The Omen (1976) - film review

When his son dies in childbirth, the wealthy American politician Robert Thorn agrees to adopt another child in its place, to spare his wife Katherine grief.  With Thorn newly appointed ambassador to Great Britain, the couple settle in England with their adopted son, Damien and lead a perfectly happy life.  Then, on Damien’s fifth birthday the problems begin.  Not long after the child’s nanny has hanged herself, Thorn is visited by a strange Catholic priest, Father Brennanm who insists that Damien is the Antichrist and must be destroyed.  Thorn dismisses this as the fantasy of a madman but has second thoughts when Brennan accurately predicts that Katherine is pregnant and will lose her child through Damien’s intervention.  Teaming up with a photographer, Thorn returns to Rome, where Damien was born, to try to uncover the true identity of his adopted child.  He soon has no doubt that Damien is indeed the child of Satan, but will he be able to bring himself to kill him?

The extraordinary success of Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) gave rise to a new sub-genre of horror in the mid-seventies involving the unholy triumvirate of Satanism, diabolical possession and really freaky children who just can’t help killing people.  Thankfully, many of these cinematic abominations have been forgotten but a few have stood the test of time, and the first film in the original Omen trilogy is probably the best of the bunch.

Whilst it is nowhere near as frightening as The Exorcist, The Omen offers a satisfying blend of creepiness and thriller suspense, even if it does veer towards the blatantly ridiculous at times.   The supreme silliness of the plot is trumped by the unintentionally hilarious dialogue which includes such gems as the Treaty of Rome (i.e. the creation of the European Union) being interpreted as the fulfilment of the prophecy in the Book of Revelations (the Euro-sceptics will enjoy that one).  The more times you watch the film, the sillier it becomes, and that’s probably the main reason for its enduring popularity.

For a film that is marred by such a daft plot and even dafter dialogue, The Omen is surprisingly compelling.  This is almost entirely down to the performances of its two star actors, Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, and some magnificent support from the likes of Billie Whitelaw (the scariest nanny since Bette Davis) and Patrick Troughton (funnier than he ever was as Dr Who).  There is very little explicit horror in the film, although the few shocks it does offer (such as a nasty impaling and an even nastier decapitation) are very effective, without resorting to the gore splattered let’s-hack-of-every-limb  excesses which today’s filmmakers reckon to be so essential to their art.

Following the success of The Omen there came two inferior sequels, Damien: Omen II (1978) and The Final Conflict (1981), which fail spectacularly to fulfil the promise of the first film.   Originally, the series was to consist of four films, but after the disappointing second entry, the producers got cold feet and hastened Damien’s inevitable demise (and a good thing too).  John More directed a rather pointless remake of The Omen, which was cheekily released on 6th June 2006 and is nowhere near as much fun as the original.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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