget the reason his horror works so well is he's always juxtaposing it with light and with love and with empathy," says Mike Flanagan, who has twice before adapted King (Doctor Sleep, Gerald's Game) and is in the midst of making a Carrie series for Amazon. "You forget that It isn't about the clown, it's about the kids and their friendship," adds Flanagan. "The Stand isn't about the virus or the demon taking over the world, it's ordinary people who have to come together and stand against a force they cannot defeat." King, 77, has written about 80 books, including the just released Never Flinch. The mystery thriller brings back King's recent favorite protagonist, the private investigator Holly Gibney, who made her stand-alone debut in If It Bleeds. It's Gibney's insecurities, and her willingness to push against them, that has kept King returning to her. Never Flinch is a reminder that King has always been less of a genre-first writer than a character-first one. He tends to fall in love with a character and follow them through thick and thin. "I'm always happy writing. That's why I do it so much," King says, chuckling. "I'm a very chipper guy because I get rid of all that dark stuff in the books." Dark stuff, as King says, hasn't been hard to come by lately. The kind of climate change disaster found in The Life of Chuck, King says, often dominates his anxieties. "We're creeping up little by little on being the one country who does not acknowledge it's a real problem with carbon in the atmosphere," King says. "That's crazy. Certain right-wing politicians can talk all they want about how we're saving the world for our grandchildren. They don't care about that. They care about money." The original germ for The Life of Chuck had nothing to do with current events. One day in Boston, King noticed a drummer busking on Boylston Street. He had the vision of a businessman in a suit who, walking by, can't resist dancing with abandon to the drummer's beat. King, a self-acknowledged dancer (though only in private, he notes), latched on to a story that would turn on the unpredictable nature of people, tracing the inner life of that imagined passerby. Chuck first appears, oddly, on a billboard that haunts and confuses a local teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who's struggling to get his students to care about literature or education with the possible end of the world encroaching. It's a funny irony that many of the best King adaptations, like Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption, have come from the author's more warm-hearted tales. The Life of Chuck, which won the People's Choice Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, is after a similar spirit. The Stephen King industrial complex, meanwhile, keeps rolling along. Coming just this year are series of Welcome to Derry and The Institute and a film of The Long Walk. King, himself, just finished a draft of Talisman 3. "There are some days where I sit down and I think, 'This is going to be a really good day,' and it's not, at all," says King. "Then other days I sit down and think to myself, 'I'm really tired and don't feel like doing this,' and then it catches fire. You never know what you're going to get." Stephen King 's first editor, Bill Thompson, once said, "Steve has a movie camera in his head." So vividly drawn is King's fiction that it's offered the basis for some 50 feature films. For half a century, since Brian De Palma's 1976 film Carrie, Hollywood has turned, and turned again, to King's books for their richness of character, nightmare and sheer entertainment. Open up any of those books at random, and there's a decent chance you'll encounter a movie reference, too. Rita Hayworth. The Wizard of Oz. Singin' in the Rain. That King's books have been such fodder for the movies is owed, in part, to how much of a moviegoer their author is. "I love anything from The 400 Blows to something with that guy Jason Statham," King says, speaking by phone from his home in Maine. "The worst movie I ever saw was still a great way to spend an afternoon." Over time, King has developed a personal policy in how he talks about the adaptations of his books. "My idea is: If you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut," he says. The most notable exception was Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which King famously called "a big beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside". But every now and then, King is such a fan of an adaptation that he's excited to talk about it. That's very much the case with The Life of Chuck, Mike Flanagan's new adaptation of King's novella of the same name published in the 2020 collection If It Bleeds. In The Life of Chuck, there are separate storylines but the tone-setting opening is apocalyptic. The internet, like a dazed prize fighter, wobbles on its last legs before going down. California is said to be peeling away from the mainland "like old wallpaper". And yet in this doomsday tale, King is at his most sincere. The Life of Chuck, the book and the movie, is about what matters in life when everything else is lost. There is dancing, Walt Whitman and joy. "We understand that this guy's life is cut short, but that doesn't mean he doesn't experience joy," says King. "Existential dread and grief ... are part of the human experience, but so is joy." It's telling that when King, our preeminent purveyor of horror, writes about doom times, he ends up scaling it down to a single life. While darkness and doom mark his work, The Life of Chuck is a prime example of King, the humanist. "An