The Movie Satan Didn't Want Made

(Just a little note to say that I have been so busy working long hours six days a week that my blogging efforts have suffered. I'm fine and my desire to offer my thoughts hasn't waned, but sometimes life gets in the way. Hopefully things will settled down soon.)

I'm fascinated by the concept of curses. Easy to dismiss but hard to ignore because sometimes bad luck seems to run in chains.

The subject of this post is an old Christian evangelistic movie dating back to the seventies called The Burning Hell which allegedly had a bit of curse back of it.

Although I never saw the movie, it had an impact on my childhood for I heard much about it. My best friend and next door neighbor witnessed a showing of it at his church and he recounted the movie to me almost scene by scene. It played in churches around my area but somehow I never managed to see it.

Now of course I am no longer a fundamentalist Christian, nor a believer in a personal devil. Satan serves as the archetype of evil in my thinking. Yes, I sometimes find myself personalizing the concept in my talking in writing. But I don't think of the matter now as I did in my youth.

Nevertheless a little article I read in the newspaper preserves its makers idea that somehow the Prince of Darkness took time out to attempt to prevent this movie being made.

The movies producer and director, the late Ron Ormond, suffered a nasty fall down some steps on the first night of shooting as he attempted to inspect the set. "While walking down I slipped, but it felt more like I was pushed," Ormond describes the incident, which makes me think of scenes from television series The Haunting.

A moth also seeming attempted to put out a 3200 Kelvin light that was being used during filming. While it was noted that ordinarily contact with such a light would kill a bird instantly, the moth was untroubled.

There was also a severed camera motor wire which delayed filming for several hours.

And as the sound track was being mixed, a fiery explosion caused delays in that aspect of the film's production.

These are just some of the "hundred constant happenings that plagued the crew and cast of The Burning Hell.

Some might just say mere coincidences. Believers will have no trouble accepting the producer's version of this curse. Personally, I think the world would not have been worse off had this film never been made. By all accounts I've heard it is hideous.

Satan has gotten bad press before and should be used to it. It would seem to me he did quite enough back in Eden to make his presence felt.

But seriously, bad luck does seem to have been at play in Ormond's film. However, as always, it remains to be interpreted in the mind of the individual.

Interestingly enough, Ormond didn't start making Christian films until late in his life, after surviving an airplane crash.