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Overall Rating : 6.5/10
Directed By : Richard Donner
Gregory Peck (To Kill A Mockingbird)
Lee Remick (Anatomy of a Murder)
David Warner (Straight Into Darkness)
Harvey Stephens
Supplied By : Fox Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick Blalock
Date Reviewed : Jul. 26, 2006
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| PLOT An ambassador, Robert Thorn is talked into switching his wife's stillborn baby with an orphaned infant. When young Damien is Five, the horror begins with his nanny's dramatic suicide. As the death toll escalates, Damien's father, realizing his son is the antichrist, decides that he must kill the boy and rid the world of the evil. |
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| THE REVIEW Katherine and Robert Thorn are expecting the birth of their first child. Katherine gives birth, but the doctors of the Roman hospital have secretly told Robert that his baby has died. The doctors say that another baby has been born, but it's mother has died and ask Mr. Thorn is he would like to take it in as his own - and without his wife's knowledge he agrees to substitute the orphaned baby as their own. Around Damien's 5th birthday strange occurrences begin to happen such as the hanging suicide of a nanny - in which she recites that she is "doing this for Damien". The boy's parents don't think anything of it but when a few more weird happenings take place - a strange lady by the name of Ms. Baylock shows up to apply for the nanny position but has some sort of connection to Damien and is later persuading him to do wrong, Robert is often approached by a priest that suggests that Damien is the son of the devil and should be killed before he kills everyone around him including Robert. Robert doesn't believe the priest, but after he meets a photographer whom has snapped pictures of him that all bare strange dark marks, and the near death of his wife at the hands of Damien, Robert and the photographer set out to find answers. As for told in one of the pictures taken of himself, the photographer is killed in a freak accident, thus leaving Robert alone in his quest. To summarize - Mr. Thorn later meets up with a priest by the name of Bugenhagen in the city of Meggado, who explains that his "son" whom is the antichrist can only be killed with 7 special knives in which the priest possesses. Before now, I had only seen parts of the original OMEN and with the remake being out for a while now receiving mixed reviews, I finally now had the chance to review the film's new special edition thanks to Fox. I'll admit that at the beginning I found THE OMEN rather slow and lagging but as we go into the middle portion of the film, it picks up with a great amount of suspense as well as great acting by the film's actors. At the time, the 70's had film's that were seemingly frightening audiences and also raking in the dough at the box office, because most had scares and subject matter in which no one had seen before and THE OMEN was no exception. However today, although still frightening, it doesn't have as much punch in my opinion. But what keeps this film most memorable to me are some of it's scenes that are deemed unforgettable, my favorite always being the infamous tricycle scene, in which ultimately Damien sends his mother for a ride of her own - as she plunders to the floor falling from the stair case. I have also seen this scene being called one of the most scariest and effective scenes in horror history and I couldn't agree more with that - The look on the boy's face is priceless, emotionless but haunting at the same. The beginning portion of THE OMEN, features a lot of feel good moments you would likely not see in a Horror film today, but as mentioned the pace really picks up at almost mid film and keeps going rather smoothly, I was Entertained mostly by the acting itself as every one gives it their all to make this film a believable one(even if maybe just some of it is a slight bit over-dramatic) This film spawned 2 direct sequel and 1 that was sort of loosely based around THE OMEN, so in such fashion this film ends in a way to obviously set up a sequel, in my opinion this sort of hurt the film's impact, but Damien's final gaze into the camera makes an impact of it's very own. |
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| GORE
METER 2.5/10 To me, by today's standards, THE OMEN is not all that gory as the kills have little use of blood. To me the best kill would have to be the decapitation via a plate of sliding glass! |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 6/10 Jerry Goldsmith has crafted numerous scores, that just seem to grab your attention, not to let go throughout an entire film - and this is one of them. At times it can be haunting and other times peaceful and melodic... and fits the film perfectly. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM I know my review seems all over the place with bits of information scattered about, but the truth is I enjoyed this film, despite a few things I have touched on. I have yet to review the new film, that should come soon....but as for the original it should remain a timeless classic - I do recommend! |
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