The Omen (1976)

 

Channel 4’s “100 Scariest Moments” list, #--:

 

 

The Omen

(1976)

 

 

 

On some level I feel that I should like this film better than I do, but then I recover my senses. Yes, this movie is well made, with excellent performances and a number of legitimately shocking scenes, but it is still empty trash to me.

 

But why? I love “Evil Dead” (1981) which is a thousand times cheesier and more violent. So, what’s wrong with “The Omen”?

 

Because “The Omen” betrays. It promises thought, depth, and sophistication, but delivers only expensively executed craft. Stupid is OK, “Evil Dead” is stupid, but it quite open about it. But golly-garsh-darn, don’t tell me you are smart and then deliver the stupid.  “The Omen” maybe the only film in history that I consistently prefer the asinine rip-offs over the original product (and God in Heaven, there were a lot of asinine rip-offs of this film).

 

“The Omen” is rooted in highly interpretive concepts in Christian theology that are wildly popular but poorly supported in scripture. The story centers around the idea of an Anti-Christ, who first appears in the writings of John in the New Testament, and is alternatively referred to as a singular or a plural.  In the oldest references that the anti-Christ is a deceiver, trying to steal Jesus’ thunder, basically another charismatic street-preacher but offering a false doctrine. Later theologians incorporated it into the more Apocalyptically-minded writings of Matthew and warnings of “false prophets” capable of creating “signs and wonders” to mislead the faithful as the end times approached. Then, of course, comes the Book of Revelations (or as Martin Luther called it, “the Gospel of straw”) with its fears that then-recently-dead Emperor Nero would Rise from his grave (just in case you didn’t know, “666,” the Number of the Beast, is an anagram of “Nero”). An elaborate mythology emerged that when human civilization became truly, hopelessly, corrupt, the Antichrist would rise, rule all nations, bring Hell to Earth, and only the select few who follow the true teachings of Jesus and be rewarded with Paradise.

 

Though the film is steeped in Catholic references, as a Catholic I wanna say all the above is, for our tribe doctrinairely poppy-cock. The Catholic church has down-played the importance of Revelations and since about the 5^th c. when that Biblical book became officially viewed as allegorical, not literal, prophesy. Prophecy obsession belongs to the Evangelicals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Zionists, and others who are far more interested in the next world than maintaining this one for our children.

 

OK, here’s the set-up:

 

While stationed in Rome, American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) has a moment of terrible weakness. His emotionally fragile wife Katherine (Lee Remick) gives birth, but the boy is still-born. A wicked priest, Father Spiletto (Martin Benson), exploits this crisis and convinces Robert to substitute a changeling, an orphan whose mother died giving birth to him. Robert does not tell Katherine about the switch and they name the child Damien (who, after this scene, is played by five-year-old Harvey Spencer Stephens).

 

You see, Damien is the anti-Christ and all of this is part of a global conspiracy of Satanists to bring about the end of the world in a manner that elevates evil over good. The Satanists want the Anti-Christ embedded in a politically prominent family from the USA to assure his eventual rise to World Domination. We know this before we entered the theatre, but it takes Robert goddamned forever to figure it out.

 

Apparently, the Thorns remained happy, and Damien had a normal childhood, until Robert got a really good posting in England. (Side note: Did you know that John F. Kennedy’s dad Joe was onetime ambassador to Britain? As this prophesy obsession is generally associated with extreme right-wing politics, so was this film suggesting that all Liberalism is really Satanism?) That’s when the weird stuff starts to happen. There’s a big scary dog, and the boy’s nanny (Holly Palance) commits suicide in a very public way (her last words are “It’s all for you Damien!”). The next nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw) arrives, she takes over the house, and she’s really scary. When she’s alone with Damien she says to him with a viper’s sincerity, “Don't worry, little one. I'm here to protect you."

