“The Devil Doesn’t Want Us To Film”: How The Creators Of The Omen Movie Were Cursed

It all started when advertising executive Bob Munger approached producer Harvey Bernhard with the idea of ​​making a film about the Antichrist. However, he himself was quickly scared of his idea and even reportedly said that “the devil doesn’t want us to take a picture”. Despite this terrible premonition, they decided to continue with the project. Agent Ed Rosen had just pitched a script to director Richard Donner, tentatively titled Antichrist, which was turned down by all studios. Rosen was sure that the script would bring success.

Filming began on October 12, 1975. And almost immediately frightening events began to happen to the members of the film crew.

Shortly after filming began, actor Gregory Peck was on a plane that had been struck by lightning. A few weeks later, Mark Neufeld, the film’s executive director, also boards a plane from Los Angeles and is also struck by lightning. Neufeld described the flight as “the heaviest five minutes he had ever spent on an airliner”.

The incidents with the planes did not stop there. For the aerial shoots, the group rented a small plane, but had to be transferred to other shoots at the last minute. When the plane took off, it was reported to have crashed, killing all on board.

The film was shot in London, so Neufeld and his wife stayed at the Hilton Hotel in London. While there, the hotel was attacked by radicals from the Irish Republican Army, killing two people and injuring 63.

Despite this tragedy, filming continued and even more chilling circumstances arose during the work. One of the scenes involved a group of baboons – in the story, they were supposed to become aggressive in the presence of the demon child Damien. The scene required the work of a trainer on set. The day after the episode was filmed, this trainer was brutally killed by a tiger.

Bad fate dogged the creators even after the film hit the screen in June 1976. In August of that year, John Richardson, who was working on special effects for The Omen, was involved in a car accident which decapitated the head of a passenger. Coincidentally, Richardson also had a hand in creating the incredibly gruesome beheading scene of one of the film’s characters. Hungry for sensational journalists, local residents reported that a sign reading “Ommen, 66.6 km” had been erected near the crash site.

However, there were also good things in the film. The picture received the Oscar for best music for the film and the young actor Harvey Stevens, who played Damien, was nominated for the Golden Globe in the Best Debut category. True, after that he almost did not act in films and began to work as an animator. In 2017, Stevens received a suspended prison sentence for aggressively assaulting two cyclists – nothing more than a demon.

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