A CURSED MAN: Filmmaker Liam Le Guillou Discusses His New Documentary

Introduction

Is magic real? Can a practitioner of magic cast a spell on a person that has a very real effect That’s what documentarian Liam Le Guillou sought to prove with this newest film, and he reasoned that the best way to do this was to ask a magic practitioner to place a curse on someone: himself. Beginning in Los Angeles and journeying to New Orleans, Mexico, and India, Liam travels the world looking for legitimacy in the occult in his film A Cursed Man. We interviewed Liam Le Guillou after screening the picture to discuss his process, any hurdles he faced, and what the film says about humanity as a whole.

The Interview

Lightly edited for content and clarity.

Liam Le Guillou:

Hey, Eric. How are you doing?

Eric McClanahan:

I’m well, thank you so much. Thank you for talking to me today. We’re talking about  A Cursed Man. Let’s just get right into it. How did you come up with this idea for this documentary?

Liam Le Guillou:

Right? I mean, it’s a pretty wild idea, right? I think the idea was, I was speaking to a friend about magic and beliefs, and they have zero belief in anything magical. And I said, “Okay, would you let someone put a curse on you?” And even though they said they believed in none of this. They went “No way!” So that got me thinking, “People say they don’t believe in magic, but they don’t want to mess with it, either?” So it got me thinking, well, how would that work? What would happen? And so that was the original idea. And then it just kind of became this runaway train, and away we went.

Eric McClanahan:

Yeah, I noticed you very wisely started in your backyard by going to witches in Los Angeles and then you broadened your search. Was that a funding decision, like a proof of concept? Or was that always the plan?

Liam Le Guillou:

It was always the plan. I wanted to find people close to me, just because it was easy access, and there’s an element of, you know, “Who would we get to do this?” And how would we get anyone to show us any magical practice on camera? So I was casting the net quite far and wide, although I have traveled to Mexico and India before, so I knew there were practices there that I was interested in, so they were on my radar. But yes, reaching out to magical practitioners in the Los Angeles, California area was my first step, and it’s surprisingly bigger and broader than people might think. There are a lot of practicing magical practitioners in California and the United States at large.

Eric McClanahan:

The great thing about documentaries like these is that it gives us a lens to a subculture we may not understand, or even are aware exists, so thank you for that. Were there any magical practitioners or branches of occultists that you reached out to that were like a “White Whale” that you were not able to get on camera?

Liam Le Guillou:

Yeah, I mean, there were doors closed in my face and the phone was hung up a lot of times. You’ve got to imagine, right? Some guy from California calls you up saying, “Hey, I would like to see your magical practice on camera. And would you put a curse on me?” I mean, I must have sounded like a crazy person. So I get why a lot of people wouldn’t want to speak to me. What I found was, cold calls and emails didn’t work very well. I had to put boots on the ground and go and find people. So most of the people we spoke to, I didn’t know I was going to find them until we arrived in that location.

In California, for example, I visited several different groups and went to a couple of kinds of open ceremonies, just trying to meet people, trying to ask questions, trying to see who would be prepared to speak to me, and I had to convey that this was an honest approach and honest search into this practice. I wasn’t there to make fun of anyone. This was a very open-minded look at this world, and I think once I had a chance to, you know, look people in the eye and kind of explain to them what I was trying to do, that began to open the doors. But, even then, and we see this in the film as well, some people flat out refused to put a curse on me and thought I was crazy for it.

Eric McClanahan:

With that “boots on the ground” approach, was there anything, from a funding standpoint, a place that you wanted to go to, that was off the table?

Liam Le Guillou:

So, there’s two things. It wasn’t a funding [issue]. It was a story problem that I would like to have spent more time living with the results of the curse before we wrapped and I would like to have documented that more. I wanted to film myself when I went for doctors’ checkups, and I was having terrible headaches. This wasn’t in the film, but I was having awful, awful headaches. I was unable to kind of move very well, so had X-rays done for that, and I wanted to document that. But you know, there are issues with filming permissions.

