01x02 - The Omen

[bunniefuu]

- my name is mace neufeld.

I'm a feature

and television producer,

and I was executive producer

of "the omen".

Omen came about because

a friend of mine,

Harvey bernhard, came to me

with the idea of doing

a story about the devil child.

- The curse attached to

the omen is an interesting one

because it kind of almost seems

self-inflicted in a way.

They had a religious advisor

named Robert munger on set,

who I think - before mostly

anything had begun - had said,

if you're going to be dealing

with this subject matter,

the devil, you're inviting

the devil into this,

and bad things are going

to happen.

- (Screaming)

- There are some people that

say "the omen" was cursed

because of the subject matter

of a child

As, um, the antichrist.

Robert munger, the minister

who came up with the idea,

thought Satan's greatest trick

is to remain invisible.

The film was trying

to make him visible,

and so that's why Satan

was trying to stop the film

from being made.

- In the very beginning,

when we were first setting up

the process

of sh**ting the film in england,

munger told us

we were treading on

very thin ice;

that the antichrist

would do everything

not to have this picture made.

Um, for me that was in one ear

and out the other.

In the beginning, Gregory peck

was coming to england

and his plane was struck

by lightning.

That was scary.

Then, David seltzer was coming

over - the writer -

just a few days later,

and his plane was struck

by lightning.

- Two planes carrying

two crew members,

both being hit by lightning

on the way to set

is pretty spooky.

- Also, Gregory peck was

supposed to be on a flight

that he cancelled,

and then the plan apparently

crashed

and k*lled everyone on board.

- The plane took off,

hit a flock of birds,

crashed at the end of the runway

and into a a road

and hit a station wagon.

And in the station wagon

was the wife

and the two children

of the pilot of that plane.

They had dropped him off.

- There were a lot of strange

things happening

that you could call cursed.

The ira at that time was,

in 1975,

was very active in London.

We're staying at a hotel on

piccadilly opposite green park.

My wife and I were walking out

of the hotel

when suddenly there was a

Massive boom.

They'd set off a b*mb a block

and a half away.

We were booked to go

into Scott's restaurant,

and they blew up the restaurant.

As these things began to happen,

we all became very wary.

Woman: Welcome to windsor

safari park.

- We shot in a place called

windsor safari park,

and there was a sequence

with baboons.

Woman: Keep all car windows

closed.

- Suddenly the car that

Lee remick was driving stalled.

She couldn't get out.

And Lee remick

is trapped in a car

being attacked by baboons.

Lee was really terrified,

(screaming)

And it shows in, in that scene.

(Screaming, baboons bark)

(Tires squeal)

We shot this at an animal park.

One of the handlers

at the park was k*lled.

- The animal handler on the show

was eaten by a lion

Allegedly.

- Lions or a lion ate

the zookeeper.

- Not during the filming,

but close to the filming.

- When we left, and he was

securing the place, he left

His cabin door open or something

and the lions attacked

and k*lled him.

- Another report said

it wasn't a lion,

it was a tiger.

- After the making of the film,

our special effects supervisor,

John Richardson,

had an automobile accident.

And his fiancee

Was decapitated.

- The accident replicated

a decapitation in the movie.

(Loud crash, glass whooshes)

(Glass shatters)

- (Screaming)

- People said it happened

- Near a sign

- That said, uh, "omen."

- Omen.

- O-m-m-e-n.

- 66.6 kilometres.

- But these things that happened

around the making of the film

seemed to be more than

coincidental.

That's the best way

I can put it.

- With movies that deal

with demonic archetypes

- Three sixes.

- There's definitely

the potential

for all types of phenomenon.

The production for these movies,

they start to make

what you would call

a substantial contact

with these forces.

They start to distill them

into the atmosphere,

the production,

also into the individuals

that are involved in

the production.

Those sensitive to these forces

notice the little glitches

and the matrix of things like

Consecutive plane flights

getting struck with lightning.

Absolutely, the film "the omen"

was, was, no doubt,

an active gateway

in its own right.

- I'm Michael correll.

I'm known on the Internet

as uncle birch.

Uh, I'm a witch.

Some people think that

if you just don't believe

in this kind of stuff

you can't be harmed by it.

We call those targets.

That person won't be protecting

themselves.

They won't have any spiritual

protection

and when everything goes wrong

in their life,

they won't try and fix it.

And then it's like, yeah,

it's like a virus,

like a festering virus.

It gets worse and worse

and worse with time.

