100 Fun Facts About Ghost Movie

What was the profession of Patrick Swayze's Sam Wheat in Ghost (1990)?

Sam Wheat is a Banker at a Manhattan bank; his colleague and best friend Carl Bruner arranged the mugging to get the password book Sam used for the accounts Carl was laundering money through.

Who won Best Supporting Actress for playing psychic con artist Oda Mae Brown in Ghost?

Whoopi Goldberg won the Oscar as Oda Mae Brown, though the screenwriter had told casting agents 'anybody but Whoopi' until her audition tape won him over.

Ghost (1990) was directed by Jerry Zucker, previously best known for which comedy?

Jerry Zucker co-directed the 1980 spoof Airplane! with Jim Abrahams and David Zucker, which is why Ghost's screenwriter feared his supernatural romance would be turned into a comedy.

Which actor, then married to Ghost star Demi Moore, turned down the lead role of Sam Wheat?

Bruce Willis passed, saying he couldn't see how a dead man could carry a romance, and later called himself a knucklehead for it.

The vocal version of Unchained Melody heard in Ghost was recorded in 1965 by which act?

The Righteous Brothers cut it in 1965 as a Bobby Hatfield solo, and the film sent that recording back to the top of Billboard's adult contemporary chart 25 years later.

What one-word reply does Sam give Molly in Ghost whenever she says she loves him?

Sam's reply is 'Ditto', never the words themselves; when Oda Mae passes 'Ditto' on to a sceptical Molly, it convinces her that Sam is really in the room.

Which film finished second to Ghost at the worldwide box office among 1990 releases?

Home Alone took about $477 million worldwide to Ghost's $500 million-plus, although the Christmas comedy comfortably out-earned Ghost in North American cinemas.

Poltergeist (1982) is credited to Tobe Hooper, but which producer, who wrote the story, is thought to have shaped it?

Steven Spielberg produced Poltergeist and wrote its story; his E.T. contract barred him from directing another film at the same time, so Tobe Hooper was hired to direct.

In Poltergeist, five-year-old Carol Anne first talks to the spirits through what household object?

The television set is her channel to the spirits: she talks to its static after the station signs off, and the next night a ghostly hand reaches out and she announces 'They're here.'

The Freelings' haunted subdivision in Poltergeist, Cuesta Verde, was built on top of what?

A cemetery lay beneath Cuesta Verde: the developer moved the headstones but left the bodies, which is why coffins erupt from the ground in the climax.

In The Sixth Sense, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe works with young Cole in which city?

Philadelphia is the film's setting; Shyamalan, raised in the nearby suburb of Penn Valley, also set his follow-up Unbreakable in the city.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination at 11 for playing Cole Sear, who sees dead people, in The Sixth Sense?

Haley Joel Osment lost the supporting-actor Oscar to Michael Caine, who told him from the stage: 'Haley, when I saw you I thought, well, that's me out of it.'

The Others (2001), starring Nicole Kidman, is set in 1945 on which island?

The Others takes place on Jersey in 1945, just after the German occupation of the Channel Islands ended; Grace keeps the manor dark because her children are photosensitive.

Who wrote, directed and scored The Others?

Alejandro Amenábar wrote, directed and scored it, and although it was shot in English it won Best Film at Spain's Goya Awards.

In The Conjuring (2013), Ed and Lorraine Warren help the Perron family in a farmhouse in which state?

The Perron farmhouse is in Harrisville, Rhode Island, where the real family moved in 1971; the film opens with the Annabelle doll case that seeded the wider series.

Which actors play Ed and Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring films?

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga play the Warrens in every Conjuring film; the real couple also investigated the Amityville house, the case that opens The Conjuring 2.

In Beetlejuice, how many times must the ghost Betelgeuse's name be said to summon him?

Saying his name Three times summons him: the Maitlands do it in Adam's model of the town, and Lydia later repeats it to bring him back during Otho's séance.

Beetlejuice won its only Academy Award in which category?

