Despite intense prayer circles, spooky occurrences happened behind the scenes for the filming of Lee Daniels’ newest film The Deliverance.
The film follows a family in Indiana who discover strange, demonic occurrences that convince a family and their community that the house is actually a portal to hell.
After reading what happened on the sets of The Exorcist and Poltergeist, Daniels decided to have an actual deliverer on the set of his Netflix movie, the director revealed in a new town hall interview hosted by SiriusXM’s Bevy Smith. Despite his efforts, several bad things still happened, from his star being hospitalized to his dog dying.
“Things happen, and I was not gonna let things happen on my set, and also I needed it for me,” Daniels explained. “And so we prayed before every — and there’s those of us that don’t believe in prayer.”
Daniels cast his sister in The Deliverance as his “good luck charm,” but even that decision came with an eerie twist.
Bad Juju
Daniels shared, “My sister came down with cancer. She was in the cancer scene with Glenn. I put her in the chemo scene. She plays the girl making fun of Glenn. I put her in all my movies and literally like two days later she was diagnosed with lung cancer.”
“My dog died. Then there was something that flew in Andra’s face, in her eye in the middle of shooting. It was a little scary. That’s why we prayed. I called the Apostle in on Day One, but even with that, we’re conjuring up spirits when we’re dealing with the truth and that’s a dangerous playground,” Daniels revealed.
The stars of the horror film — Glenn Close, Mo’Nique, Andra Day, and Demi Singleton — were also on hand for the interview. Mo’Nique reminded her director that she also had to go to the hospital during the making of the film, which follows a family in Indiana who discover strange.
“Mr. Daniels had me doing a scene, okay? And we’re outside,” Mo’Nique explained when asked what led to her hospitalization. “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 s— because I can’t breathe.’ They kept blowing. He was like, ‘One more time. One more time.’ 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— is this?’ It was a lot of things happening with The Deliverance.”