100 Fun Facts About Ghost Movie

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

His best friend Carl Bruner turns out to have arranged the mugging to get Sam's book of bank passwords.

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

Neither the director nor the writer wanted her at first; Swayze pushed for the casting.

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

Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin was worried Zucker would turn his script into a comedy.

Which actor turned down the lead in Ghost, later calling himself a 'knucklehead' for passing?

He was married to co-star Demi Moore at the time; that summer his Die Hard 2 sat at number two behind Ghost at the box office.

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

Bobby Hatfield sang the lead; the song itself dates to 1955 with music by Alex North.

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

Oda Mae relays it to a sceptical Molly and it finally lands.

Ghost was the highest-grossing film of 1990. Roughly how much did it take worldwide?

On a budget of about $22 million, it was briefly the third-highest-grossing film ever made.

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

He was contractually barred from directing another film while making E.T., so Hooper was hired.

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

Her line 'They're here' became one of horror's most quoted moments.

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

The developer moved the headstones but not the bodies, as the climax reveals.

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

M. Night Shyamalan set most of his early films in his home region; the film took over $672 million worldwide.

Which actor played Cole Sear, the boy who sees dead people, earning an Oscar nomination at age 11?

Shyamalan initially thought his audition tape showed a 'sweet cherub' rather than the brooding kid he'd imagined.

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

Her children are photosensitive, so the manor is kept dark; the film won eight Goya Awards including Best Film.

Who wrote, directed and scored The Others?

It was the first English-language film with no Spanish dialogue to win Best Film at Spain's Goyas.

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

The film opens with the Annabelle doll case, seeding an entire cinematic universe.

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

The real Warrens' case files also inspired The Amityville Horror.

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

Adam and Barbara Maitland find his ad in the Handbook for the Recently Deceased.

Beetlejuice won a single Academy Award. In which category?

Its calypso numbers came from Harry Belafonte's albums Calypso and Jump Up Calypso.

The Maitlands' caseworker in Beetlejuice tells them they must stay in their house for how many years?

They have to put up with the Deetzes and their teenage daughter Lydia in the meantime.

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

Jenna Ortega, Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci joined the returning Keaton, Ryder and O'Hara; it grossed $452 million.

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

Christina Ricci's Kat moves in when her paranormal-therapist father is hired to clear the house.

Casper (1995) holds what distinction in film history?

Brad Silberling made his feature directing debut on it, four years before Toy Story-style CGI leads were routine.

In The Shining, the Overlook Hotel's chef warns Danny to stay away from which room?

Stephen King's novel used room 217; the Timberline Lodge in Oregon supplied the hotel exteriors and asked for the change.

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

The Ahwahnee inspired the interiors and the Stanley inspired King's novel, but the establishing shots are Mount Hood.

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

Naomi Watts plays the journalist who watches it; the film's success triggered a wave of American remakes of Asian horror.

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

Ringu was shot back to back with its sequel Spiral, and both opened in Japan on the same day.

In Ju-On: The Grudge, the curse begins when Takeo Saeki murders his wife. What is her name?

Their son Toshio and even the cat die too; anyone entering the Nerima house is doomed.

Which director made both Insidious and The Conjuring?

Insidious co-writer Leigh Whannell also plays one of the ghost hunters; the film's astral realm is called The Further.

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

The boy isn't in a coma at all; he was born able to astral project and wandered too far.

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

Oren Peli produced, wrote, directed, shot and edited it himself, and it is often called the most profitable film ever made.

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

The house sits atop clay mines that stain the snow red, giving the estate its nickname.

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

Wise shot it in England, using Ettington Park in Warwickshire as Hill House.

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

Truman Capote reworked the screenplay after director Jack Clayton was unhappy with the first draft.

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

It swept eight of the inaugural Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture, and was mostly shot in Vancouver.

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

Michelle Pfeiffer's character suspects her lakeside Vermont home is haunted; the film took $291 million.

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

He asked his friend Guillermo del Toro to produce, which doubled the budget and shooting time.

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

An unexploded bomb sits in the courtyard, and the ghost is a boy named Santi who vanished the day it fell.

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

It was the second adaptation of Susan Hill's 1983 novel; Radcliffe plays solicitor Arthur Kipps.

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

Rooney Mara's grieving character eats an entire pie in one unbroken take.

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

Robert Zemeckis produced, and Jackson's young Weta Digital handled more effects shots than almost any film before it.

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

Anthony Minghella wrote it as a vehicle for Juliet Stevenson; the working title was Cello, a nod to the Italian word for heaven.

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

Margaret Rutherford's Madame Arcati came from the original stage production; the film won an Oscar for its visual effects.

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

Hal Roach produced it as a step up from Laurel and Hardy shorts, adapting a risqué Thorne Smith novel.

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

Sinatra, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis all recorded it later.

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

Its four segments include 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?

Vincent Price's millionaire offers guests $10,000 to survive a night in the house.

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

Burt Lancaster made his final film appearance as Moonlight Graham.

In Ghost Town (2008), Ricky Gervais's dentist sees ghosts after being clinically dead for how long?

Greg Kinnear plays the dead husband who wants him to break up his widow's engagement.

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

Carol Kane's Ghost of Christmas Present is a violent fairy and David Johansen's Ghost of Christmas Past drives a cab.

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

Their containment unit sits in the basement; Ray Parker Jr.'s theme song went to number one.

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?

The Philippou brothers came from YouTube; it became A24's highest-grossing horror film at the time.

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

It came out weeks after The Sixth Sense and was overshadowed; David Koepp wrote and directed.

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

The owners refused to let the crew film there, so a house in Toms River, New Jersey stood in.

