CURSED FILMS Interviews: Director Jay Cheel and Occult Writer Mitch Horowitz Talk Horror Movies

INTERVIEW WITH JAY CHEEL

Screen Anarchy: As it’s pointed out in the series, paranormal stories, curses and so forth are especially linked to horror cinema, to films like THE EXORCIST and THE OMEN, which deal with the devil. Why was exploring this connection interesting for you?

Jay Cheel: The connection of the curses to those films, we kind of just followed the lead of the people who have been telling those stories for the years since their production. With the series I guess our approach was never to actually claim that any of these films are cursed or that there’s something supernatural behind their troubled productions, but just look at the fact that there are people who suggest such a thing and figure out why they might think that’s the case, and look at what exactly draws us to that conclusion and fascinates us about this idea of a horror film having this sort of bleeding off the screen effect in the real world.

In terms of how I came to the project, it was brought to me by Shudder as a potential doc series and they wanted me to pitch back my take, how would I approach such a thing. I gave them my rational vs. irrational approach to this subject, looking at it as a way to explore other ideas like coincidence, synchronicity, magical thinking... and they were into that idea so it kind of went from there.

Especially in the first episodes we have this “battle” between what’s rational and what seems to us irrational. Among the interviewees are black magicians, a guy who refers himself as a witch and a real life exorcist. How was your approach to this possibly controversial side of the series?

Yeah, I feel like you can’t talk about this idea of a cursed film without trying to understand what exactly that would look like. So I wanted to reach out to some people that feel like this is something that could actually happen, that a film could be cursed, and figure out to what circumstances a film could end up being a cursed production, whether it’s something like The Omen where they might represent certain occult rituals and images in such a precise realistic fashion that it would bring upon this curse, like just portraying the devil will attract the attention of the devil sort of idea. Or whether or not it might be someone actually employing some sort of black magic ritual from afar, actively cursing a film production because they might have some grudge that they hold against the producer or whatever it might be.

So I felt it was important, if we are going to talk about all of the reasons why a film can’t be cursed or why we don’t believe a film is cursed, then at least give some screen time to the opposite side of that argument. And in a way, by giving the screen time to the idea of a film being cursed and what that looks like, I think it makes the skeptical argument for you, because it just looks so unbelievable. It was really about that balance but always approaching it from a skeptical perspective.

I think that’s precisely what you do especially in the POLTERGEIST and THE CROW episodes, when you have people who worked on those films sort of tired of conspiracy theories because there were real tragedies during those productions. How was your approach to these interviews considering that the subject matter is inherently tragic?

That was what was exciting about the show, is getting to approach some of these people that maybe didn’t talk about this before in the media and haven’t been totally satisfied with how they’ve been portrayed or felt that maybe they couldn’t be completely honest because there was some agenda to the article or the story that they were taking part in. So I would just, in approaching these people, say “I want to give you the opportunity to get off of your chest the true and honest feelings and thoughts you have about this, not only what happened on the production but how people have kind of shaped those tragedies into this idea of a curse, and just kind of lay it out for us without any sort of agenda.” The time was theirs and they could just say whatever they wanted to say about it.

It was certainly refreshing for me to be able to have a conversation like that, and I think it might have been refreshing for them to be able to speak completely freely about this stuff, and hopefully it’s refreshing to the audience to get to see these people talk about these productions in a very real way, and make sure that they bring the attention back to, in some cases, the people who tragically lost their lives whether it’s through negligence or just through a series of unfortunate circumstances. That was kind of the big draw for me for this project.

Another interesting theme is marketing, PR stuff that helps to sell a movie on controversy. I even remember recent cases like the one of that French film RAW, those reports from the Toronto International Film Festival that said people were fainting because of that movie. And in the end RAW wasn’t even that graphic, it was more of a coming-of-age film. So how do you feel about this side of filmmaking that seems very important? I think in a way, people can’t get rid of that because it works for the purely business aspect of cinema.

Yeah, I mean, it’s definitely something that’s acknowledged in the series. Linda Blair mentions this idea of the PR people kind of being behind some of the claims of fainting and ambulances at screenings of The Exorcist, so they certainly lean into that. I think the same can be said about The Omen, Richard Donner talks about utilizing some of those stories to their benefit, for the PR.

It’s touchy, kind of tricky because certainly with The Omen there were some real tragedies that were connected to those unusual circumstances and a lot of them weren’t related to the production, it was almost like the not film day, they were continually just missing tragedy and it was ultimately falling on someone not connected to the production.

I can certainly see that instinct, how that would make sense to lean into that and take advantage of these stories to push the PR team to make a point of getting the media to talk about it, but I think it can go the other way as well, obviously Twilight Zone: The Movie, the accident that took place on that set did not do that film any favors, it wasn’t something that they obviously lean into, they were probably wanting to get as far away from that as possible.

But yeah, I mean, especially with horror films I think often the power of these curse stories comes from the fact that the events that take place sometimes mirror the stories in the films themselves; I think that’s what attracts us to it, it feels like the films bleeding off the screen into reality and there’s something intriguing about that.

