Editorials
Looking at the Horrible, Cursed Production of ‘The Omen’!
Donner’s horror classic from the ‘70s saw such bad luck during filming you’d think it was cursed by the Devil himself!
The Omen continues to be one of those standout horror pictures that spoke to something in the human consciousness. Not only did it spawn a series of films, but also created one of the most iconic representations of the Son of the Devil, and managed to make a dent at the Academy Awards, too. Damien’s even a member of freakin’ South Park! But in spite of the mass success and long legacy that Richard Donner’s horror film would see, it’s a miracle that the movie was even completed in the first place. Sometimes films are plagued with a number of production issues that slow things down, but The Omen experienced such a horrendous slew of bad luck, the film would even be considered to be “cursed” in retrospect.
Right out of the gate The Omen was looking at a stacked deck with their being bad luck present even in the pre-production phase. Two months before filming, Gregory Peck’s son committed suicide. Obviously this is a tremendous loss to go through for the Oscar-nominated actor who’s responsible for playing Damien’s father, Robert Thorn, in the picture. The subject matter even deals with Peck’s character struggling to kill his son.
When production did commence, there were weird bouts of coincidental bad luck right from the start. An airplane getting struck by lightning is a fairly rare occurrence, and yet it happened to both Gregory Peck’s and screenwriter, David Seltzer’s separate planes. This was merely when they were heading into production to begin with, giving them a fairly tumultuous start to things. Lightning would continue to play a weird factor here though, as not long after, executive producer Mace Neufeld’s plane was also struck by lightning. The experience would traumatize Neufeld, with him describing it as his “roughest five minutes” on a plane. In a final plane-related WTF moment, Gregory Peck canceled a flight reservation of his, only to later learn that his plane had crashed and killed everyone that was aboard! Then, just so lightning could prove that it hadn’t given up, Harvey Bernard, a producer on the film was narrowly missed by lightning while in Rome.
All of that alone would be enough to warrant The Omen as being cursed, especially when dealing with the topics of God and the Devil, and lightning colloquially being seen as an “act of God.” This was merely the tip of the iceberg though. A hotel that Richard Donner was staying at while production was going on would end up getting bombed by the IRA! Miraculously he survived, although he’d also get hit by a car during production, too. Vehicles would continue to be a tricky beast for The Omen, like on the first day of shooting when a head-on car collision would injure a lot of crew members, although thankfully not killing any of them. Later on, the actor who plays the taxi driver who takes Robert Thorn around Italy had the car door slammed on his hand by Peck accidentally, nearly taking off his finger (the huge bandage is still visible in the final film).
Animals can often be a tricky area for productions, especially when being around the Son of the Devil will have a tendency to make them go bananas. In this case, the trainers for the Rottweilers were injured by the dogs, who happened to bite through their protective gear in spite of the proper precautions being taken. Then, the animal handler/zookeeper who helped with the baboon scene at the zoo was eaten alive by a lion two weeks after the completion of the film. It was this act of unnatural bad luck that sealed the deal on the film’s alleged “curse.”
What’s even crazier is that more fuel has been added to this fire in recent years, with John Moore’s 2006 remake of the film also getting some residual curse mojo. For Moore’s remake they lost 13,500 feet of film, which contained the scene where Damien’s 666 birth mark is revealed. The lab had no idea what happened and were even in tears over the matter. The most that had ever been lost before was 400 feet of film (one roll), with this being outrageous and unexplainable. In another case of the Devil just playing with these chess pieces as they try to make this film, the actor who played Father Brennan in the remake, Pete Postlewaite, had his brother die. The craziest thing is that it was after drawing the combination of three sixes in a card game. How does that make any sense!
Finally, if there are still any skeptics out there, this is the smoking gun in the whole curse case. Like, I cannot believe that this actually happened because the odds are so astronomically small. John Richardson, the set designer responsible for the infamous decapitation scene in The Omen, suffered a car accident with his wife, Liz Moore, in August while shooting A Bridge Too Far. The car crash not only saw Liz decapitated in a way that looked identical to Richardson’s set design work for the film, but this all also happened on Friday the 13th, with a nearby street sign saying, “Ommen, 66.6km” which makes no sense. That’s too bonkers of a coincidence!
Regardless of if there was some greater power at work willing this bad luck to happen or not, there’s no denying that it’s a crazy amount of loss for a production to take on. It’s amazing that on top of that the crew could remain so resilient and the film would still turn out to be so satisfying. Let’s hope that the cast of A&E’s new Damien series doesn’t need to book any air travel in the near future…
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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