Editorials
BBC’s ‘The Stone Tape’: A Scientific Ghost Story for Christmas [Horrors Elsewhere]
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
Nothing quite evokes a bodily chill like a good ol’ fashioned ghost story. And as far as the British are concerned, the best time to share them is at Christmas. This tradition can be traced to the Victorian ages when spectral scares came back into fashion after nearly dying out. That is until book publishers found success with ghostly content, including the commercial hit A Christmas Carol. As society continued to grow, so did telling ghost stories during the holidays.
Books, films, and plays have all done their part in keeping the practice of Christmas scares alive and well, but for British audiences today, television has been a consistent storyteller. The BBC alone has endorsed holiday horror since the sixties; an adaptation of M. R. James’ ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad‘, from the TV anthology Omnibus, inspired a new tradition called A Ghost Story for Christmas. For the next decade until a 27-year hiatus, the network’s Christmas programming included an annual production focused on supernatural disturbances. One of which, The Stone Tape, is widely considered the best of its kind. Although not an official entry in BBC’s strand of yuletide horrors, the 1972 television-play matches the same frightful tone.
The Stone Tape starts with Jill Greeley (Jane Asher) driving up to her new worksite at an old, Victorian mansion called Taskerlands. The preexisting dread painted all over her face only grows as her car becomes trapped by two moving trucks. When neither truck responds to a series of warning honks, Jill’s vision blurs as if the walls are closing in on her. She finally panics and backs into a nearby pile of sand, narrowly escaping what might have been a crushing death.
Peter Brock (Michael Bryant), the man in charge of this predominantly male research team for Ryan Electronics, takes both Jill and the estate manager Roy “Colly” Collinson (Iain Cuthberston) to a large room lined with stone walls. While the rest of Taskerlands has been refurbished, this one room remains untouched due to the fact that the contractors refuse to go near it. They fear the legends that surround this part of the house. Left on her own in the same room, Jill then hears a guttural scream accompanied by a vision of a frightened woman on the staircase.
After investigating the house’s haunted history, Peter and his colleagues stumble upon a groundbreaking medium that would put them ahead of their Japanese competitor. Peter theorizes the female ghost, an undermaid named Louisa Hanks, is really an image preserved by the stones in the room. He soon relocates his team to the room in hopes of gathering evidence of this technological breakthrough, but their equipment records nothing. At the same time, though, their activity has awakened something.
The British fascination with ghost stories stems from an innate sense of paranoia toward threats of foreign origin. For example, the Victorian middle class especially felt imperiled by external forces beyond their control. This of course led to both oral and written tales of supernatural invasion and unrest. In The Stone Tape, the male characters are bothered by the idea of the Japanese beating them to the finish line of a technology race. Peter and his associates’ intense desire to win is fundamentally one way of protecting the homeland. In the same breath, Peter ignores his own region’s customs and throws all caution to the wind as he overhauls the entirety of Taskerlands. He kicks in a wall in the ill-fated room, never once asking himself why the contractors are hesitant and why the wall was put in place to begin with.
The nature of the haunting is as intriguing as it is enlightening with respect to the characters’ dispositions. When the researchers begin their recordings in the room, they capture nothing. Yet Jill and her peers indeed hear a ghostly scream in some form or another. A man who played in Taskerlands as a child hears something different when he visits the room; he picks up on the sound of rats. Again, nothing is recorded on the modern equipment. These situations suggest people are hearing what they expected to hear; the Ryan employees anticipate a woman’s scream like Jill reported, whereas the other man heard the rats from his childhood. Of all Jill’s coworkers, Stewart (Philip Trewinnard) hears absolutely nothing because he does not believe in the ghost. The haunting here is what someone makes of it, in a manner of speaking.
From the first moment Jill appears on screen she does not hide her feelings; from surviving a near-death experience to understanding her complicated fling with Peter, her on-again-off-again partner. Even as the other woman in her relationship, Jill wants to feel cared about. With Peter, she knows she will never come first — at best she comes third with his family and job surpassing her. Similar to Louisa atop the stairs, crying in pure agony as something ghastly and unknown bears down on her, Jill is trapped in her rawest emotions. That current state of mind then impels her to help someone else unable to move on from their ordeal. Unfortunately there is not much she or anyone can do for Louisa. As Colly says at one point: “A living person in that pain, you can try and help them. Here you can’t.”
With so much emphasis on the science, The Stone Tape shows signs of sterility and overthought. Conversely, writer Nigel Kneale implies paranormal matters cannot be approached with only logic and technique. There must be heart as well. As seen in the character of Jill, it takes a certain level of empathy to experience the haunting. Even when others hoped to use Louisa’s trauma for their own personal gain, Jill looked to help using both her emotions and her scientific skill. In the end, though, that same sensitivity is what causes Jill’s downfall and turns her into a human medium of sorts. Without her realizing it, Jill is “following in Louisa’s footsteps.”
