THE OMEN (1976 - HORROR / EVIL CHILD FLICK) **** out of ***** OR 8 out of 10
(I'm guessing getting a tatoo of "666" on your forehead probably isn't a good thing, eh?)
CAST: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Troughton, Harvery Stephens, Holly Palance, Martin Benson, The Rottweiller from Hell.
DIRECTOR: Richard Donner
(WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some compelling reasons to pick-and-choose when it comes to adoptions - straight ahead...)
IT'S LIKE THIS: On the Social Security Administration's website, you can look up, by year, the most popular names registered for newborn boys and girls. According to the site, the most frequently used name for baby boys in 2013 was... "Noah." I guess Rusty Crowe's "great flood" epic reached more people than he thought, eh? Oh, wait... NOAH came out this year. My bad. Whatever. The point is having your name also be the title (or at least the lead character) of a blockbuster movie probably doesn't hurt its popularity.
Unless, of course, that movie is our next "31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN" review, which is titled... THE OMEN. No, "Omen" is thus far not a recognized name. I'm referring to the "bad seed" villain at the heart of it who's called... "Damien". Put it this way, folks: there might've been a point in time when "Damien" might have been a coveted name for a boy, but after the release of THE OMEN, that shit probably got changed around fast. Because of this movie (and its sequels and remake), the name "Damien" is forever associated with with term "Devil Child". Anyone named Damien who didn't change his moniker after this movie was released must be something special alright.
Our story gets started in Rome, Italy, in 1971. The U.S. Ambasaddor to Bella Italia is pacing the floor of the maternity award, awaiting his first-born. He is Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), and his wife Katherine (Lee Remick) is busy downloading their bundle of joy. Unfortunately, it doesn't turn out as they'd hoped: the baby - a boy - dies not long after being born. Katherine passed out after all that pushing, so she's unaware of the bad news.
Robert is, though, because it's given to him Father Spiletto (Martin Benson), the attending priest (I didn't know priests were present during childbirths). While Padre Spiletto commiserates with the grieving Robert, he says it's not a total lost. After Robert stares at him like the fucking idiot he is, but before Robert can punch him, Padre Spiletto explains: in the other end of the ward, a mother without relatives just died from childbirth - and her baby is available. Katherine need not even know, our scheming priest says.
Now, folks, this is one of those things that seem like a great idea at the time, but ultimately just leads to a very high body count later on. Right now, though, Robert just wants to spare Katherine a lot of heartache (she was really looking forward to being a mother, you see) and give this poor baby boy a home. What he doesn't know is that what he's just done is essentially the parenting equivalent of opening the door of their home to the worst kind of houseguest - once who doesn't just stay forever , but just might also kill you. So, as far as Katherine knows, her childbirth went just as planned - with a healthy baby at the end of it. They name him... "Damien". Dun-Duh-Dun-DUN!
Anyway, five years of bliss go by as Robert is appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, which is just some fancy-schmancy way of saying he's the ambassador to England. That means the Thorn family - Robert, Katherine, and, um, Damien - move to a creepy manor outside London. And, for a time, they are the picture-postcard American family (albeit much more powerful, glamorous, abd good-looking than yours or mine).
This "halcyon" period in the lives of the Robert and Katherine Thorn starts to unravel at Damien's fifth birthday party. Specifically, Damien's sweet nanny, Holly (Holly Palance), hangs herself from the roof of the the Thorn mansion, right in front of all the guests. Which kind of brings the term "party pooper" to a whole new level.
If Damien enjoyed this special, unannounced party trick, he doesn't show it.
Conveniently arriving the next day to replace Holly is the creepy-as-fuck, Mrs. Blaylock (Billie Whitelaw), who tells Robert and Katherine that she was sent by the agency. "I'll confirm that," replies Katherine, in what is probably her only sign of intelligence in this flick. Unfortunately, it appears that Mrs. Blaylock's credential are legit, because the Thorns let her stay to care for Damien - despite the fact that she acts like a female Hannibal Lecter. Oh, and the bizarro way she looks at Damien and says "have no fear, little one - I have been sent to protect thee" doesn't bode well either. Who sent her? And to protect Damien from what?
Before we can ponder this for too long, more fucked-up shite occurs: (1) Robert is accosted at work by a psycho priest named Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton) who tells him that he needs to accept Christ (oh, jeez...); (2) Robert and Katherine try to take Damien to church, but he basically wigs out and slaps the shit out of his mom in fear; (3) Father Brennan is killed in a freak accident after trying to meet with Robert and warn him that Katherine might be pregnant again - and is in danger because of it; (4) Katherine takes Damien to the zoo, but the animals pretty much flip him off and run away in fear (take a hint, Kathy); and (5) Mrs. Blaylock gets even creepier than she already is - if you can even imagine.
Then, Robert is contacted by a photojournalist named Keith Jennings (David Warner), who's been looking into Father Brennan's mysterious death. Turns out that Father Brennan was seemingly obsessed with the Thorn family. Jennings also tells Robert that photos he took of Holly at Damien's fateful birthday party and Father Brennan right before he died showed a noose-like distortion around Holly's neck, and spear-like image going through Father Brennan. Which is exactly how each of them died? Did the photos predict Holly and Father Brennan's deaths?