Best Makeup went to Ve Neill, Steve La Porte and Robert Short, whose ghouls were built by hand and mostly filmed live on set with old-style tricks.

In Beetlejuice, what creatures prowl the desert the dead Maitlands find outside their front door?

Sandworms chase the couple back indoors whenever they step outside, and their caseworker Juno tells them they must stay in the house for 125 years.

The 2024 sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opened which film festival before its September release?

Venice opened with Tim Burton's sequel, which he had stripped back to basics, leaning on puppets and practical effects to keep it feeling handmade.

The 1995 film Casper is set in Whipstaff Manor in a town called Friendship, in which state?

Whipstaff Manor stands in Friendship, Maine; Christina Ricci's Kat moves in when heiress Carrigan Crittenden hires her ghost-therapist father to clear the house.

Casper (1995) holds what distinction in film history?

Casper is credited as the First feature with a fully CGI lead character: Industrial Light & Magic animated the ghost, voiced by Malachi Pearson, months before Toy Story became the first all-CGI feature.

In Kubrick's film of The Shining, the Overlook Hotel's chef warns Danny to stay out of which room?

Kubrick's film uses room 237 where Stephen King's novel had 217; the hotel used for the exterior shots is said to have asked for a number none of its own rooms carried.

Exterior shots of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining were filmed at which real place?

Timberline Lodge, Oregon, on the slopes of Mount Hood, supplied the Overlook's establishing shots; the interiors were built at Elstree Studios in England.

In The Ring (2002), how long do viewers of the cursed videotape have left to live?

After the tape ends, a phone call tells the viewer they have Seven days; Naomi Watts plays Rachel Keller, the journalist who watches it and races that deadline.

The Ring is a remake of a 1998 Japanese film directed by whom?

Hideo Nakata directed Ringu, released in Japan in January 1998, and later went to Hollywood himself to direct the American sequel The Ring Two in 2005.

In Ju-On: The Grudge, what is the name of the wife murdered by Takeo Saeki?

Kayako Saeki is killed by her jealous husband Takeo, along with their son Toshio; her rage becomes the curse that dooms anyone who enters the house.

Which director made both Insidious and The Conjuring?

James Wan directed Insidious in 2010 and The Conjuring in 2013, reuniting on the first with Leigh Whannell, his co-writer on Saw, who also appears as ghost hunter Specs.

In Insidious, what is the name of the purgatory-like realm where Dalton's spirit becomes trapped?

The Further is the dark astral realm where Dalton, born able to astral project, wandered too far and became trapped, leaving his body unresponsive.

Paranormal Activity (2007) was famously shot for roughly how much?

Oren Peli made Paranormal Activity for about $15,000 in his own San Diego house, writing, directing, shooting and editing it himself; it went on to gross over $190 million worldwide.

Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak (2015) is set in a crumbling Gothic mansion in which part of England?

Allerdale Hall stands in Cumberland, in England's far north-west; the blood-coloured clay beneath it seeps up through the snow, giving the estate its 'Crimson Peak' nickname.

Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963) is adapted from a 1959 novel by which author?

Shirley Jackson wrote The Haunting of Hill House; Wise filmed its New England mansion in the English Midlands, at Ettington Park in Warwickshire.

The Innocents (1961), starring Deborah Kerr as a governess at Bly, is based on which Henry James novella?

The Turn of the Screw, Henry James's 1898 novella, supplied the story; Truman Capote reworked William Archibald's first-draft screenplay for director Jack Clayton.

The Changeling (1980), with George C. Scott in a haunted Seattle mansion, is a production of which country?

The Changeling was made in Canada: its Seattle mansion was only a façade built on a Vancouver lot, and it won Best Motion Picture at the first Genie Awards.

Robert Zemeckis directed What Lies Beneath (2000) during a break from shooting which other film?

Zemeckis shot What Lies Beneath while the Cast Away production paused so that Tom Hanks could lose weight for the island scenes.

The Orphanage (2007) was the debut of which director, who later made Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom?

