“Look at me, Damien! It’s all for you!”
Today marks the 41st anniversary of Richard Donner’s The Omen, one of the most chilling and wonderfully paced horror films to come out of the 1970s. It also notably produced one of the most terrifying genre villains of all time: Damien Thorn, the pint-size Antichrist portrayed with the right amount of disquieting composure and menace by then five-year-old English actor Harvey Spencer Stephens. (NOTE: For those of you who haven’t ever seen the film, I recommend you skip past this spoilers below and go have a watch!)
If you couldn’t tell from my recent post on Rosemary’s Baby‘s anniversary, I have a thing for well-paced Satanic chillers. The Omen is no exception. Penned by David Seltzer, The Omen tells the story of Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), an American ambassador to the United Kingdom, and his wife Katherine (Lee Remick), who are at the center of a number of mysterious occurrences and deaths that ultimately seem related to their son, Damien. When Catholic priest Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton) suggests that perhaps Damien is not quite human, Robert and Keith Jennings (David Warner), a photographer who has been investigating Damien, set off on a mission to uncover the truth about the boy before more lives are lost. Unfortunately, Robert and Keith are not quite successful in their efforts, and The Omen ultimately boasts one of the bleakest endings in horror history. With Damien revealed as the Antichrist, audiences were left with the terrifying notion that evil had truly won for once.
Given that Donner’s film grossed $60.0M on a very modest $2.8M budget, it’s no surprise that Damien’s tale didn’t end there. The film’s first sequel Damien: Omen II was released in 1978 to mixed reviews, but continued box office success, grossing $26.5M, almost four times its budget. Omen III: The Final Conflict hit big screens in three years later and starred Sam Neill as an adult Damien in office, while the franchise made its final bow with the made-for-television Omen IV: The Awakening in 1991. Seltzer notably returned to the world he created as a screenwriter once again in 2006 when he penned the remake of The Omen, which starred Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick.
What I personally love about The Omen is its very poised handle on tension, elevated both by a psychological approach to terror and masterfully executed scenes of violence that don’t rely heavily on gratuitous gore. In addition to the famous nanny-on-the-roof and decapitation scenes, I particularly love the sequence in which Damien, his tricycle, and his pregnant mother collide to make for one of the most jarring and outright unsettling moments of horror in history.
So, horror fans… what are your favorite scenes from The Omen? Do you prefer any of the sequels? Who would win in 1970s Damien Thorn vs. Regan MacNeil showdown? Sound off below!