The Omen (1976)

At 6am on the 6th day of June, a child is born in Rome. It is the son of American ambassador to Rome, Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) and his wife Katherine (Lee Remick). Unfortunately though, and unknown to Katherine, the child died.

Convinced by a resident priest at the hospital, Robert takes another child whose mother he is told died during childbirth, and presents it to his wife as their son.

Several years later, Robert is now the ambassador in London. He and Katherine and their son Damien (Harvey Stephens) live in an enormous house, and Damien has all he could ever want.

But at Damien’s fifth birthday party, his nanny hangs herself from the balcony of the house in full view of all the guests.

And this is where the terrors begin. One by one, mysterious and terrifying things start to happen around Robert and his family. Even the new nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw) seems dark and mysterious herself, but Damien seems to like her.

Slowly but surely, Robert comes to the terrible conclusion that his son is in fact the Antichrist, come into the world to bring about the apocalypse. And his son must die before this can happen.

Director Richard Donner does his best with a script by David Seltzer, but I don’t think it’s quite good enough in the end.

The score by Jerry Goldsmith is technically sound and detailed, but to be honest, I think there’s just too much of it. There are so many moments that I feel could have done without being underscored, and yet, there it is underneath everything, often coming too much to the fore, and becoming too distracting to be of any use.

The performances of the main cast, with the exception of Gregory Peck, are nothing spectacular. There are some decent performances however from Patrick Troughton as a harried, anxious priest, and David Warner as a keen, trying-to-be-helpful photojournalist.

The cinematography (by Gilbert Taylor) is interesting in parts, particularly with some interesting high-angled shots throughout. These shots are just the right amount of unsettling to the audience, suggesting something more going on that what you may at first think.

This film was remade in 2006 with a new cast and new director, primarily so that it could be released into cinemas on the date 06-06-06. The new version feels like a shot-for-shot remake, which it isn’t quite, but David Seltzer is still credited as the screenwriter, so that gives you some idea how close it is to the original. However, I find this new version a little better; maybe it’s the higher budget which in turn provides higher production values, maybe it’s the cast who are much better overall, maybe it’s something else.

But this original version feels like it is just lacking a little too much to be a decent film.

3 out of 10.