J. A. Bayona made his feature debut with The Orphanage, produced by his friend Guillermo del Toro; he went on to The Impossible and A Monster Calls before Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone (2001) is set in an orphanage during which conflict?

The orphanage stands in the final year of The Spanish Civil War, 1939; an unexploded bomb sits in its courtyard, and the ghost is Santi, a boy who vanished when it fell.

Which revived British studio produced Daniel Radcliffe's The Woman in Black (2012)?

Hammer, the revived British horror studio, produced it, and a worldwide gross of over $120 million led the studio to commission a sequel, Angel of Death.

In David Lowery's A Ghost Story (2017), Casey Affleck spends most of the film as a ghost wearing what?

Affleck's ghost wears A white bedsheet with two eyeholes cut out, a child's costume played straight; Rooney Mara's widow eats an entire pie in one unbroken take.

Which actor plays a psychic architect who cons people alongside ghosts in The Frighteners (1996)?

Michael J. Fox plays Frank Bannister, a psychic who stages hauntings with his ghost friends and then charges to exorcise them; Robert Zemeckis produced the film.

In Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), Alan Rickman returns as the ghost of a man who played which instrument?

Cello was even the film's working title: Jamie is a cellist who returns to his grieving partner Nina, a part Anthony Minghella wrote specially for Juliet Stevenson.

David Lean's Blithe Spirit (1945), about a novelist's dead first wife summoned at a séance, is based on a play by whom?

Noël Coward wrote Blithe Spirit for the stage in 1941; Margaret Rutherford carried her Madame Arcati over from that production, and the film won an Oscar for its special effects.

In the 1937 comedy Topper, which future superstar plays George Kerby, a fun-loving ghost?

Cary Grant's George Kerby dies with his wife Marion in a car crash, and the two ghosts decide their good deed will be to loosen up their staid friend Cosmo Topper.

The 1944 haunted-house classic The Uninvited introduced which song that became a jazz standard?

Victor Young wrote Stella by Starlight as a wordless theme for the film, whose haunted young heroine is Stella Meredith; lyrics followed, and Frank Sinatra's 1947 recording became a hit.

The 1964 Japanese ghost anthology Kwaidan adapts folktales collected by which writer?

Lafcadio Hearn, a Greek-born writer who settled in Japan as Koizumi Yakumo, collected the tales; Masaki Kobayashi's film includes Hoichi the Earless, about a blind biwa player.

William Castle promoted House on Haunted Hill (1959) with "Emergo", which sent what flying over the audience?

Emergo sent A skeleton on a wire gliding over the audience during the climax, matching the one on screen; Vincent Price's millionaire offers guests $10,000 to survive a night in the house.

In Field of Dreams, the ghosts of which team emerge from Ray Kinsella's cornfield?

Shoeless Joe Jackson leads the ghosts of The 1919 Chicago Black Sox, the eight players banned for throwing that year's World Series; Burt Lancaster made his final film appearance as Moonlight Graham.

In Ghost Town (2008), Ricky Gervais's dentist starts seeing ghosts after briefly dying during what?

A colonoscopy under general anaesthetic leaves Bertram Pincus dead for seven minutes, and afterwards Manhattan's ghosts pester him to settle their unfinished business.

In Scrooged (1988), Bill Murray's Frank Cross is a cynical executive in what industry?

Frank Cross runs the IBC Television network and is staging a live Christmas Carol; Carol Kane's Ghost of Christmas Present beats him up and David Johansen's Ghost of Christmas Past drives a cab.

The Ghostbusters run their business out of what kind of building?

They buy A disused firehouse in Tribeca and put the containment unit in its basement; the exterior is the real Hook & Ladder 8 station on North Moore Street.

Sinister (2012) stars Ethan Hawke as a true-crime writer who finds snuff films shot on what format?

The footage was shot on real Super 8 stock; a 2020 heart-rate study named Sinister the scariest film ever made.

Talk to Me (2022), where teens contact spirits through an embalmed hand, comes from which country?

