Shudder Original Series: Cursed Films 102: The Omen
In Shudder’s second installment of their new series, Cursed Films, they take a look at The Omen. Was it as cursed as The Exorcist? Or was it actually blessed?
Shudder: Cursed Films Tackles The Omen
Like The Exorcist, The Omen deals with the devil and children. It also has the same legend of being cursed.
Like the first episode surrounding The Exorcist, this episode starts with a list of allegedly cursed incidents. Deaths, crashes near very creepy road markers(seriously, if you don’t watch this episode-look it up), decapitations that mimic the movie all abound, but to whom?
Can a movie-or Anything or Anyone-Be Cursed?
The movie producers consult religious experts, black magicians and male witches to find out.
Professor of religious studies Hector Avalos gives us the background of curses, and the belief that words have weight and meaning.
On the other end of the spectrum are Nate Bales and E.A. Koetting, black magicians.
Nate Bales says that the nature of a film “can ignite its own spark,” using the movie City Slickers given to him by the interviewer as an example. No curses there!
E.A. Koetting says that, yes, the film may have been cursed, if someone placed a curse on the film.
Michael Correll, aka “Uncle Birch” believes that non believers are more at risk because they are unprotected; he calls them “targets”. Michael brings up that Hollywood has a version of black magic, made up just for the silver screen. He also cautions that “Like attracts like,” meaning that a film about evil attracts evil to it.
Mindset over Movie?
Author Joe Mazur shows the viewer how coincidence and mindset can spark rumors about curses.
Our brains are wired to believe in the unknown, and especially to look for patterns.
Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine proves this further by having the viewer count the basketball passes in a short clip. Did you count them correctly? Did you see everything?
Was The Omen Blessed Instead of Cursed?
Director Richard Donner and others think the movie was actually blessed. Maybe it wasn’t a case of the devil not wanting the movie to be seen as God himself wanting it to be?
Unlike The Exorcist, none of the deaths or accidents happened to the cast and crew or the sets. It was always someone secondary, or occured after shooting at a location.
It seemed as if the actors were charmed. They weren’t harmed, but the planes they were supposed to be on crashed, for example.
So the takeaway is: Was this movie really cursed, or was it protected? What do you think?
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