And at the moment I was literally in physical pain and I couldn’t deal with much else. I couldn’t get around the hurdles of permission to film and document all of that. So there is some stuff that I wish now we’d put in the film, it would have been more interesting to have a longer journey measuring the potential physiological effects of me. Unfortunately, we see some of that, but not perhaps as much as I’d like to.

Eric McClanahan:

There’s a great moment when you’re talking to a voodoo priest who points out the white privilege that you have – that you may have been unaware of, until that moment, that you had – when you chose a curse over a blessing. Tell me about grappling with that rationalization.

Liam Le Guillou:

Yeah, I mean, that was difficult. That was a difficult moment for me on camera to have this conversation for someone to flat out tell me that I’m coming across as a privileged white person looking for this curse in America, just as he, as an African-American in this country, feels like his day to day is oftentimes cursed. So that’s a good point. And I wrestled whether or not I wanted to put that in the film, but of course, I had to. That’s a very real question. People should challenge me on this and why I think I’m so privileged to put this on now.

The counter to that was I don’t believe I’m coming to it from a particularly privileged position. I’m coming to it from a seeker’s position, someone who’s open-minded and wants to learn more. So the counter to that was I then found a hoodoo practitioner in New Orleans who understood that challenge. He said, “Yeah, we do practice. We do test ourselves. And we do experiment in the spiritual world.” So, for him doing this was kind of fun, you know? He was like, “You’re opening yourself up to some stuff that you don’t want to get into.” But he kind of enjoyed the experimentation of it. So, yeah.

Eric McClanahan:

Yeah, he did have a palpable humor in that scene, and you could tell he was like, “Oh, I don’t get the opportunity to do this very often. Thank you. This might be fun.” Yeah. But to the point, why did you choose a curse over a blessing? Why did you feel a blessing wouldn’t validate the extraordinary occurrences you were looking for?

Liam Le Guillou:

Yeah, he asks that question, too. Several people ask that question in the film, and I try my best to explain it. Honestly, there’s not a good, simple answer to it. It’s more of a gut feeling. It was more of a sense I wanted to be deeply and profoundly challenged by what I experienced, and I don’t believe I’ve had such a blessed life that I receive blessings every day, and I wouldn’t notice. I’m sure I would have. I just felt like this would test me in a way that I wanted to feel and experience, you know? Also, I have to say, to step back a bit, going into this, I would say I was more of a skeptic. So, I didn’t think much was going to happen to me, so I figured, throw the worst at me, and let’s see what happens.

I now would say I wouldn’t do that again. I don’t recommend anyone else does this, either. I think it had some effects on me that were negative, and for me, quite scary, I would say whether or not that’s psychological or whether or not that is spiritual magic, I think to a degree that’s up to the audience to decide, and I think there could be truth in both sides of that. But yeah, definitely the short answer is, I wouldn’t do that again.

Eric McClanahan:

Do you think that there is an element to the human condition, and the current age we’re living in, that we don’t see profundity in blessings? That we only believe hardship to be true?

Liam Le Guillou:

I mean, that’s a good question and a good yeah. I mean, I think to a degree, it’s easy to take for granted when things are going well, right? We just assume, you know, it’s okay. And we put more emphasis on when things are going bad like, “Why have I been cursed? What’s happened to me?” So you kind of, since you feel that maybe that’s just a language that we’ve taught ourselves, and maybe we don’t learn to appreciate the good things that are around us. But I think by contrast, the fact that I go looking for something negative, and I found it, whatever it was; whatever you choose to believe it was. I think, by that same token, if that’s true, then you can choose to find positives.

So I think that although I don’t actively go seeking for positives in the film, by the very nature that I found negatives, I think you can find positives. So if you choose to you can look at the film that way. I say towards the end of the film our minds do have great power, so I think there’s weirdly a positive message in the film. But it’s not to have it over your head. You gotta look for it, you know? I think this film allows the audience to consider: What did I see? What were the implications of what I saw? And what does that mean for me? And I think that’s what a good documentary should do.

Eric McClanahan:

Yeah. So by documenting the shadows, you’ve thereby proven that there is the light.

Liam Le Guillou:

Potentially, potentially. I think that’s something the audience can take from it if they see that. And I hope they do.

