"The Omen" (1976)

The first time I watched this was quite an experience. This is a scary movie. It’s like the anti-Christmas story. Robert Thorn is the ambassador of the United State, and who’s wife has a stillborn child, born on sixth day of the sixth month at six o’clock in the morning. Without her knowing however, he substitutes another baby as theirs. Five years later, a series of gruesomely curious deaths begin to take place around the Thorn family. A question is raised: could the son they’ve been raising, in fact be the devil’s child? Directed by Richard Donner, and starring Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, Harvey Spencer Stephans, Billie Whitelaw and David Warner, this is a horror classic not the be missed.

Aside from the creepy dog and nanny, horrific deaths, and spine-chilling score, this film actually has a very intricately woven plot line. I like the details and dropping of hints we are given throughout the film. It’s taken real passages from the Bible and fitted them into the story, which of course is going to add buckets to the tension and make the audience wonder. It probably makes the movie feel more realistic too which is obviously going to make it more frightening. I think the whole 666 thing is sort of class and how they’ve worked it into the plot is really quite clever. The very notion that the child, Damien, could be the evil one of the story appears absurd as he is actually quite a dotey child. You’re sort of reluctant to believe he could be, and you can’t help but feel so sorry for his mother knowing how much she’d wanted a child...and this was what she got...

The music is ferociously unsettling. Absolutely frightening. It adds so much to the atmosphere of the film. I think it’s the choir-like aspect; it’s terrifying. Listen to it in the dark...I dare you.

LISTEN HERE:

There at least four particularly grisly deaths throughout the whole movie. The first of which I got an awful fright the first time I saw it. Spoiler: the nanny hangs herself but I never saw the rope and next thing she just jumped off the window sill...I nearly died. I won’t go into the others because I don’t want to spoil the movie for you if you haven’t seen it but among them was impalement and deputation. (Lovely) There is one moment in which Robert Thorn and Father Brennan go to this old monastery trying to find the origins of Damien’s real mother and they meet this priest whose face is horribly disfigured following a fire. I nearly died when they gave a glimpse of his face. It was terrifying and such an image will undoubtedly stay with you after the end credits. Oh it really is just...*shudders* Like that, the frights are pretty great, but also the film as a whole is quite terrifying too, which reels you in further, enabling you to get a bigger fright when those moments come. That, and the great details in the plot, is why I think this movie is so worth the experience. I’m only glad it was in the morning I watched it first so I had the day to recover afterwards!! Haha.

This movie was among the most successful in the horror genre, not only popular for its eerie storyline, but also for the so-called “Curse of the Omen”. Several freaky events took place during the filming of the film that are really quite astonishing:

• Two months before filming began, the son of lead actor Gregory Peck, who plays Robert Thorn, shot himself. Gregory Peck also narrowly escaped a plane crash when he cancelled his flight reservation. All passengers on board perished.
• Scriptwriter David Seltzer’s plane was hit by lightning as it traversed across the Atlantic.
•   A few weeks later, executive Mace Newfeld, also experienced a similar occurrence during a flight to Los Angeles.
•  An animal handler helped the cast and crew of 1976 film shoot the “crazy baboon” scene and help them work with the animals correctly. He was attacked by a lion, two weeks later – pulled by the head and said to have been eaten alive.
• The freakiest of all these coincidences is when John Richardson, the set designer, created the rather macabre scene involving decapitation. While in Holland in August 1976, he and his assistant were struck by a freakishly unfortunate fate: they fell victims to a head-on collision, where this assistant was herself cut in half, similar to that which was designed for the film. It happened on a Friday 13^th near a road sign which says “Ommen 66.6 km.” That’s...That’s just mad.

There was a remake done in 2006 but I have yet to watch it. I read recently that this of course also brought along its own little freakish coincidences:

•   John Moore, director of the 2006 remake, reportedly spent a whole day filming the scene where Robert Thorn would discover the ominous birthmark on his adopted son. However, the footage resulting from the hard day’s work was lost when 13,500 feet of film were mysteriously destroyed in the processing lab. Apparently no explanation was ever found.
•    The actor of Father Brennan in the 2006 remake, became the victim of the curse when his brother is reported to have died after drawing an ominous combination during a card game. Oh yes: three sixes....dun, dun, dawwww.

If I haven’t convinced you already, I think if a proper scary movie is what you’re in search of...this is the one that will do it!

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