Rating: R | Runtime: 111 minutes
Release Date: June 25th, 1976 (USA)
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
Director(s): Richard Donner
Writer(s): David Seltzer

In birth and death the generations embrace.

I remember the decapitation death vividly from my first time watching Richard Donner’s The Omen. Only bits and pieces otherwise. So, the fact that it all came flooding back as I viewed it now almost three decades later is a testament to the filmmaking burrowing its way inside my brain regardless of my ability to consciously hold onto the details.

Wild to read that Donner wanted to keep the film vague as far as whether Damien (Harvey Stephens) was truly the cause of all the deaths (in Satan’s name) since so much of the finished piece’s success lies in the choice (screenwriter David Seltzer’s original intent) to make it irrefutable. The dogs are crucial to this—especially the cemetery scene and its apparently out-of-the-way, hasty burial plots meant to be forgotten despite spending the money and effort to etch giant stone markers. Satan is ever present through them and Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw).

Gregory Peck is great casting as the father precisely because of his legacy as Hollywood’s most famous hero. We need a man who would never do what is being asked of him in this role so that the choice to ultimately do it hits with the necessary weight. David Warner is great too, but special mention goes to Lee Remick as Damien’s mother. Her gradual shift from doting to repulsed is unforgettable. This character is experiencing the truth that Peck’s Robert denies being told. She is enduring the evil building around her son, and is desperate to escape it.

I love that the score won an Oscar since it’s so dated and overbearing. For a film that prides itself on holding back with the violence and gore to keep things more thriller than horror, the music cues want to bludgeon us to the point of comedy. But that being the most egregious “product of its time” detail of the whole only proves the film’s lasting power. And with a brilliant final shot really driving home the “Antichrist rising from the sea of politics” theme that’s conversely aged like fine wine, I’m sad they ever decided to make a sequel.

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Lee Remick, Harvey Stephens, and Gregory Peck in THE OMEN.