awful lot of people assume, because he writes so much stuff that's so scary, they kind of forget the reason his horror works so well is he's always juxtaposing it with light and with love and with empathy," says Mike Flanagan, who has twice before adapted King (Doctor Sleep, Gerald's Game) and is in the midst of making a Carrie series for Amazon. "You forget that It isn't about the clown, it's about the kids and their friendship," adds Flanagan. "The Stand isn't about the virus or the demon taking over the world, it's ordinary people who have to come together and stand against a force they cannot defeat." King, 77, has written about 80 books, including the just released Never Flinch. The mystery thriller brings back King's recent favorite protagonist, the private investigator Holly Gibney, who made her stand-alone debut in If It Bleeds. It's Gibney's insecurities, and her willingness to push against them, that has kept King returning to her. Never Flinch is a reminder that King has always been less of a genre-first writer than a character-first one. He tends to fall in love with a character and follow them through thick and thin. "I'm always happy writing. That's why I do it so much," King says, chuckling. "I'm a very chipper guy because I get rid of all that dark stuff in the books." Dark stuff, as King says, hasn't been hard to come by lately. The kind of climate change disaster found in The Life of Chuck, King says, often dominates his anxieties. "We're creeping up little by little on being the one country who does not acknowledge it's a real problem with carbon in the atmosphere," King says. "That's crazy. Certain right-wing politicians can talk all they want about how we're saving the world for our grandchildren. They don't care about that. They care about money." The original germ for The Life of Chuck had nothing to do with current events. One day in Boston, King noticed a drummer busking on Boylston Street. He had the vision of a businessman in a suit who, walking by, can't resist dancing with abandon to the drummer's beat. King, a self-acknowledged dancer (though only in private, he notes), latched on to a story that would turn on the unpredictable nature of people, tracing the inner life of that imagined passerby. Chuck first appears, oddly, on a billboard that haunts and confuses a local teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who's struggling to get his students to care about literature or education with the possible end of the world encroaching. It's a funny irony that many of the best King adaptations, like Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption, have come from the author's more warm-hearted tales. The Life of Chuck, which won the People's Choice Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, is after a similar spirit. The Stephen King industrial complex, meanwhile, keeps rolling along. Coming just this year are series of Welcome to Derry and The Institute and a film of The Long Walk. King, himself, just finished a draft of Talisman 3. "There are some days where I sit down and I think, 'This is going to be a really good day,' and it's not, at all," says King. "Then other days I sit down and think to myself, 'I'm really tired and don't feel like doing this,' and then it catches fire. You never know what you're going to get." Stephen King 's first editor, Bill Thompson, once said, "Steve has a movie camera in his head." So vividly drawn is King's fiction that it's offered the basis for some 50 feature films. For half a century, since Brian De Palma's 1976 film Carrie, Hollywood has turned, and turned again, to King's books for their richness of character, nightmare and sheer entertainment. Open up any of those books at random, and there's a decent chance you'll encounter a movie reference, too. Rita Hayworth. The Wizard of Oz. Singin' in the Rain. That King's books have been such fodder for the movies is owed, in part, to how much of a moviegoer their author is. "I love anything from The 400 Blows to something with that guy Jason Statham," King says, speaking by phone from his home in Maine. "The worst movie I ever saw was still a great way to spend an afternoon." Over time, King has developed a personal policy in how he talks about the adaptations of his books. "My idea is: If you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut," he says. The most notable exception was Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which King famously called "a big beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside". But every now and then, King is such a fan of an adaptation that he's excited to talk about it. That's very much the case with The Life of Chuck, Mike Flanagan's new adaptation of King's novella of the same name published in the 2020 collection If It Bleeds. In The Life of Chuck, there are separate storylines but the tone-setting opening is apocalyptic. The internet, like a dazed prize fighter, wobbles on its last legs before going down. California is said to be peeling away from the mainland "like old wallpaper". And yet in this doomsday tale, King is at his most sincere. The Life of Chuck, the book and the movie, is about what matters in life when everything else is lost. There is dancing, Walt Whitman and joy. "We understand that this guy's life is cut short, but that doesn't mean he doesn't experience joy," says King. "Existential dread and grief ... are part of the human experience, but so is joy." It's telling that when King, our preeminent purveyor of horror, writes about doom times, he ends up scaling it down to a single