Omen, The (1976)
Starring: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, Billie Whitelaw, David Warner
Director: Richard Donner
Synopsis: Spawn of Satan is unleashed on to earth... smash hit horror film is good rollicking old fashioned fun
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

A runaway success way back in 1976 partly due to the ingenious marketing techniques that Fox employed for promotion. The studio actually spent more on advertising then they did on the production of the film itself but were completely justified, as The Omen became one of the years top grossing films.

It's pretty old-fashioned hokum about the rise of Satan through a powerful and unsuspecting family. The film moves along at a fair pace and is littered with tremendous amounts of very bad acting by almost everyone involved.

Billie Whitelaw as the evil nanny "apostate of Hell" is the scene stealer along with the rather cute looking "dog-apostate of Hell" Rottweiler, Jerry Goldsmith, borrowing a touch from the score of Tombs of the Blind Dead produced a rollicking score to win him the Oscar for 1976.

1999's Phantom Menace seems to have lifted parts of The Omen soundtrack it is so similar. Stylish, gory death sequences also came into the mainstream for the first time in a big way. There is the infamous beheading sequence, which looked great for its era and spectacular death falls, impaling etc.

Some people found and still find this film intensely frightening - we found it entertaining, campy if not too scary at all. Followed by Damien - Omen 2 and then later by a preposterous Final Conflict - Omen 3. There was another that went straight to video and mercifully that was that for the moment at any rate.

Wonder what became of Harvey Stephen's the cherub who got to play Satan's spawn without having any idea of the historical importance of his role! Incidentally, The Omen is listed at least one publication that selects their "worst ever films". We would argue against its inclusion, but not too vehemently. Enjoyable piffle.