Review of The Omen (1976) by Sherry L — 24 Apr 2012

The seventies brought a handful of classic horror movies. The Omen is one of my favorites from that period.

Never mind about the remake from 2006 (I've always thought that "Damien" looks more autistic than evil, in it), it cannot compare to the original. Not as if there are many horror movie-remakes that can compare to the original, since the remakes are usually more like "bad copies".

Anyway, in this movie, we have Gregory Peck starring as an english ambassador, Robert Thorn, whose wife gave birth to a stillborn baby, when they were visiting Rome. Knowing that the news, that their first born baby had died, would be too much for his wife and after having talked to a priest at the roman hospital he finally considers adaption. You can call it quite a coincidence, when the priest gets to know that during the same time the little boy died, a mother had died giving birth at the very same hospital. And that baby was to what it seemed a healthy, normal little boy, now orphaned.

The priest promptly insists that Mr. Thorn should take the baby and raise it as his real son. It only means an innocent white lie in two journals.

Robert doesn't have much time to think it over, but finally decides that it would be best for all involved if he pretended to his wife that nothing that happened, and pretend like this little boy is their newborn.

The first years with little Damien (Harvey Stephens) were very happy years for the little family. They were living in an old big mansion outside London, Richard had been promoted. There wasn't one single cloud at their sky....that is not until Damien's fifth birthday party. The party ended in tragedy when Damien's nanny was standing on the roof, with a noose around her neck, shouting merrily to the shocked party guests; "-Look Damien! This is for you, Damien!", and jumped right after. (I really like how the director makes a slow close-up at Damien, right then. Rosy cheeked, with something that looked almost like a smile in his face).

Not long after, Robert Thorn gets a visit from a priest who claims that he is raising Satan's child, which Robert naturally just thinks is absurd. But later on, after having experienced some quite odd situations Mr. Thorn's mind gets challenged. But now, IF Damien is the son of anti-christ, how does one handle the problem???

I've seen a number of more recent movies with silimar theme, but it hasn't been anything worth mentioning.

Just reading a summary of the plot of this movie, today without having watched it, for me would get some warning bells to chime. I mean, it sounds a bit "campy" with Satan's child, who has arrived to earth to capture it, and all...But I think this is just another example that proves my hypothesis that a talented director can make a good movie of even the silliest of plots. The man behind this movie is Richard Donner (the Superman-movies, the Lethal Wepon-movies, The Goonies, ect.).