Talk to Me was made in Australia, shot in Adelaide by brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, who came from the YouTube channel RackaRacka; A24 released it in 2023.

Stir of Echoes (1999), with Kevin Bacon as a lineman who sees visions after hypnosis, is adapted from a novel by whom?

Richard Matheson's 1958 novel A Stir of Echoes was the basis: hypnotised by his sister-in-law, Tom starts seeing a teenage girl who vanished from the neighbourhood.

What had happened a year earlier in the Long Island house dramatised in The Amityville Horror (1979)?

A son shot his family there: Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his parents and siblings in November 1974, and the film itself was shot in Toms River, not in Amityville.

In Just Like Heaven (2005), Reese Witherspoon's apartment-haunting spirit is no ghost because she is what?

In a coma since a car crash, Witherspoon's character is still alive, and doctors are pressing her sister to switch off her life support.

Which clipper ship, wrecked a century earlier, do the revenants in The Fog (1980) come from?

The Elizabeth Dane was lured onto the rocks in 1880 by Antonio Bay's founders, who stole its gold to stop its leprosy-stricken owner Blake founding a colony nearby.

Which 1999 release was the only film to out-gross The Sixth Sense worldwide that year?

The Phantom Menace alone beat it: The Sixth Sense took over $670 million on a $40 million budget, then went home from the Oscars with six nominations and no wins.

Who wrote the screenplay for Ghost (1990)?

Bruce Joel Rubin wrote Ghost and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for it; his pottery-wheel scene was parodied the next year in The Naked Gun 2½.

Beetlejuice's soundtrack leans heavily on calypso recordings by which singer?

Harry Belafonte's calypso records supply the film's signature numbers: the possessed dinner party dances to 'Day-O' and the finale is set to 'Jump in the Line'.

In Poltergeist, which spiritual medium explains that Carol Anne is trapped on another plane?

Tangina Barrons, played by the diminutive Zelda Rubinstein, tells the Freelings that Carol Anne is alive but on another plane, and later delivers the line 'This house is clean.'

In Ghostbusters (1984), what giant form does the god Gozer finally take?

Ray picks the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man by accident: told to choose the Destructor's form, he tries to think of something harmless from his childhood, and the giant mascot comes striding up the street.

In Ghostbusters II, which landmark do the team bring to life with positively charged slime?

They pilot The Statue of Liberty through Manhattan with thousands of New Yorkers cheering, and that goodwill weakens the slime shell sealing Vigo's museum.

Disney's 2003 film The Haunted Mansion stars which comedian as a workaholic realtor?

Eddie Murphy plays Jim Evers, a realtor who drags his family to Gracey Manor on the way to a holiday; the film opened in November 2003, the same year as Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride adaptation.

In The Sixth Sense, which colour is kept off screen so it jolts when it finally appears?

Red is kept off screen so the basement doorknob, Cole's tent and the balloon at the birthday party jolt when they appear; Shyamalan reserved it for anything in the real world touched by the other world.

The 1944 comedy The Canterville Ghost is loosely based on an 1887 story by which writer?

Oscar Wilde wrote The Canterville Ghost in 1887, about an American family unfazed by an English ghost; Charles Laughton plays Sir Simon, a cowardly 17th-century knight doomed to haunt the castle until a descendant performs a brave deed.

Winchester (2018) stars Helen Mirren as the heiress to a fortune built on what product?

Rifles made the family fortune: Sarah Winchester was heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and the film, set in 1906, has her ever-expanding San Jose mansion built to house the spirits of those its guns killed.

Ecto-1, the Ghostbusters' car, is a converted 1959 ambulance from which manufacturer?

Ecto-1 is a 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor ambulance that Ray buys for $4,800 as a wreck needing a long list of repairs; the 2016 reboot swapped in a 1980s Cadillac hearse.

In The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Rex Harrison's ghost had what profession in life?

Captain Daniel Gregg was a Sea captain in life and insists his death at Gull Cottage was no suicide: he kicked open the gas heater valve in his sleep.