The series also tackle the inherent dangers of filmmaking, in particular we hear stories about William Friedkin and obviously John Landis. They kind of did everything, harsh stuff, in the name of their art. I think nowadays people tend to reject more this attitude, Friedkin and Landis would be “canceled” today. Do you agree?

The September before Cursed Films came out, I felt like on Twitter the whole Twilight Zone: The Movie thing was suddenly being discovered by a lot of people because of accusations made towards Max Landis, so then suddenly people were discovering “oh, well Max Landis has this going on, but have you heard about what his father was involved with?.” If that kept going the way it was going, I think he would’ve ended up canceled although I’m not sure that he’s really actively working currently as it is. But you’re right, if his films were being made today and these filmmakers were taking the risks... I mean, you just have to look at the horrible accident that happened on the set of the William Hurt film where that camera assistant was killed by the train [Midnight Rider]; and that resulted in the director going to prison.

I think it’s something that’s not tolerated now, and specifically because of what happened on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie, I think that had a big impact and sent ripples to the industry and hopefully made things a little safer. But there’s always accidents that happen unfortunately and The Crow came 10 years after Twilight Zone: The Movie, so there weren’t any additional measures being taken on that set it seems. So it’s always something that I guess is the challenge, this tension between trying to capture an image and make your art but at what cost? It really should be no cost, there should never be a loss of life during production of a film obviously.

Obviously the fact that John Landis doesn’t appear is not a surprise, but can you talk about other challenges or other people that didn’t want to talk with you?

Yeah, some people we didn’t end up getting just because of the nature of the series, like reaching out to someone to talk about a tragedy on a set for a show called Cursed Films. I think a lot of these people talked some of these stories to death and maybe aren’t really into talking about it anymore, but even with the people we did get there were some challenges.

Craig Reardon, who’s the makeup effects artist on Poltergeist, he used the real skeletons, he took part in an E! True Hollywood Story, an episode about the curse of Poltergeist, and he felt he was misrepresented and regretted even doing that interview. So when I reached out to him, he was definitely not into it and he threatened to sue me personally if we even mentioned his name. So when I clarified to him that the whole idea of the show was to allow him to speak honestly about how he feels about this idea of a curse, he saw that as a great opportunity to just kind of address the Internet basically as a whole and say “this is ridiculous and I think it’s offensive to me because I knew these girls.” That was the sort of refreshing thing to the people we did end up getting for the series, that they could approach it in this way.

And for season 2, I think it’s going to be less of an actual battle because we now have a season of television to be able to show them as this sort of example of what we intend to do with their stories on the second season. And that’s just to allow them to tell them, to kind of control the narrative or take control back of those narratives and address their honest feelings on these ideas of a “cursed” film.

INTERVIEW WITH MITCH HOROWITZ

ScreenAnarchy: How did your involvement with CURSED FILMS come to be?

Mitch Horowitz: Jay wanted to have different people who were part of it, who would weight in the question of whether there could be such thing as a cursed film, whether there was anything to a curse in reality. He had the people involved in the project who were very skeptical about the question of whether there’s anything that really exists that we can call a curse. I came to approach spiritual questions and alternative spiritual history from a perspective of critical sympathy. I’m not necessarily a believer in curses but I take seriously that dimension of believe and so he wanted to have somebody participate who wouldn’t necessarily shut down the question from a point of extreme skepticism. And so he wanted someone to approach occult and esoteric questions more from a perspective of critical sympathy, so that’s why he asked me to be part of the series.

The series explores why horror is particularly linked to curses and conspiracy theories. Why do you think people keep linking this genre with the occult?

It’s interesting. Horror may be the one film genre that really ties into people’s beliefs, we watch all kinds of things on the screen, even science fiction, and the audience doesn’t necessarily believe that it represents something real.

But with a horror film like The Exorcist for example, most people in the United States, in Latin America perceive exorcism or demonic possession based upon what they experienced through that movie, even if they’ve never seen The Exorcist the ideas from that movie have become so influential that people throughout North America or Latin America who speak about exorcisms are probably forming an opinion or their point of view from that movie. I believe that if the movie The Exorcist never got made, it’s very possible that very few of us would even know the term, very few of us would use the term today.

It was not uncommon that people would watch a movie, whether the movie deals with life after death or vampires or exorcisms, for a certain segment of the audience these things side with their beliefs.

It’s funny, cremation is very widely practiced in the United States today as a funeral choice, probably about 50% of people are being cremated, but it was considered something very exotic and strange back in the late 19th century; it was considered so exotic and strange that one of the advocates for cremation argued that it deterrent to vampires, and nobody really noticed that was included within this reasoning and part of the reason nobody really noticed was because not all Americans and Latin Americans were even aware of what vampires were in the late 19th century [laughs]. Everybody is saying those are the vampires but back then not everybody did, and the reason for that is entertainment.

It’s just interesting the matter in which people would take a lot of tunes in terms of their beliefs and their cultural attitudes from movies, but horror more than any other genre sides with belief.

Talking about THE EXORCIST, the series actually begins with you mentioning how this film is still very disturbing. What impact did THE EXORCIST have on you back in the day when it was so controversial?

