Cursed Films

There are some films that have picked up a reputation for being cursed. While bad things, sometimes very bad thing, happened on set or in the aftermath of their release, they, with the exception of The Twilight Zone, pale when compered to The Conquerors or The Sword Of Tipu Sultan. In the former half the cast and crew contracted cancer as a result of filming in the fallout of American nuclear tests, and in the latter 62 died when the studio burnt down. What links the so called cursed films addressed here is genre.

Cursed Films is a five episode documentary series that examines why some of these films gained their reputation. Each half hour episode discusses a different film: Poltergeist, and its sequels; The Omen; The Exorcist; The Crow; and The Twilight Zone:The Movie.

The first three episodes have a fairly light hearted tone. Through a series of interviews, mostly with cast and crew and archive footage, Cursed Films quickly walks you through the events that are built up into the films' mythologies. Some of these events are trivial, like lightning strikes on aircraft which happen every thousand flight hours. Some are coincidental, like the IRA conducting a bombing campaign in London before filming for The Omen had even started. Some are tragic, like the murder of Dominique Dunne by her violent ex, or Heather O'Rourke succumbing to a misdiagnosed congenital condition. It then gently debunks the curse theories, except in the case of The Omen, where it fairly playfully advances the idea that it was anti-cursed with Satan doing their best to ensure the film was made.

For the final two episodes, Cursed Films takes a darker turn. First is the on-set death of Brandon Lee in a firearms accident during the filming of The Crow. It looks at the conspiratorial and supernatural connections between his death and the mysterious death of his father, Bruce Lee. (For the record, Bruce Lee's death was neither mysterious nor unexplained.)

The episode devoted to The Twilight Zone: The Movie (produced by Steven Spielberg and John Landis) is genuinely quite upsetting. It looks at the disregard for the health, safety and welfare of the cast and crew in the lead up to the horrific accident that occurred during the John Landis-directed segment of the film. A helicopter, hit by pyrotechnics, crashed to the ground, decapitating Vic Morrow and Myca Dinh Le (aged 7), and crushing Renee Shin-Yi Chen (aged 6). Both children were being employed illegally. You'll be asking yourself how both Landis and Spielberg avoided ending up in jail. Be warned, this episode includes footage of the accident.

The grimness of the final episode is mitigated by an interview with Lloyd Kauffman on the set of Shakespeare's Shitstorm, showing what a proper regard for health and safety looks like, even on a low budget.

Brevity can be a good thing. At about half an hour an episode there is no room for extraneous footage or self indulgence on the part of the film maker. The archive footage is well chosen and the interviews are concise. Repetition is avoided apart from the Satanist in The Omen episode explaining how curses work. Cursed Films is fairly dense and informative and, not including the final episode for obvious reasons, an enjoyable watch.