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Jim Varney Almost Starred in Horror-Comedy ‘Ernest and the Voodoo Curse’!

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It was like the idiot version of Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

Whenever I want to forget all of life’s troubles and watch something silly, I can often be found popping in one of the many films featuring late actor Jim Varney’s most iconic character, Ernest P. Worrell.

The cartoonish buffoon, always wearing a blue denim vest and tan baseball cap, burst onto the scene in a series of commercials in the early ’80s, eventually becoming the star of his own TV series and hit movie franchise.

For obvious reasons, my personal favorite movie in the 9-film “Ernest Canon” is Ernest Scared Stupid, a 1991 sequel that saw Ernest unwittingly unleashing an army of trolls on Halloween. Other adventures the character went on in the ’80s and into the ’90s included Ernest Goes to Camp, Ernest Saves Christmas, Ernest Goes to Jail and Ernest Goes to Africa.

The franchise came to a close with 1998’s Ernest in the Army, a direct-to-video film released just two years before Varney succumbed to lung cancer at the age of 50.

Of course, there were many other Ernest films that never ended up coming to fruition. The prematurely announced Ernest Spaced Out would’ve sent the lovable idiot to outer space, while Ernest and the Water Baby was to present an E.T.-inspired tale of Worrell finding and befriending a small creature at an alligator farm.

And then there was Ernest and the Voodoo Curse, a planned horror-comedy that would’ve been in the vein of Ernest Scared Stupid. Varney collaborator Coke Sams spilled the beans on the aborted project in an interview with the now-defunct website Know the Artist many years ago, which we were able to dig up from the Internet Archive.

I know Ernest and the Voodoo Curse got as far as a script,” Sams told the site. “We went back to the Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein kind of thing. It had a really bad guy and happened on an island like Hawaii. I think, by that time, we had decided we were going to be smart enough to write movies that take place at beaches. [laughs] ‘What if we all got to go to Hawaii? Wouldn’t that be fun!’ So we had Voodoo and a high priest. It was like the idiot version of Raiders of the Lost Ark. We had lines of zombies, Voodoo potions, and Ernest pretending to be a zombie.”

He continued, “Ernest and the Voodoo Curse actually was pretty funny. There was a woman in it, who had one blue eye and one brown eye. She was supposed to be the woman of Ernest’s dreams. Of course, she would have nothing to do with him. It was fun to do the script. I remember that one fondly.”

Sigh. At least we’ll always have Ernest Scared Stupid, which literally turned the Killer Klowns from Outer Space into Halloween trolls. No seriously, I’m not lying!

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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SCREAMBOX Investigates UFOs and Extraterrestrials: Several Documentaries Streaming Right Now!

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As someone who is obsessed with UFOS (or more recently known as UAPs) and the concept of extraterrestrials, I love a good documentary. Sightings have been on the rise since the 1940s, with the atomic bomb seemingly acting as a catalyst for new visitors. But what are these UFOs/UAPs? Is there an explanation or are they simply beyond our explanation? Why are they here? Who are they? How much do our governments know? The questions are endless and so are the documentaries that attempt to uncover the secrets behind decades of sightings and alleged confrontations.

Whether you’re a seasoned viewer or new to the rabbit hole, there’s always a handful of interesting documentaries to get your neurons firing and leave you with sleepless nights. SCREAMBOX is investigating with the addition of several docs, all streaming now on the Bloody Disgusting-powered service. Here’s the breakdown:

Aliens (2021): Beam into this unidentified streaming documentary for a glimpse into Extraterrestrial life. Aliens are hypothetical life forms that may occur outside Earth or that did not originate on Earth.

Aliens Uncovered: Origins (2021): Before Area 51, hidden deep in the desert, the military discovered a hidden gem that helped them create Project Bluebook.

Aliens Uncovered: ET or Man-Made (2022): The crash of Roswell wasn’t meant for New Mexico. In 1947, a neighboring state had 3 major sightings that were swept under the rug.

Aliens Uncovered: The Golden Record (2023): In the late 70s, the US government launched a message to our distant neighbors.

Roswell (2021): This high-flying documentary examines the July 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Theories claim the crash was actually that of a flying saucer, but what is the truth?

Also check out:

The British UFO Files (2004): Since the 1940’s the British Government has been investigating the Flying Saucer phenomenon. High-ranking military and government personnel, speak out for the first time, offering unique eyewitness accounts and inside information.

Alien Abductions and Paranormal Sightings (2016): Amazing Footage and stories from real people as they reveal their personal encounters of being abducted by Aliens.

And do not miss Hellier (2019): A crew of paranormal researchers find themselves in a dying coal town, where a series of strange coincidences lead them to a decades-old mystery.

These documentaries join SCREAMBOX’s growing library of unique horror content, including Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, Here for Blood, Terrifier 2, RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop, Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, The Outwaters, Living with Chucky, Project Wolf Hunting, and Pennywise: The Story of IT.

Start screaming now with SCREAMBOX on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Prime Video, Roku, YouTube TV, Samsung, Comcast, Cox, and Screambox.com.

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