life. While darkness and doom mark his work, The Life of Chuck is a prime example of King, the humanist. "An awful lot of people assume, because he writes so much stuff that's so scary, they kind of forget the reason his horror works so well is he's always juxtaposing it with light and with love and with empathy," says Mike Flanagan, who has twice before adapted King (Doctor Sleep, Gerald's Game) and is in the midst of making a Carrie series for Amazon. "You forget that It isn't about the clown, it's about the kids and their friendship," adds Flanagan. "The Stand isn't about the virus or the demon taking over the world, it's ordinary people who have to come together and stand against a force they cannot defeat." King, 77, has written about 80 books, including the just released Never Flinch. The mystery thriller brings back King's recent favorite protagonist, the private investigator Holly Gibney, who made her stand-alone debut in If It Bleeds. It's Gibney's insecurities, and her willingness to push against them, that has kept King returning to her. Never Flinch is a reminder that King has always been less of a genre-first writer than a character-first one. He tends to fall in love with a character and follow them through thick and thin. "I'm always happy writing. That's why I do it so much," King says, chuckling. "I'm a very chipper guy because I get rid of all that dark stuff in the books." Dark stuff, as King says, hasn't been hard to come by lately. The kind of climate change disaster found in The Life of Chuck, King says, often dominates his anxieties. "We're creeping up little by little on being the one country who does not acknowledge it's a real problem with carbon in the atmosphere," King says. "That's crazy. Certain right-wing politicians can talk all they want about how we're saving the world for our grandchildren. They don't care about that. They care about money." The original germ for The Life of Chuck had nothing to do with current events. One day in Boston, King noticed a drummer busking on Boylston Street. He had the vision of a businessman in a suit who, walking by, can't resist dancing with abandon to the drummer's beat. King, a self-acknowledged dancer (though only in private, he notes), latched on to a story that would turn on the unpredictable nature of people, tracing the inner life of that imagined passerby. Chuck first appears, oddly, on a billboard that haunts and confuses a local teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who's struggling to get his students to care about literature or education with the possible end of the world encroaching. It's a funny irony that many of the best King adaptations, like Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption, have come from the author's more warm-hearted tales. The Life of Chuck, which won the People's Choice Award at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, is after a similar spirit. The Stephen King industrial complex, meanwhile, keeps rolling along. Coming just this year are series of Welcome to Derry and The Institute and a film of The Long Walk. King, himself, just finished a draft of Talisman 3. "There are some days where I sit down and I think, 'This is going to be a really good day,' and it's not, at all," says King. "Then other days I sit down and think to myself, 'I'm really tired and don't feel like doing this,' and then it catches fire. You never know what you're going to get."
Metro
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
13 'cursed' horror films - from tragic deaths to mysterious 'haunted' sets
Horror films are designed to terrify, but sometimes what happens behind the scenes can be so much scarier. For decades, some of the most frightening flicks to hit the big screen have been labelled 'cursed' by fans due to terrible things that happened during filming – and sometimes before it had even begun. The Wizard of Oz, Apocalypse Now, and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote are all films rumoured to have been cursed due to several dreadful occurrences, from onset mishaps, injuries, and even worse. Due to its chilling nature, horror cinema is automatically associated with gory and haunting happenings, so rumours surround several productions that the terrifying scenes onscreen seeped into real life. To mark Friday the 13th, we look at 13 spine-tingling horror films that gave the cast and crew nightmares even when the cameras stopped rolling. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Last year, Glenn Close's The Deliverance was hit by several strange instances one after the other that had fans scratching their heads and wondering if the set was haunted. The cast and crew of the Netflix hit reportedly held 'prayer circles' after director Lee Daniels' dog died, and actor Mo'Nique was rushed to hospital. 'Mr. Daniels had me doing a scene, okay? And we're outside. It was just, the demon was supposed to be on top of the building, so they kept blowing this… I mean, at one point I'm like, 'Lee, do we have this shit because I can't breathe,'' she told SiriusXM. 'So when I got finished, right, my thyroid was a big… I mean, it was just sick. 