Successful horror movies spawn imitators. That’s true in any genre but the fact that horror can be particularly cheap to produce mean it’s especially susceptible to hordes of knock-offs. Paranormal Activity’s success resulted in a wave of found-footage horror films. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake in 2003 kicked off the trend of horror movie remakes. Going back to the 1970s, The Exorcism and its massive box office haul led to an influx of religious-themed horror films such as The Omen. To my pleasant surprise, though, The Omen manages to stand on its own two Satanic feet. This is not a horror film content with simply being The Exorcism Redux.
American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) has a
seemingly perfect life. A glamorous house. A job that provides plenty of
income. Best of all, he’s got a dream family thanks to his wife Katherine (Lee
Remick) and son Damien (Harvey Spencer Stephens). As Damien gets older, though,
a series of strange occurrences begin to unravel this idyllic homelife. For one
thing, this old priest keeps pestering Robert on how dangerous Damien is. For
another, odd events begin to happen around Damien, like a servant committing
suicide or a bunch of baboons going ballistic in his presence. Soon, Robert is
on a quest to get some answers, which begin to point towards Robert’s son being
not just not his offspring but something far more hellish…
The best part about The Omen is how it builds
up a sense of dread. In a smart move on the part of screenwriter David Seltzer,
many of the scares in The Omen don’t come from the direct actions of Damien but
rather from circumstances surrounding the child. This lends an eerie quality to
The Omen deriving from how there’s a higher power at work here. The
humans trying to fight back against Satanic circumstances are wildly outmatched
by thunderbolts dropping from the sky and planes of glass slicing people’s
heads off. You feel just as dwarfed by these overwhelming circumstances as
Robert Thorn and company and that’s just where you want to be when watching a
horror film.
My personal favorite of the various scary set pieces
in The Omen is when Robert and Keith Jennings (David Warner) are
attacked by a pack of rottweilers in a graveyard. There’s a great sense of
build-up to this scene, as Robert and Keith’s initial digging around in the graves
is filtered through wide shots that show dogs lingering on the outer edges of
the frame. You’re already getting a knot in your stomach before the dogs even
begin to attack the duo. Another great moment in the sequences come when Robert,
just inches away from evading the dogs entirely, gets stabbed by a sharp point
on a fence. As if the dogs weren’t enough of a problem!
The Omen has plenty of those
kind of thrilling scares to dish out and it executes them with panache. The
presence of accomplished artists like director Richard Donner and actor Gregory
Peck helps mightily in that execution. Neither Donner nor Peck are going
through the motions here. They’re both turning in capable work to lend gravity
to the assorted eerie moments of The Omen. The same can be said for
Jerry Goldsmith’s score, which may be the absolute best part of The Omen.
One of my very favorite composers reaffirms why I hold him in such high esteem
with his chilling Omen compositions, which make great use of a choir
chanting Latin phrases.
Though it may have been born out of an attempt to make the Exorcism lightning strike twice, The Omen is far more than just a knock-off
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