In Netflix's We Have a Ghost (2023), who plays Ernest, the ghost who goes viral online?

David Harbour plays Ernest, a mute ghost named after the bowling shirt he wears; Christopher Landon adapted Geoff Manaugh's 2017 short story 'Ernest' for Netflix.

The Frighteners (1996) was an early Hollywood-backed film for which director?

Peter Jackson made it in New Zealand, and its unusually heavy load of digital effects shots stretched his young company Weta Digital, later the effects house for his Lord of the Rings films.

In Thirteen Ghosts (2001), the ghosts are held in a house made almost entirely of what?

The house is built of Glass panels etched with Latin containment spells, and the ghosts inside can only be seen through special spectral glasses.

Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters theme drew a lawsuit from which musician over its melody?

Huey Lewis sued in 1984, claiming the theme copied his hit 'I Want a New Drug'; the case settled out of court, and Parker later sued Lewis for discussing the settlement on VH1's Behind the Music.

A night at which Colorado hotel inspired Stephen King to write The Shining?

The Stanley in Estes Park inspired it: King and his wife Tabitha checked in as it shut for the winter in 1974 and were almost the only guests; a hedge maze honouring Kubrick's film was added in 2015.

The Conjuring 2 (2016) dramatises a 1977 poltergeist case in which London borough?

The case centred on a council house in Enfield, north London, from 1977; investigators were divided, and a ventriloquist who visited judged Janet Hodgson's gruff 'spirit' voice a vocal trick.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) sends Egon Spengler's grandchildren to a farm in which state?

The farm is in Summerville, Oklahoma, a fictional town beside a mine once owned by the occultist Ivo Shandor; the film was actually shot around Calgary, Alberta.

ParaNorman (2012), about a boy who talks to the dead, came from which stop-motion studio?

Laika, based in Hillsboro, Oregon, made ParaNorman after Coraline; the puppets' many replacement faces were 3-D printed, a technique the studio had pioneered on the earlier film.

In Heart and Souls (1993), who plays a man guided by four ghosts killed in a 1959 bus crash?

Robert Downey Jr. plays Thomas Reilly, born at the moment the four strangers' San Francisco bus crashed in 1959; the ghosts withdraw during his childhood and return in 1993 to settle their unfinished business.

Who directed the female-led Ghostbusters reboot of 2016?

Paul Feig directed and co-wrote it with Katie Dippold; the studio added Answer the Call to tell it apart from the 1984 film, and Feig agreed only if it stayed in the end credits.

The real Annabelle behind the films is what kind of toy?

The real Annabelle is A Raggedy Ann doll, which the Warrens kept in a locked case at their Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut; the filmmakers swapped the cloth toy for a sinister porcelain one.

Audrey Hepburn's final screen role was in which 1989 ghost romance about an aerial firefighter?

In Always, Hepburn plays Hap, the spirit who tells Richard Dreyfuss's dead pilot that his new job is to guide the living; the film remakes 1943's A Guy Named Joe.

In 1408 (2007), John Cusack checks into the cursed room of which New York hotel?

The Dolphin is the hotel; the film adapts a 1999 Stephen King story, and Samuel L. Jackson plays manager Gerald Olin, who begs Cusack's sceptical writer not to take room 1408.

In Hong Kong's The Eye (2002), a blind violinist starts seeing ghosts after what transplant?

Mun's sight is restored by a Cornea transplant, but she begins seeing the dead her donor saw; the Pang brothers' film was remade in Hollywood in 2008 with Jessica Alba.

Shutter (2004), about a photographer haunted through his pictures, comes from which country?

Shutter was made in Thailand by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom; the 2008 Hollywood remake starring Joshua Jackson moved the story to Tokyo.

The 1999 remake of The Haunting was directed by which filmmaker, best known for Speed?

Jan de Bont, the director of Speed and Twister, made the remake, in which Liam Neeson's doctor gathers volunteers at Hill House for an insomnia study that is really an experiment in fear.

Mama (2013), grown from an Argentine short, was the debut of which future It director?

