“You will see me in hell, Mr. Thorn! There we will share out our sentence.”
There aren’t a lot of Halloween-type movies I can convince my dad to watch with me. But a horror flick from the ’70s or ’80s that he’s seen before is usually a safe bet. Today, it’s the first of the Omen series, not to be confused with The First Omen! Here, we have the 1976 original!
I went into this movie vaguely knowing it was about the “son of the devil,” so to speak. But there’s a bit more going on. (Knowing the origin of his creation blew my mind. If you don’t already know that twist, you won’t see it coming.)
When Gregory Peck and Lee Remick’s baby is stillborn, Peck makes the very ethical decision to adopt a baby from the hospital and tell his wife its biologically theirs. Because nothing says “healthly relationship” like lying to your wife about the child you’re raising for the next five years!
We’ll get back to these two and their very questionable parenting skills in a bit. The movie is full of many creepy events surrounding little Damien – his governess’s suicide, zoo animals running from or trying to attack him, and a foreboding priest who can’t not speak in riddles.
Also, there’s a scene where a character tries to escape to a church but can’t get inside. That part confused me – church grounds don’t count as church ground? If the rules of your horror movie are that churches are sacred places (after all, Damien doesn’t seem to like them!), why does that decree only involve the building itself?
Anyhow. The arrival of Damien’s new governess, Mrs. Baylock, introduces us to the true villain of the movie! And you’re seriously telling me that adorable Rottie is an instrument of Hell or whatever? Come on, look at that big beautiful face!
When Damien (accidentally) knocks his mother over a railing, he just stares as she falls. This is the only openly malicious thing the kid ever does, and even this incident seems explainable!
(Also, this doctor wins the award for “worst possible way to tell a man his wife had a miscarriage.
Gregory Peck: “But she’s pregnant.”
Doctor: “No.”
It reminds me of that old joke: “Everyone with a grandma step forward! Not so fast, girls!” The same amount of tact is used in both situations!)
Halfway through The Omen, we get the fun added aspect of photographs that can foretell a person’s death. Exactly like Final Destination 3, basically. But with The Omen being 30 years its senior, it would be more apt to say that FD3 is exactly like this one.
Gregory Peck’s whole journey to figure out what’s going on with his kid took a while, and it didn’t even produce a proper solution! Let’s get things straight, do you have any idea how messed up these parents are?
- The father lies to the mother about their baby dying and instead chooses to adopt another baby and pretend it’s their biological child
- They lose track of their kid while walking by a lake
- A stranger asks “Can I be alone with your kid?” and they say yes
- Neither of them seem to like their son at all
And that’s the crux of it! Yeah, you can say “he’s the devil’s child!” as much as you want to, but I really don’t think either parent cares about their kid! He’s surrounded by strange occurrences and creepy governesses and your response is to just… not interact with your son! Come on, guys!
As I said before, I went into this movie knowing it was about the son of the devil. And honestly, with parents like these, I wouldn’t trust them with a non-possesed kid!
My theory about this movie is that the son is perfectly innocent. It’s his creepy nanny who actually does the worst stuff, after all! All Damien did was accidentally knock his mom over a railing and stare at her when she fell!
And then Gregory Peck is told that there is proof of Damien’s demonhood – just find the 666 marking on his body! So Peck does so and finds this:
I don’t know, is that enough to convince you to kill your child?
The plot of this movie both makes sense and feels like the writers wrote themselves into a corner at the same time. When the only way to escape an evil being is “stab a child with six different swords,” maybe just make peace with your fate, y’know? If you escape the curse, you have a dead child to deal with. Have fun in prison, jeez.
The ending was better than I expected, though. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of this series, even if I will be holding true to my theory! I’ll end this post with one of my all-time favorite tumblr posts, very reminiscent of Good Omens:
