Richard Donner’s 1976 supernatural horror film The Omen follows the Antichrist from the moment of his conception. The film is filled with demonic and satanic symbolism but the fear of its curse spans back to its early beginnings. Written by David Seltzer (Prophecy), the idea for a film about the Antichrist came from the mind of a religious adviser Robert Munger. He warned the crew prior to production that, by making a film about the devil, you are welcoming bad things to happen. Thus, the rumors of a potential curse began.
Rumors spread around Hollywood that Satan was trying to stop the film from being made. He wanted to remain invisible but the film was going to make him visible. The Omen stars Harvey Spencer Stephens as the Antichrist, Damien Thorn. He was adopted by Katherine (Lee Remick) and Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) moments after the couple’s new baby has died. As he grows up, strange events begin to occur surround him and the family home.
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Damien becomes a malevolent force in the house. Robert begins to investigate where his son actually came from, only to discover that he is the Antichrist in human form. Damien’s arrival into the world was prophesized by conspiratorial Satanists and he bares the mark of three sixes on his scalp. When Robert attempts to stop the rise of hell of earth by stabbing Damien in a church, he is killed by police. The Antichrist lives on.
The Omen Movie Curse & Devil’s Blessing Explained
The new Shudder series Cursed Films discusses The Omen at length in the third episode with crew members, pod-casters, and the director Richard Donner. When the film first went under production in London, England, the cast and crew experienced a slue of unlikely occurrences. For instance, as Gregory Peck was flying to the film location, his plane was struck by lightning, as was David Seltzer’s plane two days later. The strangest event was when Peck canceled a flight he had booked for unknown reasons and the plane crashed. There were no survivors and it hit a nearby vehicle, which held the pilot’s entire family inside.
As they continued to film The Omen, filming locations became subject to bombings and equipment would go awry on set. Everything pointed to the theory that the devil had supposedly cursed the film but some believe that he actually blessed it. Rather than Munger’s notion of the devil not wanting to be seen, interviewees propose that he craves the attention. A professor of Religious studies at Iowa State, Hector Avalos stated that if the devil wanted to take down the entire production, he could and would. Furthermore, he theorizes that the devil was actually keeping the crew safe while violence happened around them.
To the many interviewed in Cursed Films, the film is the opposite of being cursed by the devil. Rather, the film is a blessing from the devil, as it was a box office success and none of the crew were injured in its making. The alleged curse or blessing of the film is all theory, as nothing can substantiate a clear explanation to the events that surrounded the making of The Omen.
