Dave Rewinds The Omen

The Omen is a movie I have put off watching for years, much like The Exorcist, due to my Catholic upbringing. These were evil, demonic movies that should never be watched by good God fearing people. Which makes me question my childhood. Freddy and Jason OK. Exorcisms and demon children bad. Go figure. But this is probably the most shameful movie for me to have skipped given that I actually used the iconic music from this for my short movie The Catholic and the Satanist. So after years of avoiding, I watched The Omen, and it’s pretty great.

As always I will not give a complete rundown of the movie but rather a brief summary. An American Ambassador and his wife adopt an orphaned child born on the same night they had a still born child. The child, Damien,  as it turns out is the Antichrist and the father must kill him to save the world. While watching I thinking I have already seen this movie and to a degree I had. This movie has been parodied and copied to death, but that doesn’t take away from how good this movie is on it’s own. Even if you haven’t seen this movie, you kinda have. Even though I feel like I knew the basic plot there were still some surprises to be had.

First off, you gotta give credit to the child they chose for Damien. He barely has any facial expressions but seems to always have a devious look on his face like he’s planning something. The funny thing is, with the exception of “accidentally” knocking his mother over a second story bannister, the kid himself does nothing evil on his own. Instead, his evil takes over all things around him. His nanny hangs herself in front of him and a whole birthday party, he has a devil dog that guards him as well as a new nanny who knows who Damien really is and his evil stops at nothing to get rid of anyone trying to end him. This kid doesn’t have to get his own hands dirty because all forces around him are ready to do his bidding for him.

While not a gore fest, I was surprised by the violence in this movie, especially for it’s time. In addition to the nanny hanging we get a priest getting impaled, a  beheading by window pain which I have to assume was inspiration for the Final Destination movies and stabbings. I was not expecting some of this so it made for a nice surprise while watching as some of these things were not the bits most imitated. The other great thing about this movie is regardless of knowing the ending it still packs a punch while watching it.

I gotta say I had a lot of fun with The Omen and it was kind of nice to see someone like Gregory Peck act in a horror movie like this. Having finally watched it I can see why this was a hit in it’s time and probably one of the movies that led to the Satanic Panic of the 80’s. There were 3 sequels and a remake in 2006 but I don’t think I’ll be rushing to those immediately as they do not seem to be held in as high of regard as the original. While I can understand why people hold this as a classic, it is not necessarily one you have to rush out to see immediately.

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