This week’s poltergeist focus was, of course, inspired by the recent death of actress Zelda Rubinstein, who portrayed indefatigable medium Tangina Barrons in three Poltergeist movies and an episode of the short-lived Poltergeist television show. Barrons was one of many lucky performers spared from the infamous Poltergeist curse, which, if one is to believe the spooksational tale, felled four actors over the course of the three-film series: Dominique Dunne, who was strangled to death; Julian Beck, who died of stomach cancer; Will Sampson, who died of kidney failure; and Heather O’Rourke, who died from septic shock. Craig T. Nelson is still surly and kickin’.

I’d go into to greater detail, but everyone’s heard tell of the legendary the Poltergeist curse. Instead, let’s take a look at several of Hollywood’s lesser known, but equally shockifying, hexed films:

Citizen Kane (1941)

Though Orson Wells’ lived for 44 years after the production of his early opus, the supervising coroner at the Hollywood polymath’s autopsy has stated (off the record) that, while no surface injuries were detected, Wells’ innards were “violently trisected… as if sliced through by the sharpened runners of some phantom sled.”

Them! (1954)

Them!’s theme of hideous consequences wrought by an irresponsible nuclear age were mirrored by real life when several of the film’s cast and crew began to develop a series of strange physical mutations. Some performers – such as Joan Weldon, who sprouted a series of light-sensitive horns down the length of her spine – managed to keep their deformities secret; others – including Edmund Gwenn, whose teeth and fingernails reversed painfully back into his body – were forced to leave show business forever.

Rocky III (1982)

Rocky III is one of the few films that may have suffered from an actual magical curse. During one of the street scenes, Director Sylvester Stallone repeatedly asked a mysterious old woman to move out of a shot. Though the woman left without protest, she blew a palmful of strange yellow powder at one of the cameras. When that day’s reels were developed, the dusted camera’s film contained frame after frame of two-headed animals, leprous genitals and baby amputees. Stallone quietly ordered that the camera be blessed, encased in cement and buried beneath St. Peter’s Church in Philadelphia. Since then, a wary Stallone has allowed myriad old women to loiter, undisturbed, throughout his movies’ sets.

Swimfan (2002)

Rumor has it that Actress Erika Christensen actually drowned while shooting Swimfan’s thrilling climax, which was shot early on in the film’s production. The incident was kept secret for insurance reasons and a lookalike was brought in to film the rest of Christensen’s scenes. When the lookalike died in a tragic car accident just two days after production wrapped, the studio was forced to scout out a second lookalike, who, to this day, is still posing as Erika Christensen’s original secret lookalike.

Juno (2007)

Over the course of Juno’s 30-day shoot, Ellen Paige regurgitated over 75 pounds of human hair.

Even if Apple’s already-divisive iPad doesn’t herald in a new age of laptop computing, it certainly offers a giant leap forward in tablet technology. This Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Weird Things is paying tribute to the fantastic tablets of yesteryear, and the brave tableteers who sculpted them.

Today: Curse Tablets

If you’re anything like me, the escape plan appended to your Ty Diggs assassination scheme involves traveling back to ancient Greece, and getting a job as Zeus’ animal-transformation/rape coordinator. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I just read this thing about cursed tablets – metal plates with etched binding spells designed to exact bloody revenge against, or coax games of footsy from, your fellow Greeks (Yes. Romans, too. Who are you?). All it takes is a thin sheet of lead (cheap and readily available), a gruesomely (or erotically) worded request to the appropriate god and, depending on the request, a small figurine of the spell’s intended target. Bada-boom! Curse tablet. Sure – the love spells can be tricky, and often require a lock of the intended’s hair followed by careful concealment of the entire schmear in said intended’s place of dwelling, but the other ones? (Especially the violent ones?) You just fold or roll the sucker up, maybe knock a nail through it (to ensure that the invoked magics are bound to the victim) and install it wherever it needs installing (most infernal gods prefer that tablet requests be buried in a sepulcher or tomb, thrown down a well or affixed, Luther-style, to a temple).