Eric McClanahan:

Let’s talk about the scientific aspect of the paranormal of the occult. You visited the Research Institute. Tell me about that visit.

Liam Le Guillou:

Yeah, that was awesome for me! One of the highlights of the trip for me. I think that I’ve always been fascinated by everything to do with psi phenomena. So telekinesis, telepathy, any of these elements of what is psi phenomena is magic for me. So I think I grew up reading about this stuff. I mean reading about it factually, also reading about it from Stephen King – novels from Carrie and Firestarter, things like that. So I’ve always been fascinated by this subject. To me, that is magic. And so I wanted to see who are the practitioners who’ve been practicing and handing down this ritual for hundreds of thousands of years. Can they do this stuff?

And then I wanted to ask what does the scientist think? What have they found in the lab? Overarching, there is a huge amount of evidence that something is going on. There is evidence for psi phenomena. It’s kind of small, though; it’s kind of a small statistical analysis.

It’s not this big dramatic thing that we hope for, but the fact that there’s something small going on there proves that there’s more to this than we think, and the science is always debated. But the problem is, that science is often debated from a closed-mind point of view. They don’t believe it fits into this world of traditional, materialistic science, so it’s shut down before it’s even considered. But if you are prepared to look into the science of this, the odds against chance on many, many different types of psi phenomena are so out there that it’s unbelievable that it’s not more accepted at this point

Eric McClanahan:

Yeah, let’s skip to the end. You revisit the Wiccans in Los Angeles to have the curse lifted… and then the film ends. But now that I have you on here, I can ask: have you seen a change in your overall emotional well-being or the nightmares? How are you feeling now?

Liam Le Guillou:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the good news is, I’m feeling much, much better from the dark stages that I was in in this film. You know, also, I believe in the power of the mind, right? So whether or not it’s spiritual, whether or not psychological, I also believe I am an element of that. So going through a ritual to try and undo these things that I put upon myself, I also have made the conscious choice to draw a line. Now when those negative thoughts pop into my mind, I think, “Oh, God! Is that the curse?” I jump straight to No. I did that, I’ve drawn a line under that, so it’s not that. Don’t think like that.

So you have to use that and use your mind to kind of keep yourself on the straight and narrow because I did genuinely have a fear that I’d be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. Honestly, I can tell you that anxiety, that sense of dread that you have from thinking “What if it’s true? What have I done? What’s coming for me?” It got me down, and I talk about it a bit in the film. But the effects it was having on me were probably bigger than I’d even alluded to in the film just because this overall sense of dread and darkness is hard to sort of speak about on camera.

Eric McClanahan:

Right. Did you keep any of the totems that you gathered throughout your journey?

Liam Le Guillou:

No. So we created this curse that was put around my neck. San Elias in New Orleans created that, and I wore it. I wore it on a flight to India, which is a moment, but that was actually, physically undone – torn apart as part of the undoing ritual. So, yeah, I don’t have anything other than what is in my mind, I would say.

Eric McClanahan:

You follow a great lineage of documentarians who make themselves the subject of a documentary. As I was watching it, I first thought of Morgan Spurlock, but you have admitted now that the cursing thing is not something you would do again. Do you have an idea for another documentary wherein you would be the subject?

Liam Le Guillou:

Quite potentially, yeah. For my previous film, I went to the Dyatlov Pass in Russia, which is a supposedly cursed place with a story. I like to go on journeys with stories. I like to follow someone going on a journey. Now I’m an unusual beast in that I’ve never really wanted to be on camera, per se. But who else was I going to ask to go get cursed? I mean? What are the legal and ethical ramifications of doing that to someone else? I couldn’t test anyone else, so I’ve put myself in these positions because I don’t mind being the guinea pig. I like that as a story. I like seeing something happen to someone.

So as a storyteller, I enjoy that. I’m not always the most comfortable on camera, and I don’t expect to be after every film. I always say next time I’m only behind the lens, but already I am looking into another story that is perhaps more involved in the psi phenomena, and there may be an element of me being back on camera. We’ll see, particularly if there’s anything dangerous to go test, and I’m probably the first to put up my hand and volunteer.

