Summary
There’s a phenomenon calleda cursed horror moviewhere really weird things happen to the cast outside of filming, movies likePoltergeistandRosemary’s Baby, whose plots revolve around demonic entities.The Omen(1976) is one of those particular films that follows Robert, an American ambassador, who adopts a child after his wife delivers a stillborn baby, but with horrid realizations, Robert discovers the boy he adopted is the Antichrist. The film’s exploration into what the Antichrist is and how it was created is heavily investigated, and it’s truly horrifying, but what’s even scarier is the events that happened during production.
Many strange incidents happened to the cast and crew during the production ofThe Omendirected by Richard Donner, encounters that are too freaky to be called a coincidence. This phenomenon has sparked discussion due to an additional movie being released in the franchise. With the newest film in the franchise,The First Omenreleasing earlier this year, it’s important to reflect on its first installment’s history, to uncover the truth of why this film is considered cursed.
Jorge Montesi and Dominique Othenin-Girard
June 24, 2025
The Omen Movies In Order
The Omen franchise’s order just got complicated thanks to 2024’s new prequel The First Omen, so which movie should an uninitiated viewer watch first?
Movie Events In The Omen Turned Into Real Life Events
Some Scary Scenes Were Similar To Reality
There are elements inThe Omenthat make it believed to be cursed, as the events that played out are eerily similar to scenes from the film. In the movie, the priest that was trying to uncover the truth about Robert’s son, Damien, is trying to take shelter in a closed church during a strange storm and is impaled by the church’s lightning rod after being struck by lightning. DuringThe Omen’s theatrical premiere in Rome,lightning struck a 400-year-old cross on a 16th century church, a phenomenon that is inherently rare, especially in the city where filming took place.
What’s even scarier is that there’s a part in the film when Robert and a photographer, David (Keith Jennings), are abroad trying to get answers about Damien, but during the investigation David is beheaded in a freak accident where a truck holding glass panels reverses down a hill where David is crouching. The SFX supervisor who created David’s beheaded figure was later in a car accident with another person who was unfortunately killed - beheaded similarly to the figure - butthe freakiest part was that the crash site was 66.6 kilometers from a town called Ommen.
Things Happened That Are A Little Too Strange To Call A Coincidence
Incidents Were Eerily Similar To Others
The lightning phenomenon was a prominent occurrence to symbolize the dark nature ofDamien inThe Omen, but the notion of lightning and its destruction morphed into the daily lives of the cast. Peck and David Seltzer, the film’s writer, both tookflights around production - two completely different days - where each plane was struck by lightning. Everyone was alright after the incident, but the chances of lightning hitting a plane is slim - in fact, on average, lightning hits a plane once a year, and for it to happen to the main star and writer ofThe Omenin two separate instances is too strange to call it a coincidence.
The car that the plane crashed into had people inside, those people being the pilot’s wife and children.
Another flight incident involving Gregory Peck happened that probably deterred him from flying for a long time, as the circumstances stand very eerily and are also devastatingly sad for everyone involved. Peck had a flight that he later canceled and didn’t board, and it turns out that that plane crashed into a car and unfortunately killed everyone on board and in that one car. The car that the plane crashed into had people inside, those people being the pilot’s wife and children, the incident leading many people to believe that there was some sort of curse placed on those involved inThe Omen.
The Animals On Set Augmented Fear
Many Different Animals Are Featured In The Film, Some With Crazy Stories
One sequence of the film involves Damien and his mother Kathy (Lee Remick) going to the zoo for some pleasant bonding time, but theanimals in the film sense the presence of pure evil, and attack the car. The zoo scenes were shot at Windsor Wild Safari Park, so different enclosures were filmed, including one non-featured scene with lions. Right after filming the scene, while the cast filmed the scene with baboons, two lions killed a guard in his booth - the door was left wide open, allowing the lions access. The one rottweiler on set brutally attacked a stuntperson, too.
The zoo scene that made it into the film was the baboon scene, where Damien and Kathy slowly drive behind a tour bus in the enclosure. But the baboons sense his presence and unleash utter chaos on the car, to the point where the audience is unsure if Kathy and Damien are acting or actually screaming.Remick had trouble with the gear shift, causing the car to be stuck there while the baboons shrieked and pounded on the windows, roof, and hood of the car, and after the scene was done filming, the gear shift started working again.
The Omen’s synopsis revolves around the discussion of demonic entities and beings, which is a subject that’s not only difficult to discuss but also very frightening, especially when freak incidents that occur in the film emulate events in reality.The film has been called cursed due to strange incidents that happen to the cast and crew, events that are devastating and frightening to those involved or adjacent. These events augment the fear factor that goes into watching the film, and knowing what happened makesThe Omenmuch scarier.
The Omen
Cast
The Omen is a classic supernatural horror film that follows a family that begins seeing a dark change in their son as he ages. Unbeknownst to his wife, Kathy, Robert Thorn sees that their child has died during birth and is aided by a chaplain to replace the deceased child with a newborn orphan and raise him as their own. As the years pass, increasingly violent incidents, including the suicide of the family nanny, begin to occur around their son, Damien. Little do the parents know, the child they took on is actually the antichrist.
