The Omen

The Basic Plot in The Form of a Haiku:

My Basic Ramblings: This movie kind of wrecked "Damien" as a baby name choice. Who in their right mind would name their sweet 'n innocent baby after the Son of Satan? (I did know one kid in 4th grade whose name was Damien [named before the movie's release].  He was a bit of a troublemaker, but kinda cute, in a fourth-grade sorta way.)

I recently learned that the fourth installment of this series, "The Omen: The Awakening" (a TV movie of some sort) introduced a daughter o'the devil, and her name was Delia, which for quite some time was #1 on my list of Girl Baby Names. (Currently topping that list are "Nora" and "Madeleine".)  But most people, if you were to scream "DELIA!" at them, they'd go about their daily business. If you screamed "DAMIEN!" at them, they'd probably run for their crosses and holy water and the like.

The movie stars Gregory Peck (To Kill A Mockingbird) as Jeremy Thorn, unwittingly the adopted father o'Satan. The movie's all his fault - he agrees to adopt a child of unknown parentage when he's told his biological child died.  He claims to do it because he's concerned about how his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick [Lots of TV Movies]) will "just die" if she learns her baby died.  Well, that's just great, Jeremy. Lying to your wife and raising demonic children will make her feel so much better.  And when she starts to fear that the child isn't hers, don't tell her the truth, ship her off to a psychiatrist!

Things start happening around Ye Olde Householde Thorn that, to the viewer, obviously point to signs that say "HEY! HEY YOU! YOUR CHILD IS A DEMON!" Nannies kill themselves, evil black dogs appear in the house, psycho nannies appear to replace the suicidal ones, animals freak when Damien approaches, Damien himself freaks when taken to a church (though, if Damien is the devil and strong and evil and all that, why would he be afraid? Wouldn't he turn into a "Ah, God.  I see once again we meet" James Bond-villain sort of character?  I suppose that would be difficult to do as a five year old child, though). The Thorns, however, happily traipse around, not really putting two and two together until it's too late.

Not helping the situation is the priest who shows up and spouts out apocalyptic poetry and sayings like "You must wash in the Blood of the Lamb," rather than getting to the point. The whole thing could've been resolved if the priest had just said, "Jeremy, look. Your kid's the Devil's child. You gotta kill him."

Helping Jeremy put those two and two together is Jennings, played by David Warner (Titanic, Babe 2: Pig in the City, Scream 2 and "Twin Peaks"). I thought he looked real familiar, and it turns out he's been in a lot of movies and TV shows I've seen.  (Though I have to admit I thought he looked familiar because he looked like a demented version of Simon LeBon.) Jennings is a photographer, and the pictures he takes contain mysterious shadows that reveal how said person in the picture is going to die. (The nanny has a noose-shadow around her neck, the priest has a spike-shadow sticking out of him, and a picture of Jennings himself has a dark shadow through his neck.)

I don't know about you, but if I saw a picture of myself with a dark shadow through my neck, knowing what Jennings knew (that the pictures told how you would die), I would spend the rest of my life wearing a 5" thick steel collar to prevent accidental decapitations. (And if I saw a truck heading towards me with a big sheet of glass on it, aimed for my neck, I would duck.)

Meanwhile, Katherine's getting knocked off precarious stools overlooking balconic drops (why anyone would do something like that while convinced Spawn of Satan is in their house is beyond me) and then getting thrown out of hospital windows by psycho nannies.  So she's dead. Jennings gets his aforementioned head cut off.  So he's dead. Jeremy stabs psycho nanny in the neck with a meat fork (Memo to Satan: the next time you send someone to protect your precious spawn, make sure they can withstand a meat fork to the neck). So she's dead. Jeremy hauls Damien off to church, somehow invoking the wrath of the police, and is just about to stab him and make the world safe to live in, when ol' Damien yells "Daddy!" and Jeremy folds worse than a deck of cards in a windstorm. Never mind the fact that there was that "666 in the hair" proof that the kid sends his Father's Day cards to Beelzebub himself; never mind the fact that every other major character's been killed under highly suspicious circumstances. No, he folds, and in that one second the police get the jump on him and he's killed, allowing Damien to wreak havoc all over the world.

I'm surprised that this movie hasn't been re-released, what with all the Millennium Panic that's taking over the world.  The Y2K bug is going to cripple the world, it kind of makes sense that Satan's gonna wanna bring his evilness into the world to take advantage of the hysteria. (I could also see this movie, like The Exorcist before it (or maybe after it), giving parents an explanation as to why their child is so ill-behaved and naughty - it's SATAN!)

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