Andy Muschietti expanded his 2008 short into the feature, with Jessica Chastain as the reluctant guardian of two girls raised in the woods by a spectral protector; Guillermo del Toro executive-produced.

The 2004 US remake The Grudge, with Sarah Michelle Gellar, was directed by whom?

Takashi Shimizu, who created the original Ju-On films, directed the Hollywood remake himself, with Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures producing and the story kept in Tokyo.

Ghost Story (1981), from Peter Straub's novel, was the final film of which dancing legend?

Fred Astaire's last film role was Ricky Hawthorne, one of four old friends who meet as the Chowder Society to swap scary stories and who share a guilty secret about a woman's death.

In The Ghost Breakers (1940), Bob Hope joins an heiress at her haunted mansion in which country?

The castle stands on an island off Cuba, inherited by Paulette Goddard's heiress; director George Marshall remade the story in 1953 as Scared Stiff with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

In Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse (2001), ghosts begin invading the living world through what?

The dead seep through The internet, via a website asking 'Would you like to meet a ghost?'; set against mass disappearances across Japan, it was remade in English in 2006.

In Dark Water (2005), Jennifer Connelly moves into a grim apartment block in which part of NYC?

Roosevelt Island is where Dahlia rents a run-down apartment; the dark water leaking through her ceiling leads her to the rooftop water tank, where she finds a drowned girl's body.

His House (2020) follows a refugee couple from which country, haunted in their new English home?

Bol and Rial fled South Sudan's civil war and crossed the Channel in an overcrowded boat; assigned a shabby house on the edge of London, they find a night witch, an apeth, has followed them.

In the 1977 Japanese cult film House (Hausu), which object comes to life and eats one of the schoolgirls?

A piano bites off the music-loving Melody's fingers as she plays, then eats her; director Nobuhiko Obayashi built the film on fears suggested by his young daughter Chigumi.

Dead of Night (1945), famed for its ventriloquist's dummy segment, came from which British studio?

Ealing, a studio far better known for its comedies, made the portmanteau film; the dummy, Hugo, torments Michael Redgrave's ventriloquist Maxwell Frere in the closing story.

In The Awakening (2011), Rebecca Hall's hoax-buster investigates a ghost at what kind of place?

A boys' boarding school in 1921 England calls in Florence Cathcart, who exposes fraudulent spiritualists, after sightings of a ghostly child and the death of a pupil.

Carnival of Souls (1962) filmed its ghostly dance scenes in an abandoned amusement pavilion outside which city?

Saltair, a derelict resort on the Great Salt Lake near Salt Lake City, is the carnival; Herk Harvey made the film for about $30,000 and saved money by playing the lead ghoul himself.

Ugetsu (1953), in which a potter is seduced by the ghostly Lady Wakasa, was directed by whom?

Kenji Mizoguchi directed Ugetsu, which won the Silver Lion in 1953; the potter leaves his wife Miyagi for Lady Wakasa and returns home to learn she was killed while he was away.

Ti West's The Innkeepers (2011) is set in which real Connecticut hotel?

The Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington is the location; West's crew had lodged there while shooting The House of the Devil, and some of them reported strange experiences.

Personal Shopper (2016), with Kristen Stewart as a Paris medium, won Cannes Best Director for whom?

Olivier Assayas shared the 2016 Best Director prize with Romania's Cristian Mungiu, who won for Graduation; Stewart's Maureen is trying to reach her dead twin brother Lewis.

Ghost Stories (2017), with Martin Freeman, was adapted from a stage play by Jeremy Dyson and whom?

Andy Nyman co-wrote the 2010 play with Jeremy Dyson and reprises his stage role as Professor Goodman, a debunker of psychics confronted with hauntings he cannot explain.

In A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), Leslie Cheung falls for a beautiful ghost played by which actress?

Joey Wong plays the ghost Nie Xiaoqian, enslaved by a tree demon until Leslie Cheung's timid traveller resolves to free her soul; Tsui Hark produced and Ching Siu-tung directed.