What exactly is going on here? Why are people dying around Damien? Was Father Brennan right when he told Robert that he and Katherine were in danger from Damien? Who is Damien's real parents? What secrets are hidden in his genealogy? And what does the Book of Revelations have to do with it? What will Robert and Jennings find when they travel back to Rome and eventually the Italian countrysude to discover Damien's origins? Who the fuck is Damien Thorn?
Well, let's just say it's probably not a good idea to piss him off... Or his father. No, not Robert. The REAL one. Ahem.
BUT SERIOUSLY: After the success of THE EXORCIST in 1973, several "devil-themed" horror films were released in the years afterward to capitalize on its momentum, but none of them were as iconic and successful as THE OMEN, which nearly equaled the success of THE EXORCIST (during its first theatrical run).
Quite honestly, I prefer THE OMEN to THE EXORCIST because it's a more graceful film that is actually a little less of a horror film than THE EXORCIST, and more of a slow-burn psychological mystery/thriller. The "devil's child" aspect is what gives THE OMEN its horror connection, but in many parts it almost feels like a more intense (and gothic) Hitchcockian detective story - mixed in with some operatic Italian Giallo elements.
Robert and Katherine Thorn are, if we are to go further with the analogy, your typical "ordinary people thrust into a an extraordinary situation" protagonists that Hitchcock loved. Robert Thorn is even played by Gregory Peck, who resembled Cary Grant, a regular lead of Hitch's film. Peck brings gravitas to the role and plays Robert as a man whose stoic, easygoing facade hides a certain sensitivity and... uncertainty. His performance here looks forward to George C. Scott's similar "tough-but-vulnerable" turn in 1979's THE CHANGELING (review # 227) - which also dealt with switching the identities of two boys for sinister purposes, through more of a "ghost story" template - but still with the protagonist forced to do some unsettling detective work.
Lee Remick is warm and likable as Katherine. I just wish the script would've traced her gradual realization that Damien isn't as benign as she initially thought a little bit more clearly. Katherine seems to go from being open and accepting of Damien to wary and resentful of him in the blink of an eye. Still, this is a minor quibble in a narrative that seems to be more centered on Robert Thorn's journey from loving father, to disbelieving skeptic, to horrified witness, then to reluctant savior. Peck as Thorn is the solid center of the film, so whatever shortcomings the script may have in fleshing out Katherine's turmoil are easily papered over.
Everyone around Peck and Remick is stellar. David Warner nails Keith Jenning's combo of world-weary cynicism and curiosity bordering on the naive. The scene where Jennings (SPOILERS) meets his grisly fate is probably the most effective moment in a film full of effective moments. Then there's Billie Whitelaw as Mrs. Blaylock, the guardian assigned by the "dark side" to protect Damien at any cost. Whitelaw just has the perfect chilly, intimidating look that makes her ideal for the role of a deadly protector. When I heard that Mia Farrow had been cast in the same role in the 2006 remake, I groaned - not because she's a bad actress (far from it) but because she's inherently wrong for the role. Farrow turned out to be okay, but she is simply too sweet, too soft, and too vulnerable-looking to be as threatening as the steely Whitelaw automatically was just by entering the room or thowing a single glance at someone.
Martin Benson, Holly Palance, and Patrick Troughton are good in their small but important parts as expendable chess pieces in Damien's deadly rise. As Damien himself, Harvey Stephens is actually quite adorable. What I like about THE OMEN 1976 versus THE OMEN 2006 is that director Richard Donner chose to make the boy unaware of his demonic legacy - which made it more difficult for Robert to do what he needed to do at the climax. He behaves just like a normal five-year old boy. In the remake, Damien is portrayed as clearly evil with something "off" about him, which took away any moral conflict at the end.
We mentioned earlier that this film has connections not only to Hitchcock because of its slow-burn build of suspense and tension, but also to the Italian Giallo for its visceral setpieces. Gialli are colorful Italian thrillers from the 60s, 70s and 80s known for their vibrant, elaborate, operatic sequences that seem like mini-movies of their own. THE OMEN has those in spades. A few to look out for: (1) Holly's suicide at Damien's party; (2) the zoo animals freaking out in Damien's presence; (3) Father Brennan's demise outside the cathedral; (4) Katherine's "accidental" fall from the gallery of their manor; (5) a terrifying extended sequence wherein Robert and Jennings investigate a remote Etruscan graveyard deep in the Italian countryside for answers to Damien's provenance - only to be attacked and mauled by a pack of demonic canines; and, of course: (6) Jennings' grim fate in Jerusalem.
Ultimately, THE OMEN is as memorable as it is because of how it unfolds a layer at a time, like the best mysteries. It's very telling that DAMIEN: OMEN 2 did about half the business of its predecessor two years later. While being a solid, well-made film, the sequel had very little of the original's sense of mystery and dread. It was more about killing off anyone who was a threat to Damien in the most brutal way possible, and less of a detective story like the first one. Still, to give credit where credit is due, DAMIEN: OMEN 2 does a good job of showing 13-year old Damien (played well by Jonathan Scott-Taylor) conflicted reaction to his dark birth right. Had the writers been able to work in some of the mystery from the first one, it might have been as terrific a film as THE OMEN. As it is, it's a cut below.
In the end, THE OMEN is memorable because it doesn't seem to think it's a horror film, but more of a dark, gothic detective thriller with strong echoes of Alfred Hitchcock and a potent dash of Dario Argento. And it's all the more compelling because of it.
