The Omen

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The Omen
The Omen theatrical poster
Directed by	Richard Donner
Produced by	Harvey Bernhard
Written by	David Seltzer Billie Whitelaw Harvey Stephens
Starring	Gregory Peck Lee Remick David Warner Billie Whitelaw
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography	Gilbert Taylor
Editing by	Stuart Baird
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	June 6, 1976 June 25, 1976 December 23, 1976
Running time	111 min.
Country	United Kingdom United States
Language	English
Followed by	Damien: Omen II
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IMDb profile

The Omen is a 1976 suspense/horror film directed by Richard Donner and starring Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Stephens, Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Troughton, Martin Benson, and Leo McKern. It is the first film in the Omen series and it is based on a horror novel by David Seltzer.

Though part of a cycle of similarly-themed movies, The Omen has gained prestige over time for a number of reasons: its respectability (as a profitable major-studio film with renowned actors), its seriousness (it plays as a contemporary thriller, rather than with the knowing excesses of certain aspects of the horror genre), and the originality of the movie's Jerry Goldsmith score.

The movie followed at the tail end of a cycle of 'demonic child' movies: Rosemary's Baby, I Don't Want To Live, To The Devil A Daughter, and most notably The Exorcist, and was itself followed by sequels (see below) and a number of copycat films such as the Italian-made Kirk Douglas movie Holocaust 2000. As a general rule, the children concerned get older as the cycle continues, from the newborn of Rosemary's Baby to the teens of such films as Carrie and The Fury.

A new version, The Omen, was released on June 6, 2006 (06/06/06).

Tag lines:

• OUR FINAL WARNING.
• It is the greatest mystery of all because no human being will ever solve it.
• Good morning. You are one day closer to the end of the world. You have been warned
• It is the greatest mystery of all because no human being will ever solve it. It is the highest suspense because no man can bear it. It is the greatest fear because it is the ancient fear of the unknown. It is a warning foretold for thousands of years. It is our final warning. It is The Omen.
• Those who foretold it are dead. Those who can stop it are in grave danger.
• If Something Frightening Happens To You Today, Think About It. It May Be "The Omen".

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Music 4 Reception 5 Curse 6 Influence 7 The name "Damien" 8 Sequels and Remakes 8.1 Sequels 8.2 Remake(s) 9 Novels 10 Trivia 11 External links 12 References

[edit] Plot

The premise of The Omen comes from the end times prophecies of Christianity. The story tells of the childhood of Damien Thorn, who was switched at birth with the murdered child of a wealthy American diplomat. Damien's family is unaware that he is actually the offspring of Satan and destined to become the Antichrist. His father, Robert Thorn, eventually begins to realize this with the help of a photographer named Keith Jennings, after numerous people connected to Damien begin dying in tragic accidents. After Damien's first nanny hangs herself at Damien's fifth birthday party, a new nanny, named Mrs. Baylock, arrives to tend to him. A priest who knows about Damien begins stalking Robert, and is eventually the one to first point out that Damien is the Antichrist, and that he intends to kill everyone in his way. The priest later dies in a bizarre accident, and Katherine Thorn, Damien's mother, suffers a two-story fall after being knocked over a railing by Damien. With Katherine in the hospital, Robert and Keith journey to Israel to find a man named Bugenhagen, an archaeologist who knows how to stop the Antichrist. While there, however, Katherine is killed after falling to her death due to Mrs Baylock (or a bubble of air in her drip in the new version), and Robert learns that he has to stab his son with seven special daggers to prevent the end of the world. Horrified by this, he tosses the daggers aside, only for Keith to run and pick them back up, leading to his own untimely death of beheading. Robert returns to London with the daggers, intending to kill his son.

Returning to his mansion, Robert is attacked first by the hound which he successfully traps in an underground chamber with clever maneuver. Robert then goes upstairs to Damien's room to check whether he has the "666" birthmark (as explained by Bugenhagen). Seeing it on Damien's scalp after cutting away some hair, Robert has no doubt about Damien's true identity.