Now, folks with mystic inclinations and an affinity for light metalwork will, of course, render these tablets for themselves. That usually means love spells (which come in both “force sexual relations” and “encourage adorable affection”), but those are the more complicated ones, anyway. The mojo-carriers you want focus on are simple, cold-hearted vengeance curses, which were produced en masse by various tablet artisans. These generic vengeance tablets, complete with a blank space just itching to have a disreputable’s name etched into it, were mainly sold outside courtrooms. Greeks tried to do things democratically, but what’s democracy without a little third-party hoodoo laying its fat finger on the scales of Justice? Folks embroiled in court battles would purchase tablets begging the gods to screw with their legal opponents’ court performances, thereby, creating litigation foibles of “Liar, Liar” proportions.

And if ancient Greece isn’t really your thing – maybe you were thinking about one of the Roman Empire’s British providences, or perhaps even ancient Egypt – that’s fine, too. In fact, in the popular past-tense resort town of Aquae Sulis (now Bath, England), archaeologists have unearthed over 100 curse tablets, most of them damning the towel and clothing thieves who made a living off the untended bathing accoutrements of Aquae Sulis vacationers. And in 12th century Egypt, where they never really cottoned to all this tablet stuff, people used “execration texts” – spells etched into clay statues and pottery – to bring on all sorts of glorious misfortune. Just craft, etch, and bury or shatter. Execration complete!

Oh, and not all the “curse tablets” summoned actual curses. For example – you can work with a town to create “judicial prayers,” which are essentially curse tablets aimed at anonymous criminals who did the locals dirty. Or you could etch tablets designed to help the dead find peace in the afterlife. But if you had wanted to do that, you probably wouldn’t have subjected Ty Diggs to the sort of violent death that’s almost certain to turn him into a ghost so that now other ghosts have to hang out with him.

Cursed tablets. Think on it.

Meet the Crying Boy.

In his wake, he’s allegedly left dozens of homes completely ravaged by fire. According to some reports in the UK, over 50 fires have been fought where this painting has been the only piece of art or furniture to survive.

It has since been revealed that the paintings have not always been the same exact picture, many have been traced back to Spanish artist Bruno Amadio.

Are the portraits cursed, creepy relics and harbingers of disaster? Or are they just shockingly flame-retardent department store art favored by tasteless English housewives?

Find one mutilated animal carcass wrapped in a white sheet and left in a public park, shame on you. Find another? Shame on a Staten Island neighborhood that’s now convinced they’ve been engulfed by evil spirits.

Although authorities are unsure who is responsible for the acts, it hasn’t stopped residents from assuming they’re the results of Santeria or Voodoo rituals. One woman, is even taking matters into her own hands by dousing the spots the carcasses were found with holy water.

“This is not good, doing this,” said Nancy Kelcho of Port Richmond, who was walking her Scottie, Tara Lynn, this morning when a friend pointed out the mutilated animal. “This is evil. I just pray to God to take away the evil spirits.”

Ms. Kelcho, a firm believer in the supernatural, chanted prayers this afternoon as she sprayed holy water on the ground, and at one point gasped, “Evil! Evil! Evil!”

And this isn’t the first time Staten Island has had to deal with occult gangs, according to this SILive.com article, in August 2005, a couple walking their dog discovered six decapitated chickens positioned in a semicircle, their heads placed in a wooden bowl at the center.

Jennifer Madrigal in Ogden, Utah filed a complaint to local police claiming another woman had cursed her. Allegedly during a dispute about food stamps, the offending party cursed the Utah woman that she would be hit by a car. According to Madrigal, this forced her to seek out a witch doctor, who charged $800 to remove the curse with an egg ritual. But hey, it probably would have cost more to hire a lawyer to file a court order to get the curse lifted.