'Cursed Films' Episode 2: Well-known anecdotes and rushed scenes mar series, fans say focus on 'The Omen' missing

AMC’s horror-centric streaming service Shudder has released the second episode ‘The Omen’ of the five-episode docuseries directed by Jay Cheel. ‘Cursed Films’ explores the supernatural happenings while shooting the movies. It focuses on the legends and the myths of the movies that are assumed to be cursed. 

‘The Omen’ is a 1976 horror film directed by Richard Donner. The original film revolves around a child and the sinister events happening around the family. The docuseries directed by Cheel is a 28-minute episode with the interview of the director Donner and the executive producer Mace Neufeld. They discuss the events that took place while shooting the film such as, the star of the movie Gregory Peck’s plane getting struck by lightning and the plane he was supposed to be on crashing and the death of special effects artist John Richardson’s assistant Liz Moore in a car accident. 

Michael Shermer, the publisher of the Skeptic Magazine was also interviewed for the docuseries who spoke about how horror fans see what the want to see. Instead of focusing on the events that took place and talking about it in-depth, the episode focuses more on the nature of curses and human perception, leaving fans dissatisfied and disappointed.

A user on Reddit expressed, “This is the first Shudder series I've been really disappointed in. The break down of the 'cursed' events are ok as well as the interviews with the actors and filmmakers but it seems very rushed and glossed over. Instead, they spend significant time with rando scam artists and kooks who try to explain the curses in mystical bullshit speak.”

“I agree. Was looking forward to this series but it seems to be just a couple of well-known anecdotes about each film bolstered with some hokey filler like "black magicians" and exorcists. Maybe I let it get overhyped in my mind.” expressed another Reddit user.

A Twitter user tweeted, “Sadly a little bummed by Cursed Films. I really wished it focused on the films more. You have Richard Donner sitting down in front of you talking about The Omen and he maybe has 3-5 minutes of screen time”

“I did not dig The Omen ep of Cursed Films as much as the first ep. It didn't really spend much time talking about things that happened on the set of the film and...I mean that's what I was there for. However, still looking forward to more eps” said another tweet. 

“Not really digging these crackpot guests. Exorcists and black magicians.” said a Reddit user. “I wasn't really into Shudder's Cursed Films episode on The Omen until the dude from Pawn Stars showed up.” said another fan on Twitter. 

Despite the built expectations of the second episode being better than the first episode ‘The Exorcist’, fans are left disappointed. Instead of focusing on the cursed events that took place while shooting the movie ‘The Omen’, it focused more on the coincidence, human perception and nature of curses. However, the only interesting thing was the interview featuring Donner and Neufeld.