It is at this moment that Damien's Satanic nanny attacks him from behind. After violently wrestling with her, Robert puts her out of play temporarily with a flying kick in the face. As he drags Damien downstairs, Damien kicks and screams at Robert. Bumping into a light fixture while descending the staircase, Robert and Damien tumble down the stairs, knocking Damien temporarily unconscious. As Robert prepares to exit the home, Mrs. Baylock re-appears and the two struggle in the kitchen before Robert finally kills (?) her with a knife to the neck. Robert then exits, tosses a limp Damien into the front passenger seat of the car and proceeds to go to the church where he plans to kill Damien. (In the 2006 film, Mrs. Baylock's re-appearance is delayed until this point, ramming Robert's car's windscreen repeatedly with a giant hammer until it cracks. After securing Damien in the front seat, Robert quickly reverses the car and then and accelerated to hit the attacking Mrs. Baylock who was hit and died instantly on the road.)

As he bursts through the gates of his mansion, his security is alerted and chases his car, followed by the police at close distance. Robert brings the wrestling Damien to the church and, as he is about to stab Damien (who is placed on the altar) with one of the knives in the manner dictated by Bugenhagen, the police arrive and shoot Robert, killing him just before he brings the knife down on his son, though as shot, it is deliberately left ambiguous whether Damien has been killed until the final scene.

The movie ends with Robert's funeral where Damien is seen holding the president's hand. The camera lowers to Damien, who looks at the camera and gives an evil smile in one of the movie's most famous moments before the credits roll.

The Omen was characterized by the chillingly effective use of symbolism, such as the birthmark of the number 666 on Damien's scalp, the effective use of crosses and statuary for foreshadowing, and the wallpapering of a room with pages from a Bible to ward off evil spirits.

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Gregory Peck	Robert Thorn
Lee Remick	Katherine Thorn
David Warner	Keith Jennings
Billie Whitelaw	Mrs. Baylock
Harvey Stephens	Damien Thorn
Patrick Troughton	Father Brennan
Martin Benson	Father Spiletto
Leo McKern	Bugenhagen
Holly Palance	Holly (the nanny)

[edit] Music

An original score for the film was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, for which he received the only Oscar of his long career. The score features a strong choral segment, with a foreboding Latin chant. The refrain to the chant is, "Sanguis bibimus, corpus edimus, tolle corpus Satani" (Latin, "We drink the blood, we eat the flesh, raise the body of Satan"), interspersed with cries of "Ave Satani!" and "Ave versus Christus" (Latin, "Hail, Satan!" and "Hail, Antichrist!"). Aside from the choral work, the score includes lyrical themes portraying the pleasant home life of the Thorn family, which are contrasted with the more disturbing scenes of the family's confrontation with evil.

[edit] Reception

The movie boasted one of the most disturbing scenes in cinema in which a character willingly and joyfully hanged herself at a birthday party attended by young children. It also features a particularly disturbing decapitation scene, one of mainstream Hollywood's first. "If there were a special Madame Defarge Humanitarian Award for best decapitation," wrote Kim Newman in Nightmare Movies (1988), "this lingering, slow-motion sequence would get my vote."

[edit] Curse

In 2005 a documentary entitled "The Curse of 'The Omen'" was shown on British television. The production of The Omen was plagued with a series of incidents which some members of the crew attributed to the operation of a curse. They wondered if these events were due to supernatural forces trying to prevent the filming of the movie^[1]. Instances include the following:

• Scriptwriter David Seltzer's plane was struck by lightning.
• Star Gregory Peck, in a separate incident, had his plane struck by lightning.
• Richard Donner's hotel was bombed by the Provisional IRA .
• Gregory Peck canceled a flight to Israel, only for the plane he'd chartered to crash, killing all on board (a group of Japanese businessmen).
• A warden at the safari park used in the "crazy baboon" scene was attacked and killed by a lion the day after the crew left.
• Rottweilers hired for the film attacked their trainers.
• On the first day of shooting, the principal members of the crew got in a head-on car crash.
• The purported curse seemed to follow the cast members even after production had ended. While working on his next project, special effects artist John Richardson was injured and his girlfriend beheaded in an accident. Reportedly the odometer ended in 66.6.

[edit] Influence

• Damien Thorn appeared as a character in the South Park episode "Damien", and had a cameo in "Professor Chaos". Also, the episode "Tsst" ends in a similar fashion to the film.

• "Damien" is a song written by the American metal band Iced Earth on their 2001 Horror Show album. The lyrics of the song include references and direct quotations from the Omen series.

• The popular British sitcom Only Fools & Horses features a recurring joke in which Rodney Trotter fears that his nephew is the anti-Christ (because he is 'Son of Del'). The boy's name is Damian, and Omen-like music (usually the "Carmina Burana") often plays whenever Rodney sees him.

