How tragedy cursed the sets of two of the scariest horror movies of the 1970s
Walking into a haunted house in even the most mundane of local fairgrounds is still a jittery experience. No matter how much you may tell yourself that the fibreglass coffin and the animatronic Dracula who dwells inside it, ready to pop out into existence, are as real as the candyfloss you are eating is nutritious, the sinews in your shoulders will automatically tighten, and somewhere in your internal mechanisms, true horror feels closer than ever.
The body has worked this way to keep humans alive for thousands of years. When it enters an uncomfortable environment, it prepares itself for the immediate escape of death, and there is a good chance that when actors, directors and crew begin work on a horror movie, they feel the same. Despite all the fakery and the filmic narratives, working on a scary movie must, at the very least, feel a little spooky.
This means that when real-life tragedy begins to plague those involved in such a movie, naturally, the thoughts of a curse begin to feel as real as any of the demonic moments captured on tape. One such film, sadly littered with tragic tales, was the 1976 movie The Omen.
The picture is a masterclass in creeping dread. Director Richard Donner orchestrates a symphony of unease that feels inescapable, with Gregory Peck’s stoic unravelling echoing through Jerry Goldsmith’s Oscar-winning score, a reminder of how great horror filmmaking can be without he unnecessary need for metallic-clicking monsters or unwieldy CGI. Not relying on gore or gruesome deaths to make its point, The Omen can be considered one of the finer horror flicks of the decade, but it comes packed with real-life despair.
Two months before the movie began filming, Peck, who had signed on for the role of Robert Thorn, was devastated by the loss of his son to suicide. Peck would escape his own death when, travelling to London to film the movie, his plane was struck by lightning. It was an occurrence experienced also by producer Mace Neufeld and screenwriter David Seltzer, meaning three times bolts from the blue tried to bring down the production. The lightning wouldn’t stop, and during some filming in Rome, another producer, Harvey Bernard, narrowly avoided being hit by another bolt.
The near-misses continued as the chartered plane the crew had intended to use to shoot some aerial shots was instead used by a group of businessmen. It crashed and killed everyone on board. Donner didn’t avoid the brushes with death as his hotel was bombed by the IRA a day after filming, and, likewise, a mere day after wrapping on the scene, a zookeeper at the establishment the crew were filming was killed by a lion. Tragedy was narrowly avoided when trained dogs began to disobey their commands and mauled a stuntman.
However, the most famous sad events occurred when the special effects expert in charge on set, John Richardson, suffered a horrific car crash alongside his assistant and girlfriend, Liz Moore. The accident took place in 1976, and while Richardson escaped the wreck unscathed, Moore was tragically decapitated.
As Moore looked up, finally coming to from his daze, he realised the date was Friday the 13th and saw a sign which reportedly read ‘Ommen, 66.6km’.
Another film beleaguered by tragedy was The Exorcist, a stalwart of the scary movie scene in the 1970s. Usually cited as one of the scariest movies of all time, the picture is awash with demonic possessions and ungodly happenings. But while on screen, it presented itself with a truly horrific vigour, behind the camera, things were also rough.
Just before filming began, the set of Regan and Chris MacNeil’s home was unexpectedly lost in a fire. It was another movie where co-stars tragically lost close loved ones, with star Linda Blair and the actor who played Father Merrin, Max von Sydow, both suffering losses.
Issues continued for the actors on set. Blair suffered a near-crippling injury during the famous demonic possession scene as she fractured her spine — an injury that would plague her life from thereon. A crew member lost a toe during filming and, across the production, nine people died during its creation, making it one of the most affected movie sets of all time.
While it is easy to see this as the premise of another Final Destination movie, it is more likely that we simply connect this movie to some kind of malevolent curse simply because it is a horror film. Would we have said the same if all the events had befallen the making of Frozen? Unlikely. However, it is hard to ignore the creeping sense of dread.