- Who is it?

- I went and saw "it follows"

and, you know, the story is

This sort of unknown evil

follows you

after you've had sex.

-And get rid of it, okay?

Just sleep with someone

as soon as you can.

Just pass it along.

- I mean, it's really easy

to read that

as sort of a really shallow

kind of a metaphor

for sexually transmitted

diseases.

But on the other hand,

why get rid of the idea

Of evil as an infection vector?

Because the idea of

supernatural infection

is really common.

This idea that we can have evil

passed on to us

and we can somehow be tainted

with it.

- Ungh!

- (Speaks in foreign tongue)

(Harsh exhale)

(Growling hiss)

- To talk about curses

you have to define

what is a curse.

Some of the earliest curses

are found in Egyptian

execration texts,

or in mesopotamian rituals,

or in biblical texts.

Curses often come as part

of what's called a covenant.

A covenant is sort of like

a contract

between a superior party

and an inferior party

and there are curses in

these contracts.

What's gonna happen to you

if you don't do it?

If you look in the Bible,

it can be animals

that are cursed,

it can be people

that are cursed,

it could be places

that are cursed.

- Cursing was quite widespread

in antiquity.

We have lots of examples

and lots of phenomena

about cursing.

One of these phenomena

is narratives.

So these are stories of figures

like Jesus or prophets

or other holy men cursing

somebody else -

striking them dead,

striking them blind.

We also have tomb curses

or grave curses.

- (Reading) "Death eternal

punishment for

Anyone who opens this casket."

Good heavens,

what a terrible curse!

- In ancient texts,

curses were pronounced, so

It was premised on the belief

that words had creative power.

Pronouncing the curse

will have an effect in

the real world.

Just by speaking something,

you could make something happen.

- The occult colours

mainstream life

in ways that we rarely suspect.

Lots of people in public life,

probably in the same measure

as those in private life,

are interested in divination,

tarot, dream interpretation.

- We've come to have our

fortunes told.

Can you really read the future?

- I will not disappoint you,

my lady.

- There are people today

in different parts

of the United States

and other parts of the world

who will still pay somebody

to curse a troublesome neighbour

or to curse a love partner

who jilted them.

- In this day and age,

witchcraft's huge,

folk magic's huge.

We got hoodoo, we got voodoo,

we got konja.

There's all kinds of different

magics out there.

I've been a witch my whole life.

I talk to spirit just like

I talk to you sitting here.

It's just this is normal to me.

And some people out there

are just -

I will even say - are just

so out there,

I can't believe it.

J'j'j'

j'j'j'

- Black magician.

Yeah, absolutely,

black magician.

You know, it's not filmmaking

that I do,

and it's not necessarily

just vlogging.

It's doing black magic,

performing as crazy and

out-there rituals as I can.

Just kinda pushing the envelope

further and further and further,

for myself and documenting

that for video.

Three, two, one, go. (Claps)

Hey, guys. It's e.A. Koetting.

Is it possible for a film set

or a film production

to be cursed?

From a black magician's

standpoint,

this is a tricky question

because, for the most part,

in order for there to be

an actual curse,

you have to have somebody

on the other end of it

pushing that curse -

another black magician

that's trying to harm somebody

through that curse.

For example, satanists

who might not like films

mocking their religion.

- There was some watered-down

versions of satanism.

It could be that the satanists

didn't like that portrayal.

- After spending a week

searching for these people,

I finally met their leader.

As he explained his beliefs

and methods,

I realized I was dealing

with a maniac.

- There was a time,

especially back when those

movies were coming out there,

that satanists were concerned

with some PR work.

- In the making of "the omen",

I got a lot of crackpot threats.

One of these terrible letters

I've gotten

said my blood will run

on the streets

for doing what I did.

- Since we're talking about

films being cursed,

we're gonna do a practical

experiment

and see if we can curse a film

that's in production.

It's one of the most unique

feelings

to call on a destructive force

and to

Let it flow through you.

The feeling that I'm left with,

whether I'm trying to k*ll

somebody through magic

or I'm trying to destroy

a business

or whatever it is,

the emotion I'm left with

at the end of it

is always humility.

I'm just humbled by it.

(Singing bowl resonates)

- The premise of all curses

is that pronouncing the curse

will have an effect

in the real world.

- (Unclear)

I invoke doom

for this empire,

for this creation.

- There's no one,

as far as I know,

that pronounced a curse

on "the omen".