• The opening musical sequence for The Omen, which features a grimly-singing Catholic chorus and tolling bells, was sped up slightly and used as background music in the anime Hellsing. This shortened (roughly 45 seconds long) version of the opening can be found on the tenth track of the soundtrack titled Raid.

• Popular Belgian hip hop group 't Hof van Commerce uses a pitched-down sample of the aforementioned chorus (the sanguis bibimus part) throughout the song "Tussen Eemle en Elle" (lit. Between Heaven and Hell) on their third album Rocky 7.

• The novel Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman satirizes many aspects of the movie.

• Rapstar DMX has a song titled Damien on his debut album It's Dark and Hell is Hot. On his second album, Flesh of my Flesh, Blood of my Blood, he has a track titled "The Omen" which features the controversial artist Marilyn Manson. The final in the series of songs is on his album The Great Depression with the song titled "Damien III".

• The short film Six starred Matt Frewer as a new father who awakens one morning to realize that he bears a birthmark which reads "665" behind his left ear. When he frantically telephones his mother (also played by Frewer) with the news, she reassures him that he has always had the mark and that in any case, he shouldn't worry seeing as "your father was 664!"

• In the television show Roseanne, her mother Beverly acts out of character. Roseanne then brushes her mother’s hair out of the way and says “667, close enough.”

• The film is mentioned in the little-known Go-Betweens song 'Lee Remick'

[edit] The name "Damien"

The name "Damien" sounds vaguely like the English "demon," but is not at all etymologically related. Damien is the French form of the English name Damian (Latin Damianus), popular as the name of a martyred Christian saint of the third century (see Sts. Cosmas and Damian). Another prominent Damien was Father Damien of Hawaii, who died while establishing leper colonies there — a saintly rather than demonic figure. Damien is also the first name of Father Karras in The Exorcist.

The success of the Omen series inspired Marvel Comics to revive the Son of Satan series, whose eponymous hero has the civilian name of Daimon Hellstrom. Hellstrom, despite his ancestry, wielded his pitchfork for the side of good — at least until the end of this series, and a revival under the slightly-altered name of Hellstorm. Marvel Comics reportedly promised not to revive the "Son of Satan" name, in response to pressure from Christians concerned about glorifying Satanism. In June 2006, a new Hellstrom limited series was announced for the Marvel MAX line of adult comics, to debut in October of that year. [1]

[edit] Sequels and Remakes

The Omen spawned several sequels and a remake.

[edit] Sequels

• Damien: Omen II (1978)
• Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)
• Omen IV: The Awakening (1991, made-for-TV).

[edit] Remake(s)

• The Omen (2006 remake of The Omen).

[edit] Novels

• David Seltzer, The Omen. (Futura, 1976).
• Joseph Howard, Damien: Omen II. (Futura, 1978).
• Gordon McGill, Omen III: The Final Conflict. (Futura, 1980).
• Gordon McGill, Omen IV: Armageddon. (Futura, 1983)
• Gordon McGill, Omen V: The Abomination. (Futura, 1985).

Both the book and the movie were written by David Seltzer. The book preceded the movie by two weeks as an effective marketing gimmick. For the book, Seltzer took liberties with his own material, changing details (such as character names) and often augmenting plot points. The second and third novels were novelizations of their respective movies, and reflected movie continuity, more or less.

The fourth novel, Omen IV: Armageddon was entirely unrelated to the fourth movie, but continued the story of Omen III. Its premise is based on the one-night stand between Damien Thorn and Kate Reynolds in Omen III. This affair included an act of sodomy, and thence Kate gave the (rectal) "birth" of another diabolical entity called "the abomination" (presumably after the "abomination of desolation" from the book of Daniel) in Omen IV. This novel attempted to patch one of the Omen series' more glaring plot-holes, namely the question of whether the Antichrist could be slain by one of the seven "daggers of Megiddo" (which occurred in Omen III) or only by all of them (as stated in the first book and movie). The solution reached was that one dagger could kill Damien's physical body, but not his soul.

This story was continued in the fifth novel, Omen V: The Abomination, which resulted in the death of this character.

[edit] Trivia

• This film was #16 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

[edit] External links

• The Omen at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] References

1. ^ TV Documentary "The Curse of 'The Omen'". www.imdb.com/title/tt0487890/

The Omen Series
Original Films The Omen | Damien: Omen II | Omen III: The Final Conflict Remakes The Omen (2006) Other films Omen IV: The Awakening Characters Damien Thorn