Suspense Magazine November 2012

By CK Webb
Hex: a magic spell, usually with malevolent
purposes, such as a curse.
When I began this series, it was to give people a glimpse at the thing that keeps me awake at night. Okay, seriously, that’s
a scary thought! I have a morbid curiosity of death and I don’t mind admitting to being just a little bit odd, but that is the
very thing that makes me want to research everything so extensively. It is this great love of research that caused me to stumble
across the idea of ‘movie curses’ in the first place.
In the 1990s, I was a huge Chris Farley fan. The man was hilarious, but his demons were controlling every aspect of his
life and I always knew he would be another of Hollywood’s lost young actors. It was common knowledge that Chris was
a party guy, a drug user, and a drinker… he made no effort to hide that fact from the public. He was obese and just plain
unhealthy, but it would be his death and the events leading up to and surrounding it that would light a fire in me and turn
curiosity into an all-out need to know more.
If you are like me, the idea of a “movie curse” is pretty far-fetched, maybe even a bit ridiculous, but the tragedies that
surround these supposed curses are quite real. Lives have been lost or completely altered by circumstances too eerie to call
coincidence. So what do we call a series of events that leaves dead actors floating in its wake This month we call it…
“The Curse of Atuk”
In the late 1970s, Atuk, a fish out of water screenplay about an Eskimo who comes to New York, was written with John
Belushi in mind. Atuk is most infamous however, for supposedly being cursed and at least partly responsible for the deaths
of several major comedic actors in the 1980s and 1990s. The Atuk Curse has become one of the better-known urban legends
of Hollywood. Its first victim, supposedly, was John Belushi, who the script had been written specifically for and who was in
the process of reading for the role. Belushi was reportedly enthusiastic about taking on the part of Atuk. Shortly afterwards
however, he was found dead of a drug overdose in 1982.
Six years after Belushi’s death, the part was offered to comedian Sam Kinison, who accepted it in 1988. (This was my first
taste of the curse, as I am a huge Kinison fan as well and followed his stand-up routines with great fervor). Kinison filmed at
least one scene for the movie before he grew dissatisfied with the script and demanded that parts of it be re-written, halting
production. It was during this time that Kinison was reported to have locked himself in a bathroom and refused to come
out until someone agreed to re-write the script. Kinison’s demands were finally heard and production halted in an effort to
adhere to the comedian’s requests. The outcome was not as cut and dry as the movie executives believed it to be.
A few years passed, Kinison got sober and his career began to pick back up. A fatal car wreck, ironically with a drunk
driver, would change all that. Kinison, believing the script to be sub-standard, decided to leave the production of the movie.
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