(Whispering)

That was a very strongly

felt presence.

(Crows caw)

- The mere fact that

A production is looking

to encapsulate

and embody the essence

of many of these forces

is where it begins.

- Probably the most common

magic in the whole world

and almost every culture

practices

this type of magic on earth,

and it's called sympathetic

magic.

The rules of sympathetic magic

are like attracts like.

And in Hollywood

you're gonna know this

by the Hollywood version

of the voodoo doll.

- Look! An authentic

voodoo doll.

Somebody already sent for it.

- Get a doll and you get

somebody's hair

and fingernails,

maybe their picture.

Put 'em in the doll,

on the doll.

And then you do the thing

that you want to have happen

to the doll.

- Ready for another shot, dad?

- And then that likeness

attracts it

to the other person.

Depicting a demonic curse

extremely accurately

could bring the magic

of like attracts like to you.

Oh, "the omen", just like,

you know, the antichrist.

If the devil exists,

if the antichrist exists,

that's some pretty intense

energy to be depicting.

- Yeeeee-haaaaw! Hooo!

- Yeee-haw!

- The nature of the film

can be enough

to kind of ignite its own spark.

You have many films -

like you're talking about

"city slickers" -

that don't cross the threshold

of creating a substantial

contact

- So long, cowboy.

- 'Cause that film is

spiritually neutral.

Horror does

Seem to have that knack of uh

Crossing the threshold

into darker and dangerous

subject matter.

- It's almost the perfect

c*ck of variables

that get people thinking

about supernatural ideas

and possibilities.

When you watch a horror movie,

you're watching it to escape.

Even though you know it's

a movie,

you're thinking about things

that are outside of

conventional thinking

or scientific understanding

of the world.

People become more

open-minded to,

or more interested in,

supernatural ideas.

And so when you watch

these movies,

it just kind of puts you

in the right mindset

to wanna see patterns

or, you know,

believe in conspiracies

or to believe in curses.

- With "the omen",

what you have is a series of

coincidences or incidents

then that people then weave

into a narrative

about a curse.

- That's what coincidence

theory is about,

just trying to get connections

between what is rational

and what is, uh, weird.

And you know, on the one hand,

rational can look weird, too.

- Our brains are designed to

believe all sorts of things,

whether there are ghosts,

poltergeists,

angels and demons,

and gods and aliens

and conspiracies.

We have all this propensity to

just see patterns everywhere,

just assume everything

is connected.

Okay, we're about to show you

a short clip

of three basketball players

dressed in black

and three basketball players

dressed in white.

Each of them is passing

a basketball

back and forth between

themselves.

Your task is to count

the number of passes

between just the three

white-shirted players.

All right, you ready?

(Sneakers squeak on floor)

How many of you saw the gorilla?

What? What gorilla?

Here it is again.

I'll rewind it.

Oh, come on, that's a different

tape, shermer!

No, it's the same one.

So the famous gorilla

experiment,

this was done by Christopher

chabris and his team

in which they were testing

to what extent

people do not see things

in their environment.

You know, it's like how could

you miss a gorilla?

Well, 50% of subjects

don't see the gorilla.

And the reason is 'cause

they're attending

to counting the number

of passes.

And by being focused on

one thing,

you might miss something

that's completely obvious,

right there in front of you.

Half.

This is interesting cognitively

because it shows how much

we miss

that's right there

in front of us.

Not only do we see things

that are not real,

we miss things that are real.

Now we're talking about cursed

horror films.

I'd like you to think about

putting those films

that are cursed in a box.

And we're gonna put this box

right here

and then we're gonna draw

a square around it

in which we have three other

boxes.

So, in this box, number one,

we have cursed horror films:

"Poltergeist" and "the crow"

and "the exorcist" and so on.

Now what I want you

to think about is

The second box over here,

which are cursed

non-horror films:

Superman, you know -

I mean, Christopher Reeves fell

off a horse, broke his neck -

and apocalypse now -

you know, Martin sheen

has a heart attack

and all these weird things

that happen.

Okay, why aren't we talking

about that cell?

'Cause they're not horror films.

In this box down here,

I want you to think about

non-cursed horror films

like "the shining".

- Come and play with us, Danny.

- This is one of the scariest

films ever made.

(Dramatic crescendo)

No curses.

Or, more recently, "it"

or "get out."

Why don't we notice those?

And then the fourth category

of course, is

Non-cursed, non-horror films.

