Gregory Peck stars as Robert Thorn, the American Ambassador to England. When his pregnant wife delivers a stillborn child, Thorn does what any self-respecting husband would do … he rushes out in the middle of the night to an orphanage where a shady priest hands him the newborn creation of a whore and a jackal, and pretends that child is his actual son. But whores and jackals rarely mix well, and at the tender age of seven, Damien begins sparking both loyalty and mayhem in the form of a series of unpleasant but entertainingly creepy deaths. Eventually, Thorn, with the help of a photographer (played by the always British David Warner), discovers the truth and sets out to murder his son, whom he now believes will cause Armageddon. Which brings me to an unrelated question. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Revelations is true, the End of the World is Nigh, and the war between the angels and devils is upon us. The conclusion, as detailed in our favorite Book (the one written by God, not Michael Crichton), is the Second Coming of Christ and a thousand years of Heaven on Earth. So if that's the end result of Armageddon, and the "saved" receive a millennium of bliss, why is it that in every Satan movie, everyone's always trying to stop Armageddon? And Christians seem to fear it more than death itself? As one raised on a unique brand of Jew-F.O.-ism (the belief that God is a space alien with a circumcised penis), I'm forever baffled by this contradiction. If you believe in the Second Coming, wouldn't you want Armageddon to happen as soon as possible? Wouldn't you do everything in your power, including helping Lucifer, to bring about the prophecies of Revelations? Ultimately, if those who suffer and die during the period of strife and war are sinners unworthy of God's grace, what difference does it make that they suffer now, if it means you, Good Christians, will get a bigger house, tons of money, seven cars, and lots and lots of fresh virgins that much sooner? That is what is meant in the Bible as "Paradise," what yes? Regardless of my confusion over Christian End Times Prophecy, The Omen is a strikingly eerie, well-made film. The cast is uniformly excellent, from Peck to Warner to Lee Remick as Thorn's much-suffering wife, to the skin-crawling Billie Whitelaw as Mrs. Baylock, a Satan-loving nanny who arrives to protect Damien. Mrs. Baylock is a cross between Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca and Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, with more piercingly evil blue eyes. If I'd had Mrs. Baylock as my nanny, surely the man behind the bushes would never have enticed me to touch his "no place." One of my favorite scenes is a trip to an open-air safari in which Damien's mere presence freaks out the animals. Note to moms, if a cuddly fricking giraffe runs away from your kid in terror, you've probably raised the seed of Satan. Other highlights include a birthday party that ends poorly, as well as Thorn's visit to Israel, which climaxes, as my own Middle East pilgrimages often do, in a delicious decapitation, shot in lingering, loving slow-motion, and captured from multiple angles. But the death scenes, though beautiful and chilling, factor less in the film than an overwhelming sense of dread that pervades every shot. I was surprised and a little thrilled to learn that The Omen was Richard Donner's first feature film. Donner, who made The Lethal Weapon movies, The Goonies, Superman, Ladyhawke and Conspiracy Theory, is an under-the-radar director who consistently delivers great mindless popcorn entertainment. He gives The Omen that classic 1970s horror look, what I have termed the "70s Horror Mayhem Principle," in which anything horrible can and will happen even to main characters (not to be confused with the "70s Sci-Fi Mayhew Principle," which explains how humans in sci-fi movies understand a variety of alien and robotic dialects without translation). Though it suffers from one or two hokey moments, overall The Omen is a great and classic psychological horror film. The only question that remains is, what's the fastest way to cause Armageddon, because if it'd get me a house made out of gold, I'd totally fuck a jackal.
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