The Super Bowl is coming up, and that means we’re getting close to the anniversary of the death of Heather O’Rourke, who played little Carol Anne Freeling in Poltergeist. Did you ever hear about the infamous Super Bowl poster?

In the film, there’s a poster above Carol Anne’s brother Robbie’s bed. It says: “1988 Super Bowl XXII”.

It appears prominently in this scene:

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It also appears in this classic creepy clown scene (not THE clown scene, but the one where he covers it up):

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Here’s why that’s really fucking weird. This movie was released in 1982, so it’s strange enough that a poster for the 1988 Super Bowl (which really was XXII) is hanging above Robbie’s bed, but the day that Super Bowl took place in real life just happens to be the day that O’Rourke fell ill before actually dying the following day. As explained on Wikipedia:

On January 31, 1988, O’Rourke suddenly became ill again, vomiting and unable to keep anything down. The next morning she collapsed while preparing to leave for the hospital and her stepfather called paramedics. O’Rourke suffered a cardiac arrest en route to the hospital, and after resuscitation she was airlifted by helicopter to Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, where she died later that day.

San Diego. If the whole thing wasn’t fucked up enough, that also happens to be where Super Bowl XXII took place. In case you’re wondering, the Redskins beat the Broncos 42 to 10.

Here’s a segment about O’Rouke’s death from A Current Affair:

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h/t: Cracked