Pick any of them:

"Citizen Kane", "Casablanca"

You know, people had long

careers after that.

Nothing weird happened.

So you have to keep in mind

all four categories

and remind yourself, look,

I'm only focusing on this one,

but all the other ones

put it into context.

And when you see the bigger

picture you realize, okay,

there's actually nothing

to be explained.

- Seeing patterns in the world,

that's how we form meaning,

that's how we learn to exist.

And that can extend to seeing

patterns

where there aren't patterns.

Maybe it's a significant

coincidence.

Maybe it was a message sent

to me from somewhere.

There's the case of

Mark Chapman,

the guy who k*lled John Lennon.

So he was outside John Lennon's

apartment in New York City,

wondering if he should actually

go through with it.

And just at that moment,

Mia farrow walked by

and she starred in

Rosemary's baby.

And then he recognized that

the building,

is called the Dakota.

It was used in the filming

of Rosemary's baby,

which was directed by

Roman polanski,

whose wife, Sharon Tate,

was m*rder*d by

the manson family.

And they were a fan

of the Beatles' song,

helter skelter,

and, of course, John Lennon

is in the Beatles.

And he took this as a sign

that he should go through

with it

and k*ll John Lennon.

- Horror films tend to,

in a bizarre way,

mirror real life.

- What're they doing?

- Why do they come here?

- It's a kind of instinct,

memory, what they used to do.

- The mirror of real life is

that we are frightened

of things that could go wrong

in the world.

It's the same reason

we love coincidence stories.

We love coincidence stories

because it gives us a feeling

that the world is smaller

than it is.

- Yeah, see that word's kind

of a problem for us.

We don't witches uh

We just don't believe in

coincidence.

There's action

and there's reaction.

There's something happened

that caused that to happen,

and some things are weird

and hard to explain.

- There's a saying that

the greatest trick

the devil ever played

was to get people to not

believe that he exists.

And I have a hard time

with that one as well

because it's to the devil's

advantage to be known.

Whether we're talking about

angels or demons or gods,

the one thing that they want

is attention.

- It's exciting to me

to actually to think

that the devil is a film fan.

I don't want to like put my

head into the logic of a devil,

but just squeeze the heart

if you wanna k*ll somebody.

I don't know, maybe the devil

is a real artist

and likes the poetry of some

of these things.

But even then, if the devil

was an artist,

and I'm not saying he isn't,

uh, I think he would go -

or she -

would go to great pains

to really drive it home,

like be k*lled by a kid.

Because if you really wanna do

a curse on "the omen",

you dress a kid in a little

Angus young prep-boy uniform

and have that kid show up

at the door, ring the bell,

and then just look at you funny

and then your head explodes.

(Doorbell rings)

Oh, the devil's here.

(Laughter)

- If Satan wants to stop

a project,

if he wants to bring

a plane down,

he's gonna bring a plane down.

Actually, it seems like Satan

is helping the film.

Every time there's a big mishap,

the ira explosions, for example,

it was the crew that was safe

and other people that died.

So how is it that Satan

is trying to stop the film

and he keeps k*lling

other people?

- To me, this is the opposite

of a curse.

This is a blessing.

If it was cursed,

wouldn't Gregory peck

have been on that flight?

- But maybe we're looking

at this all wrong.

Maybe these films aren't cursed

by the devil.

Maybe these films have been

blessed by the devil.

Perhaps the devil has been

at work all along.

When demons work in this world,

they like to sign their

signature, their autograph,

on everything that they touch

so that those of us

who are paying attention

can look and can see

the very clear signature

of the powers of magic

and the powers of darkness

in the world around us.

- No, actually

Actually, I think it was

a blessed film production.

Certainly, as far as

I was concerned.

- No, I think it's just

the opposite.

I think it was a very blessed

film.

- In the end, it all worked out.

We were a big hit and uh

Everybody got through it.

- I do think that these movies

and the stories that sometimes

sprout up around them

confirm people's senses,

rightly or wrongly,

that we don't understand

everything in life.

The edwardian builders

of the Titanic

who boasted that they built

an unsinkable ship

didn't have it all figured out.

Victor Frankenstein didn't

have it all figured out

when he thought he could unlock

the key to life.

But I'm not for a moment

suggesfing

that anybody should throw

rationalism out the window.

- And it's obvious why

the devil would be doing this.

This is the age of the

antichrist.

The devils have been let loose

upon the world.

And they want to make sure

that we know

that they are among us.