Of all the cursed film productions in the world, The Omen is considered one of the worst of all time.
The story is simple, a man unknowingly adopts Antichrist as his son. Directed by Richard Donner and played by Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, it is one of the most successful horror franchises, if not to say one of the best, with one of the most terrifying soundtracks in history composed by Jerry Goldsmith. But what happened to make the producers believe that the devil was really punishing them for making the movie? Is The Omen really cursed?
The Omen followed in the footsteps of two of the most successful horror movies of the 1970s and hoped to use the same theme to attract audiences. However, producers should have warned them about the previous curses: “Rosemary’s Baby, 1968” and “The exorcist, 1973”. The disturbing filming of the movie The Omen includes mysterious events, strange coincidences and deaths. We begin our tour of the curse of The Omen.
Beheading
After helping create special effects for The Omen, designer John Richardson began working on “A Bridge Too Far”. He was in Holland with his wife and special effects creator Liz Moore, and as they were driving down an empty highway one night, they collided head-on with another vehicle. Richardson was knocked unconscious, but Moore was beheaded when one of the wheels hit her. When Richardson recovered, he discovered that the tragedy was a creepy coincidence with a hideously gruesome beheading scene that he had designed for The Omen. He also said that before the accident he saw a traffic sign that the city of Ommen was located 66.6 kilometers away.
A tiger killed the baboon trainer
In a chilling scene from the film, Lee Remick, who played Damien’s mother, is completely terrified of a group of baboons attacking her vehicle. According to Richard Donner, her screams of fear were completely real. The team had placed a baboon inside the car to provoke the primates and then filmed their violent reaction. Although Remick’s incident might be a simple anecdote, the day after the baboon trainer was killed by a tiger. He grabbed him by the head and killed him instantly.
The rays of death
In October 1975, Gregory Peck was on a plane bound for London for the filming of the movie when the plane he was traveling in was struck by lightning. The lightning caused one of the engines to catch fire and the plane was very close to crashing into the Atlantic Ocean. A few weeks later, producer Mace Neufeld was on his way to filming when his plane was also struck by another lightning strike while crossing the Atlantic.
Two lightning-related pre-production incidents can be scary, but after screenwriter David Seltzer traveled on a plane that was also struck by lightning, it indicated that it could all be more than just a fluke. And if these three incidents weren’t compelling enough, producer Harvey Bernard was also very close to being struck by lightning while filming in Rome.
Rottweilers
One of the most memorable scenes in The Omen involves Gregory Peck trying to escape from a graveyard while being attacked by a group of Rottweilers. Several of these carefully trained dogs were used for the film and were instructed to attack a specialist instead of Peck. The specialist put on the training suit and the dogs were released, but something went wrong. For unknown reasons, the Rottweilers violently started attacking the specialist and their fangs pierced through the protective gear. They even ignored their coach when ordered to stop. Fortunately, the specialist survived.
The IRA attacks
After surviving the lightning-induced terror on his flight abroad, producer Mace Neufeld was implicated in other curse-related incidents. While staying at the Hilton hotel in London, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) targeted the building. Fortunately, neither of them was in the hotel at the time. Several days later, Neufeld along with other producers and Gregory Peck were heading to a restaurant when the IRA also attempted the scene.
The cursed plane
To get some aerial shots for the film, the team hired a local light aircraft. At the last minute, the airline changed plans and rented the plane to another group of people, so the team at Omen was forced to temporarily postpone filming. This turned out to be an extremely fortunate turn of events as the plane they had chartered crashed, apparently due to a flock of birds taking off.
“The devil’s push”
When stuntman Alf Joint finished filming scenes for The Omen, he joined the “A Bridge Too Far” team. On the one hand, he had to jump out of a tall building and land on an air mat, something he had done countless times without trouble. However, this time he jumped in the wrong way and hit the ground. He was taken to the hospital and luckily he survived. When he regained consciousness, he said he felt he had been pushed.
The suicide of Gregory Peck’s son
In June 1975, Gregory Peck’s son Johnathan was discovered to have committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Although there was no note, his death was declared suicide and Peck was devastated by the loss. His agent offered him the role of Richard Thorn in the movie The Omen, since he wanted the actor to channel his pain into a project, despite the fact that he had to play a man who had to kill his son.
Guildford Cathedral
Guildford Cathedral, located in Guildford, Surrey, England, was an iconic location for the film, but after the premiere of The Omen, priests struggled to get people to attend mass out of fear. But the most terrifying incident occurred in 2008, when a gunman entered the church grounds. The man was shot dead by police on the same steps of the cathedral that appeared in the film.
The man who created ‘The Omen’ warned everyone that the film would be cursed
Robert “Bob” Munger was a Christian and an advertising executive who thought that a film about Antichrist would be a good idea, so he threw it into a studio. Knowing that both “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Exorcist” had been extremely successful, producer Harvey Bernhard agreed to produce it. But then Munger changed his mind and warned everyone that the movie would be cursed. Even so Bernhard went ahead with the project, but as the strange incidents began to occur, he began to wear a cross while attending filming.
The professional disappearance of actor Damien Harvey
Many children choose not to pursue an acting career, but Harvey Stephens’ professional disappearance due to the curse? After appearing in a television movie in 1980, he did not reprise any movie role until the remake of The Omen in 2006. In fact, the producer of The Omen documentary hired a private investigator to find him to do an interview, but it was impossible.
The Curse of the Oscars
But Harvey Stephens was not the only one to be affected by the curse of The Omen. In 1977 the composer Jerry Goldsmith received the award for the best soundtrack for his composition in The Omen, and nominated for the best song for “Ave Satani”. Curiously, only songs in English were eligible for the nomination, and the “Ave Satani”, which was not a song, was sung in Latin. Leaving this curiosity aside, after The Omen he was nominated 18 times throughout his career, being the composer with the most nominations in history. But inexplicably, he could not get hold of any other statuette, incomprehensibly for being considered the best film composer in all history.
The 2006 remake was also the victim of the curse
Despite all the rumors and evidence that The original Omen was cursed, Hollywood decided to make a remake in 2006. Although not as terrifying as the 1977 movie, the production also encountered bizarre occurrences. During filming, Father Brennan’s brother, played by actor Pete Postlethwaite, died unexpectedly after receiving three sixes in a poker game.
Furthermore, over 4,000 meters of film including a major scene in which Liev Schreiber finds the devil’s birthmark on his son, was mysteriously destroyed while being processed in the laboratory. No one could explain what happened. Even the cameras of a documentary exploring The Omen’s curse in all its forms suffered some strange things, including glitches.
Now that you know what really happened during the filming of The Omen, you may see it with different eyes. And in case you want to sing the famous “song” While you are in the shower, we leave you the lyrics:
“Sanguis Bibimus.
Corpus Edimus.
Sanguis Bibimus.
Corpus Edimus.
Sanguis Bibimus.
Corpus Edimus.
Tolle Corpus Satani!
Ave!
Sanguis Bibimus.
Corpus Edimus.
Tolle Corpus Satani!
Ave!
Ave! Ave Versus Christus!
Ave! Ave Versus Christus!
Ave! Ave Versus… ”
