#37: The Omen

Release Date: June 25th, 1976

Format: Streaming (Hulu)

Written by: David Seltzer

Directed by: Richard Donner

2 Stars

Maybe I had my hopes too high, but mostly The Omen is just not that good of a movie. It’s obviously riding in the wake of The Exorcist in both theme and style, but of course the problem with that is The Exorcist is a masterpiece, whereas The Omen feels like a lesser imitation, which it is. 

My main critique, besides the casting, is the script (quick side note on the casting: The movie is about a newly married couple having their first child, and for whatever reason the producers decided to cast Gregory Peck and Lee Remick in the leads, who were 60 and 41-years-old, respectively. It’s distracting to the audience and never brought up in the script, that these rather late-middle-age adults, bordering on elderly in Peck’s case, are having a child). Anyway, back to my main critique, which is where the hell is Damian, the supposed son of the devil? The movie introduces this all-powerful, demonic child and then proceeds to give him about ten minutes of screen time.  

Surprisingly, this movie works much more as an investigative procedural than it does a straight horror film, which is fine, but we lose track of Damian’s presence and location for huge stretches of the movie as we follow Peck’s character around. It mutes the tension of the movie and the script feels unbalanced as a result. In The Exorcist there are also long stretches where Regan is not present, but she’s so terrifying and physically stationary, that even when we’re spending time with her mother or Father Karas outside of the home, the audience is never confused about where she is, and the tension actually builds because we’re as worried as the characters are about going back into that god damn bedroom. 

The Omen is not bad, though. It’s a competent horror movie, a bit too competent to be a late night grindhouse flick, but it’s certainly not good enough to be considered…well, good.