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Rating:  - Still great even today
When it comes down to my horror movies. The slasher usually reigns supreme with the supernatural not too far behind. The Omen ranks at the top with the first Exorcist. What I love about the Omen mostly is the accurate references to the bible. For some reason that always gives me chills. In fact, the Omen is the only one that effects me in that way today.
This classic was blessed by some of the best acting. Everyone was believeable in thier roles. Young Damien(Harvey Stephens) did a terrific job portraying the hellbringer with an innocent face. Plus Gregory Peck and Lee Remick delivered some outstanding performances as well.
The overall atmosphere of this film set the tone for some of the most memorable scenes in horror to me. It was almost as if I can feel the evil in some of the most tense scenes. The priest running to the church is the best example for me. The death scenes even though not very gory. Still have a heavy impact and at that time especially were something really sick.
I can go on and on about what makes this an excellent horror movie. Of course nothing I'm saying is new. But I just want to give my take on where I see this movie. If anybody speaks about great horror movies. The ORIGINAL Omen should always be mentioned. Now the sequels, well that's another story. A horror fans collection is far from complete if they don't have this.
Rating: - Classic Horror
Damien is the son of Satan, the Antichrist who has been switched at birth for the real son who died at birth. The parents have no clue about thier son until his 5th birthday when his nanny dies. Things get creepier when the photographer from the birthday party notices strange details in the pictures which happen to be premonitions/warnings of how the victims were going to die. Once the father and photographer discover this they are go on a mission to destroy the kid before he destroys the world.
I give it 5 stars because it's one of the very few horror movies that actually scared me. Afterwards I couldnt stop thinking about it. It had the perfect atmosphere of fear/dread and managed to get under my skin. In my opinion it still seems to hold up well and have as much of an impact as it did 30 years ago. Definitely in my top 5 horror movies ever. It's timeless.
Special Features: Commentary by the Director
Curse or Coincidence Featurette
Jerry Goldsmith discusses The Omen Score
Still Photo Gallery
Deleted Scene with Commentary
Documentaries 666: The Omen Revealed and The Omen Legacy
Screenwriters Notebook
An Appreciation: Wes Craven on 'The Omen'
Rating:  - "YOU'RE THE DEVIL IN DISGUISE"
How long is it going to take for top rate actors like Gregory Peck and Lee Remick to stop fighting Satan on his earthly home field? Wouldn't one think that a self inflicted hanging, followed by a son's savage attack on one's mother might just be a cause for concern? While everyone is blaming the devil in his or her review,I'm going after the once mighty hero of "The Guns of Navarone." Peck is in denial right from the start.He then allows a sorceress nanny and her vicious Rotweiller to literally take over the house.He then refuses to believe a Catholic Priest, who has the audacity to suggest that Peck's real son was murdered at birth, and was quickly replaced by a son of Satan.When the priest is subsequently killed by a flying spike, Peck still does nothing that the priest had warned him to do. His maddening stubborness quickly leads to a household dive which nearly kills Remick, the diabolical beheading of a photographer friend,and yet another dive by Remick through the top of an ambulance from an upper storey hospital window.(Does this seem stranger than fiction)? Finally, with nobody left to talk to, or to cook dinner, Gregory finally does away with the sorceress, and takes his devilish son to church to put him away before God. Stay tuned! Oh, the movie really does entertain. Buy it!
Rating: - A trendscender that has been constantly stolen from
As everyone has written their two cents about this movie in the last few decades, its a bit arrogant of me to try and add what others have written already so long ago. But I love this movie. The innocense of Gregory Peck and Lee Remick make their denial of thier child's evil so believable, as their allowing of the new nanny. I love the ride Gregory Peck takes us on with the character, and how the movie has mystery, thriller, and of course horror elements. I'm astonished that this scary movie came from the director of lethal weapon, superman, and scrooged. I only wish it could be viewed without the constant remakes, homages, and flat out rip offs that have come and gone, so it would be fresh and vibrant, as well as the trendsetter. A great movie, see it.
