The Strange Experience On The Set Of Denzel Washington's Fallen
If you are haunted by Rolling Stones songs and being stalked by a formless and sadistic left-handed demon who likes to sing, then you are probably part of the cast for the 1998 film "Fallen." Starring Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, and Embeth Davidtz, "Fallen" follows Detective John Hobbes, a prolific law enforcement agent, who manages to capture the serial killer Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas) (via IMDb). The first moments of the movie show Reese's execution, but that's where the real antagonist comes into play -– a body-hopping demon that jumps from person to person through physical contact.
The demon is known as Azazel, and they have been plaguing humanity one person at a time for countless millennia, having been responsible for the death of Gretta Milano's (Davidtz) father. Hobbes engages in a battle of wits with Azazel as he attempts to figure out how to defeat a creature without a physical body, and he is willing to take extreme steps in order to stop the hateful wraith and end its subtle reign of terror. However, it seems like the production of "Fallen" may have had its own real-life apparitions to worry about, and these apparitions didn't sing "Time Is On My Side."
Davidtz's shoes were moved while she was sleeping
According to Deseret News, there were several small occurrences that happened during the creation of "Fallen," but one in particular truly spooked the cast and crew of the movie. Apparently, Davidtz's shoes were moved in her hotel room while she was sleeping. "No one would take credit for it, so I was definitely spooked," she told the publication. "That evening I had been reading up on Azazel and was up late, and I had this weird feeling that someone else was in the room. I was definitely surprised when I woke up the next morning."
Washington added, "We had lots and lots of discussions about things that kept happening, like someone was trying to tell us something." Azazel is actually denoted as a fallen angel in the Abrahamic religions, and is mentioned heavily in the Apocryphal Book of Enoch, but can also be brought up in certain translations in the Book of Leviticus, where the name of Azazel could be a stand-in for Satan, or be understood to mean "scapegoat" in other interpretations (via Bible Study Tools). Whether the spooky behind-the-scenes events of "Fallen" are the result of an elaborate prank or the work of a disembodied supernatural entity, it seems like this strange occurrence definitely had an impact on the stars of the movie that results in little sympathy for the devil.