'Oh, baby. I was like, 'What kind of s**t is this?' It was a lot of things happening with The Deliverance.' Daniels also revealed his sister had been diagnosed with lung cancer two days after filming the chemotherapy scene with Close. It's just the latest in a long line of horror films that have had stranger than fiction events surrounding the production… The Exorcist is often cited as one of the scariest and greatest horror films ever made, but it was famously dogged with problems and freakish occurrences even before filming began. Shortly before filming began on the 1973 possession horror, the set of Regan and Chris MacNeil's home burned down unexpectedly. Further delays occurred when Linda Blair and Max von Sydow, who played Regan and Father Merrin respectively, lost close family members. Things didn't get much better when filming began, with Linda and Ellen Burstyn, who starred as Chris, both sustaining injuries on set – Linda even fractured her spine during the iconic bed possession scene, an injury that had lifelong implications. It has also been reported that one crew member lost a toe during filming, and another a thumb. Across the production of The Exorcist, nine deaths occurred including that of Jack MacGowran, who played Burke Dennings. Where to watch: BBC iPlayer, NOW TV, and Sky Go Lucifer himself appeared to be trying to stop The Omen in its tracks back in 1976. Two months before filming began, Robert Thorn actor Gregory Peck was struck by tragedy when his son took his own life. Later, in October 1975, Peck was travelling to London to film The Omen when his aeroplane was struck by lightning – and bizarrely, this isn't the only disruption lightning would cause. A few weeks later, producer Mace Neufeld was travelling to set when his aeroplane was also struck by lightning, and screenwriter David Seltzer also experienced the same occurrence. When filming began in Rome, producer Harvey Bernard narrowly avoided being hit by lightning – proving once, and for all, that lightning can strike twice… and more. A stroke of luck saw the crew avoid death when the charter plane they were set to use for an aerial shot was used by a group of businessmen, with the plane crashing and killing everyone on board. The hotel the director, Richard Donner, had been staying in was bombed by the IRA the day after filming, and a zookeeper at the safari park where they filmed the baboon scene was killed by a lion, also the day after those scenes were shot. A serious accident could have occurred on set when dogs used in a scene turned on a stuntman and could not be called off by their handlers. But the most infamous tragedy that happened that is attributed to The Omen is that of Liz Moore's death. She was the assistant and girlfriend of John Richardson, the film's special effects expert. The duo were involved in a car accident in the Netherlands in 1976. While Richardson escaped the wreck largely unscathed, Moore was decapitated. What makes it even more terrifying? The accident happened on Friday the 13th, and when John came to, he noticed a road sign that read 'Ommen, 66.6km'. Where to watch: Disney Plus Film fans have long suspected that 1982 horror film Poltergeist was cursed after supposedly using real, human skeletons in the first film, though this has never been confirmed. Before the third Poltergeist film was released in 1988, four cast members had died, including Heather O'Rourke who played Carol Anne in the original production. O'Rourke was just 12 years old when she died of congenital stenosis of the intestine complicated by septic shock on February 1, 1988, before filming of the third film wrapped. In the same year that the first film was released, Dominique Dunne, who starred as Dana, was strangled by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, in the driveway of her home. She fell into a coma and died five days later on November 4, 1982. Taylor actor Will Sampson died aged 53 from postoperative kidney failure in 1987, and Lou Perryman, who played Pugsley, was murdered by Seth Christopher Tatum in 2009 during a robbery. Oliver Robins, who played Robbie Freeling, was also almost killed while filming a scene where a clown was attacking him, after the mechanical clown malfunctioned and the actor was being choked for real. Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store Actor Brandon Lee – who was the son of Bruce Lee – was fatally shot on the set of The Crow when a prop gun was accidentally loaded with a real bullet, which hit him in the abdomen and caused his death. While that could easily be attributed to a freak accident, what makes it so much more creepy is the fact that he had apparently predicted his own death after having a premonition that he would die suddenly. Brandon is said to have believed his family was cursed after his grandfather had angered a businessman who had put a curse on them. His dad, Bruce Lee, also died at 32 after apparently having a premonition that he would only live half the time of his father, who died at age 64, due to the curse. Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store Twilight Zone: The Movie, released in 1983, suffered a terrible, tragic accident on set when three cast members were killed when filming the Time Out segment. Actor Victor Morrow, who played Bill Connor in the film, and two child actors, who had allegedly been illegally hired, were decapitated, crushed and killed on set when a low-flying helicopter spun out of control. The three were killed while filming a scene featuring heavy explosions when debris from the explosions flew 100 feet in the air and damaged the helicopter's rotor. During the subsequent trial, director John Landis denied culpability for the accident, but admitted that the hiring of the child actors Myca Dinh Le, 7, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, 6, was 'wrong.' Landis, associate producer George Folsey Jr, production manager Dan Allingham, pilot Dorcey Wingo, and explosives specialist Paul Stewart were later acquitted on charges