You have to be logged in to comment! If you don't have an account register now for free! Your account allows you to post comments and reviews, upload videos and images, access or our forums, write personal blogs, and maintain your profile.
A very good movie, extremely creepy. The Damien actor in this movie blows the new one out of the water. This a great, classic movie, with an amazing scene involving a large pane of glass.
a must-see. basically not considered a horror fan if you havent seen The Omen. Damien is absolutely brilliant. He is so demonic and evil. So original and to this day still pretty scary from the day it came out. you have to check this movie out.
Once again, it sucks reviewing the classics. They're classics for a reason: they're freaking awesome.
This movie totally invented the "main character and a reporter or detective go on a complex journey to gradually unveil plot points and solve a creepy mystery" genre. Not to say that's bad, just that too many movies follow this formula since.
This is actually my second favorite Omen movie, my first being the third starring Sam Neil as Damien. Totally badass and a great end to the trilogy (even though a shitty 4th one was made).
I will say this, if you are a fan of recent teen slash fast paced horror films, you are probably not going to like this film. On the flipside, if you like to think, this film is certainly a classic worth watching. Films such as these keep my faith in horror films alive when films like The Unborn or The Strangers keeps trying to tear my faith down. Great acting, great story, and a chilling ending that leaves you thinking what comes next.
I hear middle-aged men spout their outdated, biased wisdom all the time. “Modern horror movies are just gory, not scary. The old movies, boy, now those were scary because you didn’t always see the monster. If you want scary go watch . . .” And they always finish their statement with whichever popular 70s horror film they first watched in their pre-teens and peed their pants over. To them, there could never be anything scarier because that movie is so ground into their psyche. To the modern viewer, there could never be anything funnier because we’ve matured and realized the real world is infinitely more terrifying than creaky staircases. There are a handful of exceptions to that last sentence—Alien (‘79), The Shining (’80), Black Christmas (‘74)—but for the most part, it’s a fairly realistic view. While I hoped The Open could have been one of the few exceptions, it isn’t. Doesn’t even come close.
I have a lot of appreciation for the slow opening that builds emotional impact and atmosphere. However, it seems that I can count the films that actually pulled off that style without just adding pointless scenes for the sake of pointless scenes on one hand. In The Omen, the slow build not only adds a lot of pointless scenes—running animals, OH MY!—but it makes the viewer fail to see the difference between this and a Lifetime move. The slow build never once emphasizes the imminent doom hanging over the family’s heads; it just pumps the movie full of boredom and cheese. Unless you’re frightened by running animals and a kid riding his tricycle, there is nothing subtly frightening here. I’ll give The Omen credit for having one well-done abrupt moment of shock near the beginning, but after that it goes back to cliché drama. Horror directors/writers have a false idea that if they immerse you in the daily life of the characters, you’ll care about them when they’re killed or are nearly killed. The reason that is untrue is because all the characters in The Omen are all flat clichés. Who would have guessed the husband doesn’t believe in the supernatural, then by the end is converted into believing the absurd storyline? Who would have guessed the wife is a spineless women who just whines and acts dumb in every scene she has? Drama doesn’t build an attachment to characters. It didn’t in 1970, it doesn’t today. What builds an emotional attachment to characters is characters that actually have CHARACTER. Characters that actually have a personality.
The other problem with The Omen is the absurdity of it all. A man’s adopted son is really the antichrist—that I can take seriously. Everyone associated with the antichrist is marked with sacrilegious symbols and must be contended with in religious ways—that’s just stupid. The stupidity of religious horror movies always makes me laugh. Instead of actually following scripture and creating a genuinely terrifying experience, there always has to be retarded gobbledygook thrown in to cheese everything up. Instead of accurately portraying a realistic Christian or non-Christian, every last person in these religious horror films have to be a religious extremist of a diehard atheist. There is just no realism. People site The Omen as one of the movies that subtly frightens you to the point of terror, but that simply isn’t true. The Omen bashes you over the head with cheesy, over-the-top Hollywood conventions. I find it ironic: modern horror films bash you with gore and it’s not scary; older horror films bash you with cheese and it’s REALLY not scary. When I wasn’t bored, I was laughing.