Eric McClanahan:

Right. Well, if you put someone else through that, then you’d have that karma on your shoulders, and you’d be cursed again. [laughs] I see you also, you brought your wife in as you talked with her about what was going on, and you know what some of the potential ramifications of what you were doing might be. How was that conversation? Was she, Gung ho! Or did that take some convincing?

Liam Le Guillou:

Well, my wife is a very feet-on-the-floor sort of person. She doesn’t believe in anything spiritual or supernatural. So she was of the mindset, like, “Well, I don’t think anything’s going to happen to you, so I’m not worried. Go do your thing.” But at the same time, she was concerned for me, like, “You’re going to find people who have this belief in dark magic, and you’re going to ask them to put things on you, and you’re going to go to strange caves in the middle of the Mexican jungle and two miles up in the jungle in India. You need to be careful of where you’re going.” So she was mindful to remind me of that, and I’m cautious. I’m very careful. I’ve done a lot of documentary travel shoots around the world. I’m quite aware that you always need to be careful.

You don’t always know who you’re filming with and who you’re working with. So that was a very realistic risk. But apart from that, the magic side of things, she wasn’t too concerned with that. That said she also lived with me going through these results, you know, not sleeping for 6 months, feeling this sense of anxiety consistently. My wife is, actually, a mental health therapist, so she said to me, “You’re showing symptoms of this affecting you, and you do need to do something about it.” Even though she was not necessarily a believer, she saw that a change needed to occur.

Eric McClanahan:

Right, again, that power of the mind you were experiencing.

Liam Le Guillou:

Right, right.

Eric McClanahan:

I think I have time for one more question: I did a little digging, and I saw you were the director of photography on a little independent film called Painless (2018).

Liam Le Guillou:

Yeah.

Eric McClanahan:

I watched it many years ago and reviewed it on a different website, and I loved the movie. So now that I have you, I just kind of want to pick your brain a little bit about putting together images that evoke those physical sensations of character and story.

Liam Le Guillou:

Yeah. Painless was a wonderful film to work on. A very, very good friend of mine, Jordan Horowitz directed it. I was super excited to film that. We had a strong visual conversation about, how would we show this character’s world. So the idea was, that the character is someone with a real condition who cannot feel any physical pain, far from the Marvel superhero versions of that. It’s a huge negative, and many people [with that condition] don’t live very long because pain tells you something’s wrong. Go fix it, go sort something out. He didn’t have that ability, so it was a very lonely, isolating world for him.

So we shot New York in winter, which kind of lent itself to the tone of the film and the isolation that he felt as a character. So, yeah, it was a beautiful project to shoot and work on. I’m glad you got to see it. I’m very proud of that work, and I know Jordan’s very proud of directing it. Yeah, I’d love more people to go see it. It’s sometimes hard for independent films to find their feet and sort of get out there. But yeah, people should go check them out for sure.

Eric McClanahan:

I agree. I’m glad we were able to talk about it. I think that is our time. Thank you so much for talking today, and best of luck with the documentary.

Liam Le Guillou:

Appreciate it, Eric. Thank you very much.

Eric McClanahan:

Thank you, Liam.

Conclusion

A Cursed Man is a good watch for those curious about the occult but likely won’t lure in skeptics or the disinterested. The film is very exhaustive, leaving little in the way of questions once the credits have rolled. While I found some of the effects of the curse to be rather performative and convenient, I have little doubt that Le Guillou did experience some sort of profound change. As he said, whether that’s due to paranormal influence or is purely psychosomatic is left to interpretation, but it’s an illuminating journey, regardless. Painless is worth a watch, either way, so hopefully there’s a little something for everyone to take away from this article.

A Cursed Man premiered in Los Angeles on Saturday, March 22nd, and will be available via Video on Demand from all major streamers on Tuesday, March 25th.

Read more Cinema Scholars interviews!

THE MIRACLE CLUB: An Interview With Director Thaddeus O’Sullivan

THE WRATH OF BECKY: An Interview With The Directors And Star Lulu Wilson

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