of manslaughter Where to watch: Available to rent on Prime Video, Apple TV, and the Sky Store The Ring Two, directed by Hideo Nakata, was released in 2005 and had some very strange phenomena take place that suspiciously mimicked the events of the film. Nakata once revealed in an interview that water is used in the film to symbolize someone's evil spirit, and during production, the production office began flooding. The film's set costumer Jeannine Bourdaghs witnessed a strange occurrence on the Universal lot in which a deer, reported to be six feet tall, ran at her. She continued that if she had been 'six feet ahead', the deer would have ploughed into her at almost 100 miles-an-hour. This is particularly spooky as in the film, there is a scene in which Samara (Daveigh Chase) attempts to kill Rachel (Naomi Watts) and Aidan (David Dorfman) with a deer. Where to watch: NOW TV, Sky Go, and Paramount Plus For a film about a cursed doll, you would probably expect some eerie happenings on set – but maybe not this horrific. Both the first Annabelle film and its sequel, Annabelle Comes Home, had some very freaky stuff happen during filming, including light fixtures reportedly falling and the film's Annabelle doll moving on its own. Producer Peter Sarfan told The Hollywood Reporter: 'We shot in this amazing, old apartment building near Koreatown, and we had some funky stuff go down. 'In particular, the first day that the demon was shooting in full makeup, we brought him up in the elevator. He walks out and walks around to the green room to where we're holding the talent, and just as he walks under, the entire glass light fixture falls down on his head. And in the script, the demon kills the janitor in that hallway. It was totally freaky.' The doll itself is based on a 'real' haunted doll investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are fictionalised in these films as well as The Conjuring franchise. In the sequel, Madison Iseman said that when she would enter the Warrens' bedroom set, she would find the Annabelle doll in different positions each time despite no one entering or exiting the room. Star Mckenna Grace also reported experiencing a sudden nosebleed during rehearsals, and that one trailer had a strange power outage that the crew could not find the source of. Where to watch: NOW TV and Sky Go Rosemary's Baby centres on a pregnant woman who believes an evil cult wants to take her baby to use in their dark rituals. But the stories that surround the making of the 1968 movie are enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The most famous being the death of Roman Polanski's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, who was brutally murdered by Charles Manson's followers a year after the film was released. Producer William Castle also suffered sudden kidney failure after receiving hate mail about the film and apparently screamed 'Rosemary, for God's sake, drop the knife!' as he was being admitted to the hospital. He later died of a heart attack. The composer, Krzysztof Komeda, also died of a brain clot a year after the film was released in a weirdly similar way to how Rosemary's friend, Hutch dies in the movie. In another bizarre coincidence, Beatles star John Lennon was shot and killed outside the building in which Rosemary's apartment scenes were shot. Where to watch: NOW TV and Sky Go The ninth installment of the Amityville series, 2005's The Amityville Horror, focuses on the reported experiences of the Lutz family after they moved into a house in Long Island where Ronald DeFeo Jr murdered six members of his family in 1974, before they moved out just 28 days later after apparently being terrorised by the paranormal. All six of the victims were found face down in their beds with no signs of a struggle, despite police finding that the rifle used to kill them had not been fitted with a sound suppressor and they hadn't been drugged with sedatives before their deaths. None of the family's neighbours reported hearing any gunshots, and those who were awake at the time of the murders say they only heard the family's sheepdog, Shaggy, barking. Ryan Reynolds, who plays George Lutz in the film, reported that he and members of the crew kept waking up at 3.15am every day, which was the time Ronald DeFeo Jr was said to have murdered his parents and four siblings. Before filming began, a dead body of a fisherman also washed up on shore by the film set and the real Kathy Lutz also died during filming. Where to watch: Prime Video and Freevee There is a theme here of possession horror films seemingly being haunted, and that continues with the 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The film is loosely based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, a German woman whose family believed her to be demonically possessed. When filming The Exorcism of Emily Rose, director Scott Derrickson revealed that stars Jennifer Carpenter and Laura Linney experienced some chilling supernatural activity. Jennifer once claimed that a radio would inexplicably turn on in the middle of the night, which Scott confirmed to be true in an X post. She said it would play one section of the Pearl Jam song Alice over and over again, repeating the lyric 'I'm still alive.' 'I thought about that when it happened, and two or three times when I was going to sleep my radio came on by itself,' Jennifer told Dread Central. 'The only time it scared me was once because it was really loud and it was Pearl Jam's Alive.' She also said that 'Laura's TV came on a couple of times,' with Scott taking to social media to confirm the chilling story. 