 

Then a more honest, but still creepy, priest, Fr. Brennan (Patrick Troughton) arrives on the scene. He tries to convince Robert that Damien isn’t merely a difficult child, he isn’t even human. There’s also photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner), who, though he understands less, also tries to convince Robert something uncanny is unfolding because the pictures he’s taking have started to fore-tell the deaths of people in Robert’s circle, and there will be a fair number of those deaths before this film is over.

 

The deeper we get in, and the more the prophesies are revealed and realized, the more offensive the film’s smug anti-intellectualism becomes. Things that fore-tell and assist in Satan’s triumph include: Jews return to Zion…ummm…so the very concept of the state of Israel is part of Satan’s plan? And the Roman Empire rises again. Peck suddenly realizes that the Roman Empire, in the late 20^th c, would actually be the European Common Market…ummm…so Boris Johnson is here to save the World?

 

Oh, it gets better. This is the full text of the prophesy that underpins the plot:

 

"When the Jews return to Zion and a comet fills the sky, and the Holy Roman Empire rises; then you and I must die. From the eternal sea he rises, creating armies on either shore, turning man against his brother, 'til man exists no more."

 

Now, I want you to Goggle this Biblical passage. Guess what, it isn’t in the Bible, it was made up for the film.

 

“The Omen” is sometimes referred to and the last film in the sort-of “Devil Trilogy” wherein three major studios created three classy, big-budget, A-list features about Satanic conspiracy.  “The Omen” came from 20^th c. Fox, and was preceded by Paramount’s “Rosemary's Baby” (1968) which featured Satanic conspiracy and another the birth of the Anti-Christ, and Warner Brother’s “The Exorcist” (1973) featuring Satanic conspiracy and demonic possession. The difference between “The Omen” and its predecessors is that the other two were legitimately intelligent, sophisticated, with characters drawn with unusual depth struggled with the uncanny as if it were a real thing.

 

“The Omen,” on the other hand, relied on the flawless acting of the stellar cast to make 2-D characters seem real (in fairness, the cast did succeed in that). Since the story was so shallow, the pacing had to be maintained with a high body count. The death scenes were legitimately, and impressively, shocking, but at least half of them served no real purpose except that horror films are expected to have high body counts (though neither “Rosemary’s Baby” nor “The Exorcist” did). The nanny’s death is one of the film’s strongest scenes, but really makes very little sense, because it basically came down to the Satanists telegraphing their conspiracy to the unsuspecting and that’s just no way to run a good conspiracy.

 

“The Omen” was clearly hyper-conscious of its two predecessors. Screenwriter David Seltzer isn’t Catholic, and there’s a long history of cinema wherein Catholic’s rely on Catholic imagery and getting it all wrong. His script had been rejected by all the major studios when it fell into the hands of Richard Donner, a skilled B-movie director who had proved he was good with his casts in otherwise forgettable films. Donner saw something in the script that no one else did, that underneath the hokum was a psychological drama (I think I’ve already made it clear I don’t agree, but that is what Donner said he saw). He insisted that the relationship between Robert and Katherine Thorn was more important than the Anti-Christ angle. Robert loved, but also infantilized, his wife, and his creation of the outrageous lie that the plot hinged on was the defining moment of Robert’s life. Robert’s political prominence was part-and-particle to his moral compartmentalization, allowing a loving husband and mostly honorable public servant to do something so lunatic out of pure, indefensible, expediency. That lie haunted Robert daily, and five years later, it was time to pay the piper.

 

The final shooting script is credited at toning down the hokum tremendously, but I disagree with those that claim it achieved the two prior films’ realism, except for the acting. The way I see, the acting saved this film from the ridicule it deserved.

 

Donner was able to get Gregory Peck to see the script in the same light that he did, and Peck grounded the film with the solemnity of his performance. Had Peck not signed on, I doubt the film would’ve happened, and even if it did, few would’ve cared about it.