It’s interesting, I remember when the movie came out when I was a little kid and I was not permitted to see it, which is probably a good idea. There was such a mythology brought to The Exorcist precisely because it was the movie that your parents wouldn’t allow you to see. And then when I did see the movie, I found it terribly disturbing, maybe because you see this young girl, played by Linda Blair, put into a position where she’s engaging in all these profane things and it’s very difficult to watch a child engaged in acts even though we know that they are artifice, engaged in acts that are vulgarly sexual, profanity-laced, violent.

And it’s strange because The Exorcist disturbed people so deeply that when the movie came out people were hostile towards Linda Blair, the actress, even though she was just a little kid. A few years later when the movie The Omen came out, which also had a child actor in it, a male actor, he wasn’t met with any of the same hostility. There was something about The Exorcist and seeing Linda Blair as this female child in this possession of violence and profanity, that not only disturbed people but that probably stir up a cultural stereotype that this was something that was so off the charts because it was a female actor playing the part. There was something about The Exorcist that for reasons that are probably very complicated, that got under people’s skin.

In that episode [THE EXORCIST] it’s also clear how horror and religion are connected. What can you comment on this subject?

Religious themes really underscore a lot of horror, certainly the early classic horror movies are largely religious, there’s always this question of there being some opposing force, some adversarial force which might be called the satanic within the traditional religions, and some being will stand in for that force. Whether it’s Count Dracula or in fact whether it’s Victor Frankenstein deciding that he wants to play the role of Prometheus as he’s going to try to create life himself and he winds up creating a monster that takes the lives of other people around him. Or a film like The Mummy where this ancient being is able to walk again and there’s this idea that there’s an invisible connection to life, an invisible connection that confronts us in the form of ghosts or zombies or animated figures that are not supposed to be animated or vampires or possessed children. And to a very good extent, even some of the slasher films like Halloween, this idea of there being some palpable evil in our world forms the foundation for the film itself, so it can even be argued that horror as a genre is religious in nature.

In the episode about THE OMEN you also mention how the occult has a very important presence in our everyday life, especially today. I guess that has to do with the fact that the mysteries of life will never go away. Do you agree?

Oh, it’s an interesting question. I mean, certainly pain and suffering and tragedy are as much a part of life as joy and birth and celebration. I think that there’s something in human nature that of course wants to escape friction, pain, difficulty, it’s natural that none of us wants to suffer but without those aspects of life none of us would grow either, we would remain children intellectually and emotionally, we could never overcome barriers. So there’s always this balance, we fictionalize that in many horror movies by framing this balance as a struggle between good and evil, although both parts of life (suffering and joy) seem to be vitally necessary if life is deserving of the name.

”We shouldn’t throw rationalism out the window” is one of your quotes in the documentary. Particularly with the latter episodes on POLTERGEIST, THE CROW and TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE, the series is, more than digging into theories and curses, dealing with the tragic loss of human lives. Do you think that’s one of the main intentions of the series?

Oh yes, I think the series does a wonderful job of demonstrating the forensics behind some of the things that we might consider curses and explaining exactly how it was that Brandon Lee died and how this horrible tragedy happened on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. Eventually the series really comes around to explaining these things in a matter that’s really concrete and fascinating.

I always have to walk a fine line in my work as a historian because I think seriously that there’s an extra-physical dimension to life; at the same time, if one thinks that way, if one agrees with me, that doesn’t mean that we should lower our standards and not attempt to be very critical when considering life in all of its different dimensions. I believe we live in physical existence and I believe we live in metaphysical existence, but that certainly doesn’t mean that I’m going to accept every pragmatic or romantic explanation for everything that happens to us. Most of what happens to us is quite mundane and can be understood through means and methodology that are familiar to us. I think there’s one aspect of life that really evokes questions and that’s where I like to start digging. So it’s not so much that I embrace the extra-physical as I refuse to exclude it.

Like you said earlier, THE EXORCIST pretty much influenced real-life exorcists. In that sense, do you think horror cinema continues nowadays to be an influence in our society as much as it was back in the seventies?

Without question. Here in the United States, just over the past several years, the number of church-licensed exorcists has actually quintupled. And so we’ve seen an increase by five times of the number of people that the Catholic Church licenses to perform the exorcism right. That’s naturally fascinating to me, that there’s all kinds of different reasons why that might the case but I would say, in all honesty, if you would just dial back the clock to the 1960s and look up the term exorcist, most people would not know what you were talking about. And yet today everybody knows what you’re talking about and people feel this need for exorcisms to such an extent that the Church is licensing people to perform the exorcism right and at unprecedented rates! This all feels like it’s still very present with us today, of course.

What are your favorite horror films that you think offer a really interesting perspective towards the occult?

Well, it’s an interesting question. I would say my all-around favorite horror film is The Shining, isn’t that a perfect film for the COVID crisis because it tells us what we’re rift at when we’re cut up together for too long.

In terms of my favorite film that relate to the occult, I would say Rosemary’s Baby, I think it’s just the most realistic film I’ve ever encountered in terms of human psychology and the question of some sort of a darker force. These are my favorites.