Ep. 279 I She Was Here: Heather O'Rourke's Family Debunks the Poltergeist Curse

From Documentary First by Documentary First | Christian Taylor

June 4, 2026 · 52 min · Season 6 · Episode 279

About this episode

In this episode, Christian Taylor interviews Brian Pocrass about the documentary 'She Was Here' and the true story behind Heather O'Rourke's life and death.

Was the Poltergeist curse real, or did the world get Heather O'Rourke's story wrong for 38 Years? On February 1, 1988, Heather O'Rourke died at twelve years old. For nearly four decades the world has filled that silence with rumors. She Was Here , the new documentary produced by Brian Pocrass and directed by Nick Bailey, is the first authorized account of what actually happened, told by Heather's mother Kathleen, her sister Tammy, and the people who knew and worked with her. In Episode 279, Christian sits down with producer Brian Pocrass to talk about how She Was Here came together, what it cost to earn the trust of a grieving family that had been burned by Hollywood for nearly four decades, and why he believes Heather's death was completely preventable. Brian is a USC Film School graduate with fifteen years in the entertainment industry who later became an attorney. He calls this his first documentary. At the heart of She Was Here is a question Brian poses to himself as a producer: how much oxygen do you give a lie? Heather's death from a misdiagnosed intestinal condition, treated as Crohn's disease, became, in the tabloid press of the late 1980s, the foundation of what came to…

People in this episode

Hosts: Christian, Christian Taylor

Guest: Brian Pocrass

Topics covered

Poltergeist curse
documentary
family story
Hollywood
loss
misdiagnosis

Keywords

Heather O'Rourke
Poltergeist
documentary
Brian Pocrass
Hollywood
misdiagnosis
family

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: USC Film School

Books & works: She Was Here