The Omen (1976)
Channel 4’s “100 Scariest Moments”
list, #9:
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 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, is doctrinairely
poppy-cock. The Catholic church has down-played the importance of Revelations
and since at least the 5th 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, for the rest of the movie,is played by five-year-old Harvey Spencer Stephens).
Robert doesn’t
know that 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. (ummm…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 is 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 20th c,
would actually be the European Common Market (ummm…so Boris Johnson was sent by
Jesus to save the World? And Satan defeated Jesus in the UK in 2022?)
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 20th 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 struggling
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 non-Catholics
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.
Composer 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 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, there’s something to base these fantasies
on. 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. 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 of shooting, principal members
of the crew barely survived a head-on car crash. In a separate car crash, this
one during post-production, FX
artist John Richardson was injured and his girlfriend beheaded.
On the other hand, Director 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.
(Wow. That’s what a normal production
looks like? A lot of Satanism in Hollywood I guess.)
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. This contrasts with harsh initial treatment of the earlier,
and far superior, “The Exorcist.”
“The Omen’s” 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 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?
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 the franchise continued beyond these three films.
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.
Before I leave, I
want to recommend two Italian “The Omen” rip-offs that were far more fun
because they were far more honest about their stupidity:
“Holocaust 2000” (1977) featuring Kurt Douglas in the lead,
and excellent Ennio Morricone score, a lot of Anti-Nuclear-Power politics that
poor disguise a pro-Fossil-Fuel agenda, and a surprisingly sympathetic Muammar-Gaddafi-Character (way back when this fine as made, Gaddafi was still enjoying
CIA support).
“The Visitor” (1979) featured a really extraordinary cast, but each Big
Star seemed a lotted maybe five-minutes screen-time each. Crazed and incoherent,
it’s now remembered as (quoting Critic David Ehrlich) "a remake of ‘The
Bad Seed’ [1956] as filtered through the acid-tinged mind of Alejandro Jodorowsky."
“The Omen” Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoaKF6MdylQ
“Holocaust 2000” Trailer:
HOLOCAUST
2000 (1977) FILM ANNONCE - YouTube
“The Visitor” Trailer:
THE
VISITOR Trailer - 1979' Sci-Fi Movie HD - YouTube
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