'This is true. Also, Laura Linney's radio turned on at night 3 times during production,' he said. Life imitates art in The Innkeepers, Ti West's terrifying supernatural film about a haunted hotel on the brink of closure. While filming The House of the Devil the cast and crew stayed at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, experiencing some strange phenomena during their time there. The staff at the inn believed it to be haunted, which inspired Ti to create The Innkeepers. During the production of the second film, people on set claimed that lights would switch on and off for no reason, doors would swing open and shut, and cast members would receive phone calls with no one on the other end of the line. 'Well I'm a skeptic so I don't really buy it. But I've definitely seen doors close by themselves; I've seen a TV turn off and on by itself; lights would always burn out in my room. Everyone on crew has very vivid dreams every night, which is really strange,' the director told IndieWire. 'The one story that is the most intriguing to me — In the film the most haunted room is the Honeymoon Suite. That's where the ghost stuff started in the hotel. The only reason I picked the room that I picked to shoot in, was because it was big enough to do a dolly shot. No more thought went into it other than pure technical reasons. 'So when we're finishing the movie, I find out that the most haunted room in real life, is the room I picked to be the haunted room in the movie. It could be a coincidence. It's weird that it happened that way.' James Wan was rumoured to have shot hit 2010 film Insidious on cursed grounds when a number of terrifying things happened on set – and this continued into the sequel. Insidious: Chapter Two featured a scene set in an abandoned hospital in which the ghost of a patient haunts a nurse after taking their own life. It was filmed at Los Angeles' Linda Vista Community Hospital, a notorious haunted hotspot among the paranormal community. Cast and crew members reported feeling nauseous while in the building and hearing a ringing sound without ever finding the source of the noise. Saw creator James told Bloody Disgusting: 'I've never shot in Linda Vista. It's kind of funny because Leigh [Whannell] and I have always heard so much about it. For research on the first one, [Leigh] came here to do a bit of ghost-hunting. And I think a lot of that inspired us when we needed a hospital set.' Whannell added: 'I've been here twice, after midnight with ghost hunters. We found these guys on the internet. We went to dinner with them and then they brought us here to Linda Vista, which I didn't know existed. The one security guard lets us in. More Trending 'We walk into this ostensibly abandoned hospital where all the equipment and files have been left as they were on the day it closed down. [Later on] I came here with my wife and we sat in the surgical room, which is supposedly the most haunted room according to these guys.' The filmmaker said they sat in darkness for an hour trying to contact spirits, but experienced nothing. He continues, 'A few months later her friend buys her a voucher to go see this psychic. And he basically asked her, 'have you been to this place recently?' And she said, 'we kind of went on this ghost hunt.' And the guy was like, 'you can never go there again. You came this close to taking something home with you.' 'He asked her if she had seen any blue lights, and she said that she had remembered looking up and seeing these little blue pin lights – she thought it was when you can't see anything and see all these shapes and colors [instead]. And he said, 'that was your aunt and your stepbrother holding them back [the spirits].'' Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: It's Friday the 13th so why not binge these 5 truly terrifying TV shows MORE: 'Chilling' horror with 91% on Rotten Tomatoes soars up Amazon Prime chart MORE: Keira Knightley says Pirates of the Caribbean gave her 'terrible actress' label
Time of India
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
'Spaceballs 2' in works, Bill Pullman and Rick Moranis to return
A sequel to popular Hollywood space parody movie "Spaceballs" is in development at Amazon MGM Studios with original stars Bill Pullman and Rick Moranis set to return. Actor Josh Gad is on board to star and produce the project alongside 99-year-old Hollywood veteran Mel Brooks , who had co-written, directed and produced the original 1987 cult classic. The new film is being directed by Josh Greenbaum, with a screenplay by Gad, Benji Samit, and Dan Hernandez, according to entertainment news outlet The Hollywood Reporter. "Spaceballs", which was a parody on popular sci-fi movies like "Star Wars", "Star Trek", "Alien" and "The Wizard of Oz", followed mercenary Lone Starr (Pullman) and his sidekick Barf (John Candy) rescue Princess Vespa and her droid from the evil Spaceballs, who plan to steal Druidia's air. Stranded on a desert moon, they meet Yogurt (Brooks), who teaches Starr the power of "the Schwartz". Meanwhile, the bumbling Dark Helmet (Moranis) and Colonel Sandurz try to hunt them down. The plot details of the sequel are not known yet. Pullman's son, "ThuNderbolts" star Lewis Pullman, will also feature in the movie along with fellow newcomer Keke Palmer. Imagine's Brian Grazer and Jeb Brody are producing alongside Gad, Brooks and Greenbaum. Kevin Slater, Adam Merims, Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez will executive produce. The film is expected to be released in theatres in 2027. PTI
