The Omen (1976)

 

The Omen is quite a trippy horror movie about a little boy who is apparently the spawn of the devil. Gregory Peck plays Robert Thorn, an American diplomat who is stationed in Rome with his pregnant wife Katherine (Lee Remick). She gives birth to a boy, but the child dies. A devious hospital chaplain offers Robert another child who was born at the same time but whose mother died in childbirth—or so he says. Robert agrees to the exchange without getting any documentation, proving that you should always, always get the receipts, and he never tells his wife about the swap. As the child grows up, weird stuff starts happening. The child, who is named Damien, doesn’t really talk a lot during the film, but there’s a lot of strange action surrounding him. His young nanny hangs herself in front of all the guests at Damien’s fifth birthday party in some sort of weird tribute/sacrifice. A weirdly intimidating Rottweiler shows up, as does Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw), a wild-eyed new nanny who is fiercely protective of this odd little boy (played by Harvey Stephens). Baboons attack the car when he and his mother go to a wildlife park, and Damien goes crazy when they try to take him to a church. The strangeness just never seems to end. Remick’s Kathy starts to think she’s going crazy, and both she and Robert dismiss all of the signs they keep getting that something is definitely… off… about their kid, much to the frustration of the audience who has seen too many strange things happen to avoid reaching a conclusion about Damien long before the movie confirms it. Robert, in particular, even keeps ignoring the warnings from a priest, Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), but after the priest dies mysteriously, Robert joins a photographer/journalist (the great David Warner) in tracking down clues about Damien’s origins. What they find is certainly unexpected, one of the best shocks that I’ve seen in a horror movie. All of this is, of course, allegedly based upon what the Bible predicts about the Antichrist. I can’t personally vouch for the accuracy of how the scripture is used throughout the movie, but I suspect its mostly hokum twisted for the sake of the plot. Thankfully, Peck has the necessary gravitas to make much of this crazy stuff seem plausible. Remick, always such a luminous and intriguing presence in whatever role she plays, is quite effective in the smaller part of the long-suffering wife; her exit from the film’s narrative is a sad, sad moment indeed. Much as I hate to perpetuate what might have led to his failure to have a longer Hollywood career, Stevens is just creepy, which I guess is a some sort of plus for a movie about the Antichrist.

Oscar Win: Best Original Score

Other Oscar Nomination: Best Original Song (“Ave Satani”)