The Omen (1976)
Those who foretold it are dead. Those who can stop it are in grave danger
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Director - Richard Donner
Writer - David Seltzer
Starring - Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Billie Whitelaw, Harvey Stephen, Patrick Troughton, Martin Benson, Robert Rietty, Tommy Duggan, John Stride, Anthony Nicholls, Roy Boyd, Freda Dowie, Shiela Raynor
Review by The_Void
A horror masterclass,
Following on from The Exorcist, The Omen is a horror film that gained itself instant notoriety for it's dissection of Christian theology to create a horror movie. However, despite it's many macabre incidents and dark mythology, The Omen is actually a family drama. The focus is always kept on the family at the centre of the story, and fatherly love makes up the backbone of the story, while also creating much of the horror. That's what puts this film above many other horror films of a similar nature; it creates it's scenario first, completes it with interesting characters that you can relate to and care for, and then it adds the horror; by which point it is all the more powerful, owing to the fact that the audience has some feeling for the characters. Horror works much better when it has backbone and emotion behind it, and The Omen proves that. Of course, the fact that The Omen is more than technically sound isn't exactly incidental to the film's success with horror and art fans alike, as this film features fabulous directing, some great acting and an intelligent, mature script. And, despite the fact that movie is largely story based, we are still treated to some glorious gory highlights, which include a spire being flung through a priest, and what is maybe the best decapitation ever filmed.
Gregory Peck, who gives one of his all time best performances, stars as Robert Thorn; the American ambassador in Britain whose wife had a still born baby. Unbeknown to her, Thorn decides, on the recommendation of a priest that is present, to take the child of another family as his own. However, things go awry for the family when it turns out that this child is the Antichrist. The name 'Damien' is more famous than the movie itself. Damien is absolutely perfect name for this movie as despite being an everyday, ordinary name; it has a true horror ring to it. Owing to this film, if there really was an Antichrist; I would expect him to be called Damien. The film is topped off by a great score, which is very over the top, but it works magnificently nonetheless. The theme song that plays over the opening credits is incredible and belongs right near the summit of the list of best themes ever composed for a movie. Religion has proved itself on many occasions to make a great subject for a horror movie, and it has more than done it in this film. It takes obvious influence from earlier seventies horrors, such as The Exorcist, but it does it in an original way and the result is one of the greatest horror movies ever made.
Review by Theo Robertson
The Omen (1976)
Much Better Than THE EXORCIST,
This movie appears in the book 50 Worst Movies Of All Time alongside such fare as ROBOT MONSTER . This is completely undeserved because i rate THE OMEN as one of the best horror movies from the 1970s , if not all time . The book in question makes a big deal of how young Damien's parents experience some ghastly going ons without realising something is seriously wrong , but this is churlish since the audience ( like in most horror movies ) are one step in front of the protagonists , we instantly know what's going on even if the characters on screen don't and this is what makes the narrative so suspenseful , we're waiting for Ambassador Robert Thorn to put two and two together . It should also be pointed out that these types of tradgedies do happen in life and there's a rational explanation with no supernatural causes involved
Comparisons with both THE OMEN and THE EXORCIST will be made but this is by much the better film I think . Both films deal with satanic powers and both are very dead pan but unlike THE EXORCIST the serious tone of this movie doesn't go against it , THE EXORCIST goes out of its way to shock the audience while THE OMEN keeps its discipline and is all the better for it . Richard Donner brings shock moments where it's needed like the revelation of the priest after the fire , the scene in the cemetery and the lorry accident at Megiddo and unlike the shock scenes in THE EXORCIST they're never unintentionally funny . Giving roles to well known Brit character actors like Patrick Troughton , Billie Whitelaw , Leo McKern and David Warner also helps the movie a lot
The only real criticism I have is that it's not as good as I originally remembered after seeing it for the first time , but that's a problem with a great number of movies I've seen , or that the biblical city of Megiddo is nowhere near the location described in the screenplay ( It is in fact a few short miles west of the border of the West Bank on the route to Jenin ) but that won't matter to 99.9% of the rest of the audience . If I ever write a book called 50 Best Horror Movies Of All Time THE OMEN will definitely feature in it
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