Rating: - "KATHY IS DEAD. I WANT DAMIEN TO DIE, TOO.": "THE OMEN" (1976)
Wes Craven says it best in his DVD Appreciation: By staying several notches below the vile and brutalizing excesses of "THE EXORCIST," "THE OMEN" appealed to and frightened a much broader audience. Director Richard Donner crafted a far superior film than "THE EXORCIST" because you can be genuinely frightened by "THE OMEN" and not feel repulsed or feel like vomiting. The horrors of "THE OMEN" are more psychological in nature. The casting of Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, Billie Whitelaw, and David Warner gives gravitas to a situation that might have been ridiculous if played by less talented, less subtle actors. Because Gregory Peck eventually believes his tot is the Devil, Jr., we the viewers believe it, too. Interestingly, his allegedly emotionally fragile wife Lee Remick is a lot smarter than he is; for she begins to believe it much sooner.
Donner directs with the perfect balance of mounting tension and wise restraint. Even Donner's handling of young Harvey Stevens as Damien is ideal. Stevens appears simultaneously demonic AND angelic. Donner uses Stevens very sparingly, but effectively, in scenes. When Damien has a major freak-out outside a church, Stevens' screams do, indeed, sound unearthly. "THE OMEN" was Stevens' only film. A quick Internet search revealed that the missing in action Stevens now lives a quiet life in England, where the film was shot.
Athiest Donner was apparently not disturbed at all by the demonic/Biblical ramifications in the script. Funnily enough, he never seems to understand why anybody would be disturbed by this film. He pitched the project to Peck and everbody involved as a "psychological thriller." The basic idea was, in fact, suggested by Born Again Christian Robert Munger, who served as the film's Religious Advisor and is heavily interviewed on the DVD documentaries. Donner's masterstroke, I think, was to have David Seltzer tone down the overtly demonic aspects of the script's initial draft titled THE ANTICHRIST and rework it so the bizarre occurances could also be interpreted as springing from coincidences in everyday life. At the same time, the bizarre occurances do neatly line up with the Biblical Book of Revelations. which Seltzer studied for three months prior to writing. In the end, Seltzer delivered an extremely tight, concise, well-constructed screenplay that grabs you whether you're a Christian or an agnostic/atheist.
Of course, Jerry Goldsmith's score contributes greatly to the disturbing atmosphere (especially the "Black Mass: Ave Satani" repeated chanted chorus) of the film. as Peck, particularly, moves from logical reason to the realization that his worse paranoid fears may, in fact, be true. Goldsmith discusses his Academy Award Winning Score at length on the DVD.
Distraught when his son is still-born, ambassador Robert Thorne (Peck) rather quickly accepts another baby boy from a priest (Martin Benson). He does not tell his wife Kathy (Remick) about the baby's death or the baby switch, fearing it would shatter her. Robert is named Ambassador to Britian. All is peaceful and prosperous until Damien's nanny (Holly Palance) commits suicide during his fifth birthday party. Mrs. Baylock (Whitelaw) soon arrives as a replacement. Her initial demenor suggests Mary Poppins, but she's been sent straight from Satan's School for Nannies. Father Brennen (Patrick Troughton) appears to confront Robert and starts screaming that
he must accept Jesus Christ as his Savior-- and that both he and Kathy are in grave danger. Brennan is memorably killed shortly afterwards. After incidents at Church and Zoo, Kathy suffers a terrifying fall from a balcony (listen to the DVD commentary for Donner's tale on how this memorable scene was ingeniously filmed), Robert begins to take Brennen's warnings more seriously. Hospitalized, Kathy says to Robert, "Don't let him kill me. Don't let him kill me," which is, to me, the scariest moment in the entire film. Photographer Keith Jennings, (David Warner) who has been tracking Robert since Damien's birthday party, joins Robert on a quest to solve the puzzle of Damien's true parentage. The climaxtic final scenes still give me chills. Donner received angry letters from viewers complaining that he "Let Evil Win In The End." That final twist, shot by Donner in an extra day and a half, was actually the idea of 20th Century Fox President Alan Ladd, Jr.
The documentary "THE OMEN LEGACY" reveals just how superior Donner's Original film is when compared with the sequels and remake. All sequels and remakes can definitely go straight to Hell. The same documentary and DVD commentaries also humorously reveal that Donner can barely remember the names of anybody he worked with on this classic film, except for Peck, Remick, and Stevens.
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