The Stone Tape sets itself apart from its contemporaries by having a modern setting and story. It does retain the cursory Christmas element — a former resident’s letter to Father Christmas is discovered in the walls — as well as the familiar venue of an eldritch, Victorian home, albeit gutted and renovated. The script is unique as it is mired in technospeak, and it observes a realistic paranormal theory still in effect today. On the other hand, programs in A Ghost Story for Christmas are more keen on not explaining the otherworldly occurrences and letting the hauntings run their course with more emphasis on effect than cause. Much like the character of Peter, though, The Stone Tape dodges mystery and wants answers. Other genre narratives with overdrawn explanations run the risk of lacking in wonder, yet Kneale composed a creative, thoughtful, and intimate tale rich in the same bitterly cold anxiety inherent to all Christmas horror.
Of the three films that make up the Diabolical Trinity of classic religious horror films—Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976)—The Omen is the most purely entertaining.
While Rosemary’s Baby digs into the societal shifts of the 60s and The Exorcist explores spiritual tensions between faith and doubt in an ever-shifting world, The Omen seems most interested in just telling a thrilling story. It achieves this by blending two major trends of the 1970s, the devil movie and the paranoid thriller, into one crackling adventure yarn. In the process, The Omen has sparked fear and curiosity about what could happen in the “end times” if such events are to occur.
After seeing The Exorcist, producer Harvey Bernhard contacted writer David Seltzer and said something along the lines of, “Hey, write me one of those.” Seltzer, having never read the Bible, thought it would be an interesting challenge, so, according to various interviews, he read the Bible and several commentaries in search of a story. Then he stumbled upon a passage in the book of Revelation, the image of a great Beast rising out of the sea, that sparked his imagination. In the commentaries, he found that the sea represented politics in some interpretations of the text, and he began building his story on that foundation.
Seltzer has told this story often, and I am inclined to believe him. However, from there, much of the theological-sounding lore of The Omen was created purely by Seltzer. Many of the ideas surrounding The Antichrist in the film appear to be drawn much more from the pop-eschatology sensation of the 1970s, The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay, than any Biblical source.
Lindsay’s book was the bestselling nonfiction book of the 1970s and re-popularized views of the “last days” that had been dying along with fundamentalism for decades, namely Dispensationalism, Millennialism, and the Pre-Tribulation Rapture. In dispensationalism, history is broken into several epochs of time (or dispensations) that culminate in the return of Christ and his thousand-year (millennial) reign.
Before this return, a seven-year Tribulation will occur in which the Antichrist comes to power and persecutes all who oppose him, culminating in a battle between the forces of good and evil at the valley of Megiddo, usually called Armageddon. Of course, in this worldview, the true believers in Jesus will be lifted out, or raptured, before all this takes place. Since the publication and popularity of The Late Great Planet Earth, this has been the prominent belief in Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian circles, though Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant denominations largely reject it.
Lindsay also did something unique that had not been the case even in dispensationalist circles before him—he posited that the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948 started the countdown to Armageddon. Fans of the film will immediately realize where Seltzer ran with this idea in the first line of the poem created for the movie: “When the Jews return to Zion…”
Damien Thorn and the Creation of Horror’s “Innocent Villain”
Seltzer’s next inspiration focused on the idea of the Antichrist as a child, what he would call the film’s “innocent villain.” In watching The Omen, it is readily apparent that Damien Thorn (Harvey Stephens) does not really do anything evil beyond a bit of normal kid mischief. Even the moment in which Damien knocks Kathy Thorn (Lee Remick) over a second-floor railing can be read as an accident orchestrated by Damien’s diabolically connected nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw). The film takes this idea of the innocent villain a step further by casting Gregory Peck, best known for playing arguably the greatest father in film history, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as Damien’s earthly father, an element that greatly satisfied Seltzer.
The New Testament itself says very little about the Antichrist and certainly nothing about his childhood. In fact, the word antichrist is used twice (1 John 2:18 and 2 John 7 for the curious) and refers to groups of people, not a particular person. There is also a passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 in which the writer (usually attributed to Paul) discusses “The Man of Lawlessness” who will “exalt himself over everything that is called God” and “proclaim himself to be God.”
Then there is the Beast of Revelation chapter 13 with “seven heads and ten horns” that Seltzer latched onto, which has been interpreted in a multitude of ways over the centuries. Powerful people throughout history, from Charlemagne, various Popes during the Protestant Reformation era, Napoleon and Hitler, to modern politicians, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, have all had the label placed on them by various circles. Even religious leaders like Billy Graham have not escaped being called the Antichrist.
Lindsay and modern dispensationalists are certain the Antichrist will be a 21st-century individual as they are equally certain that the Rapture, Tribulation, and return of Christ are imminent, likely within their lifetime. Many scholars and theologians, however, interpret these passages as symbolic representations of the Roman Empire and the first-century Caesars who persecuted, tortured, and murdered Christians and Jews who refused to submit to Imperial rule and worship them as gods. For example, that the Beast from the sea in Revelation has seven heads is symbolic of the famous seven mountains of Rome, with the 10 horns referring to rulers and magistrates of the Empire.
