Haunted Landscapes and Hollywood: The Dark Secrets of Dead Man’s Point
Photos By Ken Hulsey / Story By Terri HulseyVictorville is on the southwestern edge of the Mojave Desert. Established in 1895, the downtown area grew around historic Route 66 (now 7th Street). The town soon became known as a prime location for shooting westerns in the 40s and 50s but Victorville was also a memorable setting during the Hollywood heyday of space sagas. Infamous director Jack Arnold (“Creature from the Black Lagoon,” "This Island Earth,” “The Incredible Shrinking Man”) shot the opening scene of “It Came from Outer Space” (1953) here. The UFO flew over the rocks on the east side of the Narrows, near the Rainbow Bridge, and crashed in Old Town Victorville.
As I leave Victorville and drive toward Apple Valley, the desert landscape becomes increasingly desolate and foreboding. Dead Man’s Point is known for two infamous massacres: the first involved the slaughter of Catholic missionaries by Cahuilla Indians, while the second was the killing of Cahuilla Indians by white settlers. The eerie and imposing rock formations in this area are said to be haunted by the spirits of those who lost their lives in these events, and I can personally attest to the strange and mysterious aura surrounding them.
This location was also used by director Arnold for a scene in the film “It Came from Outer Space” (specifically the police barricade), as well as for the incredible optical illusion featured in his 1955 film “Tarantula.” The first appearance of the monstrous creature—marketed as the “Crawling terror 100 feet high!”—shows it crawling over the rocks at Dead Man’s Point. Notably, “Tarantula” was one of the few films in the “nature runs amok” sub-genre that did not attribute its monster to nuclear experimentation. The forbidding and desolate desert setting, located not far from military test grounds, likely led many viewers to interpret the film as a warning about the unimaginable dangers of entering the atomic age.
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