 

Lee Remick’s performance is also notable. Poor Kathrine knows something is wrong long before Robert, but is totally ignorant of Robert’s lie, and therefore helpless. Though all her instincts are right, she’s never allowed to investigate her suspicions as Robert does, she merely dismissed as irrational, and treated cruelly. Not to over-play a political angle here, but Katherine’s fate is a commentary: she victimized by a well-meaning, powerful man, and an uncaring society, because it so easy for them to strip a woman of all her agency. Remick sells that perfectly.

 

The movie was a major hit, and picked up several significant accolades.

 

Jerry Goldsmith’s score rightfully won an Oscar, and one specific passage of the score, “Ave Satani,” was nominated for best song (it lost to the Barbara Streisand hit, “Evergreen,” which had the advantage that the title didn’t translate into “Hail Satan”).

 

Similarly, Gilbert Taylor rightfully won Best Cinematography from the British Society of Cinematographers.

 

Billie Whitelaw was nominated for a BAFTA and won the Evening Standard British Film Award for her evil nanny role.

 

Harvey Stephens, as the five-year-old Satan, did very little in the film, but he was creepy and all Beelzebub, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut – Male. But the very young actor also earned an instant reputation as being nearly impossible to work with and never had another significant film role. As an adult, he worked both in the London stock market, and in real estate development, which seem to me to be perfect professions for Devil worship.

 

David Seltzer's screenplay, so unimpressive but buttressed by so much other talent, got its own accolades, far-less deserved. It was nominated for both a Writers Guild of America and Edgar Allan Poe Awards. I gotta admit, I’m not overly impressed with any of the scripts he wrote over his now 40-plus-year career (which included the next two entries in “The Omen” franchise).

 

Most supernatural thrillers that became hits with mainstream audiences become the subject of claims about being cursed. As most film productions are fraught with problems, and the bigger the production the bigger the problems, so there’s always fodder for these fantasies. But “The Omen” seems to have been a nightmare like no other: During his audition, Harvey Spencer Stevens punched director Richard Donner in the testicles, but somehow got the job away, and his behavior never improved. Depending on which version you read, Gregory Peck’s, Richard Donner’s, and/or Richard Seltzer’s airplanes were struck by lightning in separate incidents. In yet another, separate, incident, Peck missed a flight that then crashed, killing everyone on board. Donner's hotel was bombed by the IRA. One the first day one of shooting, principal members of the crew barely survived a head-on car crash. Another car crash, this one during post-production, injured FX artist John Richardson and beheaded his girlfriend.

 

On the other hand, Donner, who would go on to make many more (and better) blockbusters, insisted that “The Omen’s” production was no more fraught than another other film he worked on.

 

Reading the contemporary reviews, the love this film earned astounds me, Roger Ebert was one of only of a few who dared be sarcastic about it. The far superior, and earlier, “The Exorcist,” had been treated far more harshly. Its immediate sequels were money makers, but also progressively more stupid, and the critics became increasingly harsh, though I have to say, both “Damien: the Omen II” (1978) and “The Omen III: the Final Conflict” (1981) shared with this film their high-quality productions, impressively conceived and executed death scenes, and far better performances than their scripts deserved. Why be so nice to the first film and so hard on the other two when none were good and all did the same things right? I’m am especially fond of Sam Neil was the grown-up Damien in the frequently very funny, “The Omen III: The Final Conflict.” He’s so devilishly charismatic, you’ll be tempted to vote for him for President.

 

But time has not been kind to the franchise, and all three films are now casually dismissed. How dismissed are they? Well, most horror fans are unaware that there were not three Omen films, but five, the saga continuing with “Omen IV: The Awakening” (1991) and a remake of the original (2006), plus there was a short-lived TV series (first aired in 2016). These were not only critically panned, but dumped into instant obscurity. In the franchise-obsessed world of today’s Horror media, we no longer “Hail Satan” but embrace the more honest stupidity of Slasher movies.

 

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoaKF6MdylQ