The Road House Curse

Dalton: So, you play pretty good for a blind white boy.
Cody: Yeah, and I thought you’d be bigger.

The 1989 movie Road House has always held a special place in my heart. Even moreso after I started working at bars in various capacities and found I could put a lot of Dalton’s Zen-like bouncing and shithead-management principles into practical use. “Expect the unexpected. Take it outside. Be nice.” Whoever wrote that movie obviously spent a fair amount of time in that dirty business themselves. Hopefully with shorter hair and looser blue jeans.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z0CngDuHcc[/youtube]

The cast of Road House is having a rough week. First the ever-so-awesome Jeff Healey dies Monday of pancreatic cancer at the tender age of 41, and now Patrick Swayze is reportedly close to death suffering from the exact same thing. It’s beyond uncanny and Kelly Lynch better watch her breathtaking Roadhouse heiney. Because we’ve seen this sort of thing before, kids.

Is everyone familiar with Poltergeist? It’s the exceptionally scary movie that Spielberg made in 1981 and an eerie series of events befell many of the people associated with the both original and subsequent sequels. And I’m not talking about nasty clowns, a pool full of corpses or a TV on the fritz. Here is a quick run down and upon some new research today it’s even worse than I remembered.

1. She didn’t have a lot of screen time in the movie (“What’s happening? WHAT’S HAPPENING?!“), but Dominique Dunne who played the older sister, was strangled to death by her boyfriend just 5 months after production wrapped, kicking off the creepiness that would become known as the Poltergeist Curse. She was 22. During the fight she had with her boyfriend that ended in her death, a friend inside Dunne’s house turned up the Poltergeist soundtrack to drown out the noise of the two yelling outside.
2. Heather O’Rourke, the actress who played Carol Anne (“They’re heeeeeere!”) died during the making of part 3 in 1988 from acute bowel obstruction. She was only 12 years old.
3. Most famous for his role as “Chief” in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest, Will Sampson had a large role in part 2 and died from kidney failure shortly after in 1987 at 53 years of age.
4. Perhaps the most detestable character of the series, the old preacher who turns out to be a walking spook, was played by Julian Beck. He died of stomach cancer in 1985. In all fairness he was 60 years old and is a bit of a stretch for curse victim consideration, but he did croak only weeks after filming had ended.

These four occurrences are just the tip of the iceberg, and there is no better account of the curse than Wikipedia’s if you’d like to learn more. Wild, wild stuff, Ed. Maybe at this point we should be calling it the Poltergeist Reuinion.

In keeping with my Roadhouse Curse theory, here are some facts to back up my hypothesis.

1. Jeff Healey died very young earlier this week.
2. Patrick Swayze is apparently at death’s door as I type.
3. In 1994 Chris Collins, who played a troublesome patron who offered to let folks fondle his wife for $20, died of a cerebral haemmorage.
4. Kelly Lynch is best friends with Sheryl Crow. Jesus.
5. Red West appeared in 16 Elvis Presley movies.
6. Sunshine Parker died of pnemonia in 1999.
7. Kevin Tighe appeared in 1995’s Jade. Shudder.
8. UPDATE: We lost Patrick.

The horror. The horror. Roger Hewlett, Terry Funk and Sam Elliot had better renew their life insurance policies because we’re obviously in for a really long and terrible… curse… here. No need to thank me, it’s what I’m here for. And I’m pulling for you, Patrick.

Dalton: If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won’t walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can’t walk him, one of the others will help you, and you’ll both be nice. I want you to remember that it’s a job. It’s nothing personal.
Steve: Being called a cocksucker isn’t personal?
Dalton: No. It’s two nouns combined to elicit a prescribed response.
Steve: What if somebody calls my mama a whore?
Dalton: Is she?