In Just Like Heaven (2005), why does Reese Witherspoon's spirit haunt her apartment?

It is based on Marc Levy's French novel If Only It Were True.

The Fog (1980) unleashes the revenants of a clipper ship deliberately wrecked a century earlier. What was it called?

The founders of Antonio Bay sank it to stop its leprosy-stricken owner building a colony nearby.

Roughly how much did The Sixth Sense gross worldwide?

It finished as the second-highest-grossing film of 1999 and earned six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

Who wrote the screenplay for Ghost (1990)?

The pottery-wheel scene he wrote is now cited as one of the most iconic moments of 1990s cinema, parodied in The Naked Gun 2½.

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

The film grossed $84 million on a $15 million budget and won three Saturn Awards, one for Sylvia Sidney.

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

The film, released by MGM/UA in June 1982, was the eighth-highest-grossing movie of that year.

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

Ray picks the form by accident: told to choose the Destructor's shape, he can't stop thinking of the harmless mascot from his childhood.

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

Dan Aykroyd came up with the idea, liking the image of a static monument suddenly moving; the statue is returned to Liberty Island afterwards.

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

Murphy was blunt about the result two decades later, saying in 2023 that it simply "wasn't very good".

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

Shyamalan reserved it for anything in the real world that had been touched by the other world, and for the most explosively emotional moments.

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

Charles Laughton plays Sir Simon, a cowardly 17th-century knight doomed to haunt the family castle until a descendant performs a brave deed.

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

Set in 1906, it has Sarah keeping records of everyone killed by the family's guns inside her endlessly expanding San Jose mansion.

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

The Miller-Meteor body is a combination car that could serve as either hearse or ambulance; the 2016 reboot used a 1984 Fleetwood hearse instead.

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

Captain Gregg insists his death was no suicide: he kicked the gas heater valve in his sleep at Gull Cottage.

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

The ghost gets his name from his bowling shirt; the film adapts Geoff Manaugh's 2017 short story "Ernest".

Which future Lord of the Rings director made The Frighteners (1996)?

Jackson and Fran Walsh conceived it in 1992 while writing Heavenly Creatures, and the director cameos as a man with piercings.

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

The panels are inscribed with Latin containment spells, and the ghosts can only be seen through special spectral glasses.

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

Lewis claimed it copied "I Want a New Drug"; the producers had actually asked his band to write the theme first, but they declined.

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

King and his wife checked in just as the place was shutting for winter in 1974; 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 UK release carried the subtitle The Enfield Case; the Hodgson sisters, aged 11 and 13, were at the centre of the alleged haunting.

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

The fictional town of Summerville sits beside a mine belonging to the occultist Ivo Shandor, where Egon captured an entity.

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

Its many puppet faces were 3-D printed at the studio in Hillsboro, Oregon, a technique the team had pioneered on Coraline.

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

The four strangers died when their San Francisco trolleybus swerved off an overpass; they return 27 years later to settle unfinished business.

Who directed the female-led Ghostbusters reboot of 2016?

Feig co-wrote it with Katie Dippold; the end credits use the title Ghostbusters: Answer the Call.

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

The filmmakers swapped the cloth doll for a sinister porcelain one, partly over trademark worries and partly because the original wasn't scary enough.

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

Hepburn plays Hap, who tells Richard Dreyfuss's dead pilot 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 film adapts a 1999 Stephen King short story; Samuel L. Jackson plays the manager who begs him not to take the room.

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

The Pang brothers were inspired by a newspaper report about a teenage transplant recipient; Jessica Alba starred in the 2008 Hollywood remake.

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

Its title translates roughly as "Shutter: Press to Capture Ghosts"; it was remade in Hollywood in 2008 and in Indonesia in 2025.

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

Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili Taylor star; de Bont took the job in a trade that handed Minority Report to its eventual director.

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

Jessica Chastain stars 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?

Shimizu also created the original Ju-On films, making him a rare director to remake his own work for Hollywood; Sam Raimi produced.

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

It was also the last film for Douglas Fairbanks Jr.; Astaire confided to the director that he feared he would die or be murdered during the shoot.

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

Paulette Goddard plays the 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?

Set against mass disappearances across Japan, it was remade in English in 2006, and that version spawned two sequels.

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

Walter Salles directed; her daughter can reach the building's unprotected rooftop and its water tower, where the trouble begins.

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

Bol and Rial are assigned a shabby house on the edge of London while on probational asylum, and find their past has crossed the Channel with them.

In the 1977 Japanese cult film House (Hausu), a schoolgirl nicknamed Melody is devoured by what?

Director Nobuhiko Obayashi built the film from his young daughter Chigumi's fears, including getting her fingers caught between the keys.

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

The studio was far better known for comedies; the dummy, Hugo, torments Michael Redgrave's ventriloquist in the closing story.

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

Set in 1921, it opens with Florence Cathcart helping police expose fraudulent spiritualists before the school's case shakes her certainty.

Carnival of Souls (1962) was shot around the abandoned Saltair pavilion near where?

Director Herk Harvey rented the pavilion for $50 and made the whole film for about $33,000 during three weeks off from his industrial-film job.

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

Regarded as a masterpiece that helped open Western cinemas to Japanese film, it stars Masayuki Mori and Machiko Kyō.

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

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?

Assayas shared the prize with Romania's Cristian Mungiu, who won for Graduation; Stewart's character is trying to reach her dead twin brother.

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

Nyman reprises his stage role as a professional debunker of psychics, investigating three cases he cannot explain.

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

Produced by Tsui Hark and directed by Ching Siu-tung, it sparked a wave of folklore ghost films in Hong Kong and made Wong a star.