But this is all really of no matter to Seltzer and the story of The Omen. Instead of being concerned with any historical or theological accuracy, he instead built his own lore, which sends Robert Thorn and photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) on a globetrotting investigation into the nature of the Antichrist and how to stop him. Some of this lore includes the child being born of a jackal, the reaction of animals, the protective cult that arises around Damien, the daggers of Megiddo, and maybe most interesting of all, the peculiar flaws in Jennings’s photographs that presage the ways certain individuals will die.
All these aspects are where the paranoid thrillers come in, as films like Blow Up (1966), Z (1969), The Conversation (1974), The Parallax View (1974), 3 Days of the Condor (1975), and All the President’s Men (1976) were all the rage at the time. Especially in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the idea of journalists (like Jennings) as ordinary heroes who could bring down the powerful, nefarious forces in the world was exactly what audiences craved. And what greater hidden evil force was there than the Devil? This is also why the device of the daggers of Megiddo is so important to a movie like this. If Damien is indeed the Antichrist, there must be a way to stop him, though in the Biblical text, the only power capable of destroying the Devil is God Himself.
The Mark of the Beast, 666, and the Film’s Most Famous Religious Symbolism
The piece of lore created for the movie with the most solid Biblical grounding is the Mark of the Beast. Revelation describes a mark on the forehead or hand of those who worship the Beast and his image. Again, this is symbolic language differentiating those who belong to the power of the Roman Empire and those who belong to Christ, who have the Mark of the Lamb. In Seltzer’s hands, the mark is very literal, a birthmark that is borne by not only the Antichrist but all his followers, meaning they are marked from before birth as belonging to Satan, and there is no escaping it. This is all rather distressing to the priest Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), who betrays his mark by warning Thorn about Damien and pays the price by memorably being impaled by a spire that falls from a church steeple after being struck by lightning.
Why is the mark three sixes? Again, this is drawn from a passage in Revelation that states that the Beast can be identified by calculating his number. In Biblical scholarship, this is believed to be the sum of the name of a man transferred into Hebrew numerology, a practice in which each Hebrew letter also represents a number. Using this method, the number of the name Caesar Nero, which many believe to be the most logical choice, is six hundred sixty-six. In the film and elsewhere, this number is changed to three individual sixes. According to the film, this represents the Diabolical Trinity (a designation also unique to the film) made up of Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. That Damien carries this unique birthmark under his hair convinces Robert that the child is the Antichrist, and it’s up to him to destroy him.
Part of what makes The Omen great is its ambiguity. Damien could be the Antichrist, or he could be at the center of a series of coincidences. Director Richard Donner stated in interviews that he believed Robert Thorn had gone insane by the end of the film, which, to Donner, is the only explanation for why Thorn would attempt to kill an innocent child. However, that enigmatic smile in the final shot suggests that Damien does embody a spirit of great evil. The sequels, however, all but erase this ambiguity.
In audiences, The Omen sparked a renewed interest in the concept of the Antichrist and the dispensationalist interpretation of the end times that continues to echo throughout the last five decades. Around the time of the film’s release, even Elvis Presley was photographed brandishing a paperback copy of Seltzer’s novelization. Dispensationalist authors like Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, and John Hagee have made millions publishing books and giving lectures about the Antichrist and the end of the world.
The Legacy of The Omen, 50 Years Later
Though A Thief in the Night (1972) preceded The Omen in initial release, it gained quite a resurgence (along with the ability to create three sequels) in the wake of the popularity of The Omen and went on to scar the psyches of Evangelical children for decades. Hal Lindsay was also able to release a film version of The Late Great Planet Earth in 1978, complete with narration and a brief onscreen appearance from Orson Welles.
In the 1990s, the Left Behind series became a cultural phenomenon, spawning twelve books in the core series, a YA spinoff series, video games, and a movie series (2000-2005) starring Kirk Cameron. A bigger studio adaptation of the first book was released in 2014, starring Nicolas Cage. 20th Century Fox and The Omen got in on the renewed “end-of-the-world” vigor by releasing a remake of the original film on June 6, 2006. The franchise was revived once again in 2024 with The First Omen, which explores ideas of the Antichrist and the motivations of those in power in our current religious, social, and political context.
But despite all the sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, remakes, and “end times” money grabs of the last 50 years, the original version of The Omen remains untouchable. Its greatest strength is that it seeks, first and foremost, to entertain. And it does so admirably.
After half a century, its influence can be felt in horror, the culture at large, and even in various faith circles. It is a testament to the power of story and film that, consciously or unconsciously, fans of The Omen and those who have never seen it alike are, to this very day, marked by the Beast.
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