The Omen isn’t a terrible movie, though. The directing is solid. The slow-mo close-ups of predictable plot points, however, got really stupid really fast. The acting from everyone but the wife is very solid. The actual story, if they were to have taken out the gobbledygook, is fairly solid and interesting, even if it isn’t anything new or original. And that’s all the good I can say.
As I said, I appreciate a lot of what made parts of The Omen a solid movie and gained it its classic status. That doesn’t mean I can take it seriously, because I can’t. It’s too ridiculous and pumped with too much cheese. When I think of true terror, I most often think of something realistic. People say “torture porn” and gore isn’t scary, but it hits far more raw nerves with me and other horror fans because it’s something that could really happen. It’s not campy or fun. It’s real. It’s disturbing. Isn’t that what true horror is supposed to be? That doesn’t mean I hate old horror movies. Straw Dogs (’71) was the forerunner for Saw (’04). Just because something’s old doesn’t mean it’s good, and just because something’s new doesn’t mean it’s bad. And vice versa. But it’s impossible for me to give a high score to The Omen. A lot of my older horror movie reviews spark responses that absentmindedly claim: “You’re not a true horror fan because you didn’t like this. Go review comedies.” To which I respond: I thought I was.
Posted By: horrorking95 at 5:31am, December 26, 2008
This film is not scary at all but it is fun to watch! It's worth watching and the music score is creepy. Actually there is one thing thats scary about this film DAMIONS NANNY!! Watch out for her she gave me the creeps!
***
Out Of
*****
This movie is a classic, the story ,the acting all comes together in the chills that run down your back...This movie creeped my husband out so much he refused to let me name our son Damien ...
one of the most famous movies of all time, i dont know quite what to make of this film, it has it's interesting moments, but the subject material is either hit or miss with individuals.
"This movie plays with the intellect. It is frightening for what is not seen. From the grey overcast that blurs the skies of London and the dead stillness of the great Pereford mansion that houses the ill-fated Thorn family to the deepest recesses of civilization in the hollow underground of an ancient excavation site, the film effectively captures the viewer's interest and draws them into a world that is on the verge of the ultimate disaster - the birth of the anti-Christ.
Born into the world of politics and wealth, little Damien Thorn is the darling of the beautiful and privileged Robert and Katherine Thorn. Mysterious accidents and the overall feeling of death begin to shadow their lives until the horrifying truth of Damien's birth is uncovered millions of miles away in a grave in a decaying pagan cemetery in Italy. Gregory Peck gives a fine performance as ambitious politico Robert Thorn, a man who slowly discovers that his fate is interlinked in ancient biblical prophecy. With escalating horror, he uncovers a grand design that's unfolding under the unsuspecting eyes of the entire world - and he and his perfect family are at the centre of it. His search for the truth is one of the best in films, taking him to the farthest reaches of the globe and climaxing in an exciting and bizarre confrontation between himself and the face of evil.
Lee Remick is ethereal as his beautiful and tragic wife. The rest of the cast - Billie Whitelaw as the creepy Mrs. Baylock, David Warner as the doomed Jennings and Leo McKern as the mysterious archaeologist Bugenhagen - give the movie its singular dark and moody quality. THE OMEN has a few disturbing moments that shock rather than disgust, but the film is loaded with memorable scenes that are ingenious. It's the 'feeling' that the film incites that makes this movie unique. The haunted performances of the actors, the creepy-crawly musical score, the insinuation that doom is slowly creeping into the world with the birth of one lone child, all succeed in making THE OMEN one of the truest horror films.
Sometimes it's the knowing that something is going to happen that is more frightening than actually seeing it happen ..." -- Christiancrouse, imdb.com
