The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976)

After his child dies shortly after birth, Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) is offered the chance to adopt a newborn.

Keeping the adoption a secret from his wife (Lee Remick), Richard raises the child, named Damien.

As Damien grows, something strange is happening.

People are trying to warn the Thorns about their son.

But they keep dying…

I am not the biggest fan of supernatural horror.

I have seen The Exorcist (the director’s cut) but it did not resonate. 

With a new Omen in theatres, I decided to check out the original Omen.

 

Richard Donner’s watchword on Superman was verisimilitude - one can see a similar approach here. 

Apparently Donner wanted to steer the film toward a more ambiguous approach, where it was not clear if Damien was satanic.

He lost the battle, but the film benefits from how understated his approach to the supernatural is: the film’s uncanny moments generally take place in daylight, in wide shots that create the starkest juxtaposition with the film’s horror. 

The casting of Gregory Peck, that most distinguished and credible American film stars as a man powerless to stop what is happening, is a master stroke.

In an era when familiar icons and institutions were either being discredited or questioned, the image of Atticus Finch driven to the extreme act of murdering his child gives the climax a meta textual punch.

Gilbert Taylor’s chilly, diffuse cinematography lends the film a cool, detached view of the story, while the film’s accidental(?) deaths anticipate the intricate set-pieces of the Final Destination series.

  

There is an elegant simplicity to the way the film unfurls, and the way it grounds the supernatural by treating it matter-of-factly.

While lauded (justifiably) for its score, what is striking about the film’s approach is the lack of score.

The filmmakers let the various uncanny happenings take place with only diegetic sound.

One of Donner’s gifts was casting, and the casting and presentation of Harvey Spencer Stephens as Damien is exceptional. Its success becomes more pronounced in light of the sequels, which try to make Damien a defined character pushing the narrative forward.

It is not a reflection on the succeeding actors, but more a case of executing a defined concept. The child is basically a plot device, a catalyst for events. 

Mostly non-verbal, Harvey Spencer Stephens’ Damien is largely on the edges of scenes. There is something unstudied about Stephens’ reactions, a quality of child-like naïveté that the filmmakers recomtectualise into something more sinister.

He never seems that aware or genuinely malevolent. He seems more like a kid, teasing and parents.

There is a horror movie version of the Kuleshov effect going on with the way this performance is constructed.

 

Damien is at his most elliptical, most unknowable.

And when juxtaposed with the film’s uncanny, paranoid atmosphere, Stephens’ grinning tyke becomes genuinely unsettling.

If you enjoy something I wrote, and want to support my writing, here’s a link for tips!