THE OMEN—dignified yet ruffled American diplomat ‘Robert Thorne’ gets ‘cut-to the case‘ advice from an insistent and distraught Catholic priest: “Accept the Lord Jesus. Drink his blood!”  Apart from the always welcome habit of true believers threatening you with their idea of love, in this instance that direct approach gets justified per the suspension-of-disbelief stories like this demand.  Since the dignified ‘Ambassador to St. James’ is in the reassuring figure of Gregory Peck we might hope for a salvation finale, even after that sweaty, jabbering holy roller is spectacularly javelin-spiked by a lightning rod off a church steeple, a bravura exit followed by the gruesome departures of others in the cast chain. Pray on, lambs. With the highway to Hell way pre-seared by Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, Beelzebub is coming to breakfast. In the free-scare-zone of 1976 you could keep the shaggy dog remake of King Kong, the multi-abused Carrie and the ankh-stricken Sandmen of Logan’s Run (let alone the feeble Burnt Offerings, Embryo and To The Devil A Daughter): this dealting of The Devil was the year’s jack of all rippers. *

“When the Jews return to Zion / And a comet rips the sky / And the Holy Roman Empire rises, / Then You and I must die. / From the eternal sea he rises, / Creating armies on either shore, / Turning man against his brother / ‘Til man exists no more.”

In Rome, Thorne is informed the son wife Katherine (Lee Remick) gave birth to died at delivery. Without telling her what’s happened, he makes the on-the-spot decision to adopt an orphaned infant. Moving to London, where Robert has been awarded prestige posting, they seem to have it made, and dote on their child. When ‘Damien’ (Harvey Spencer Stephens) is five, odd things start occuring: the little creep begins stirring up s-storms around 12 minutes in (cue Rottweiler-inspired nanny), via a public suicide-by-hanging. In front of kids at a party. A hint things are pointing to full-on ‘portent’. Confirmation (for the audience–the Thorne’s are good at missing clues) arrives when the shockingly departed aide is quick-replaced by the serenely confident ‘Mrs. Baylock’. A priest vainly tries to tell Robert what he’s/we are in for, and an ally comes in the form of a photographer (David Warner) whose pictures, when developed, indicate ‘something’ is definitely off base, a there that shouldn’t be ‘there’.

Making his bones in TV for sixteen years, with just two lowball feature credits (Salt and Pepper, Lola), director Richard Donner tapped big-time mainline with this unrelenting dive into darkness, skillfully crafted fright that set him up for fame & fortune with Superman, Ladyhawke and Lethal Weapon. He was blessed by a mighty assist from Jerry Goldsmith’s richly ominous music score, the composer’s only career Oscar victory (out of 18 nominations), proof that someone with horns runs things from below. Donner’s pacing and staging, the play-it-straight acting and Goldsmith’s fear alarm cover for the obvious logic issues in David Seltzer’s screenplay. Donner and Seltzer made a wise decision to have the various horrid assaults and deaths be situations that could happen in reality, even if the storyline tells us they’re being caused by ‘Scratch’ minions. Admittedly, the neato pinpoint padre-piercing bit pushes probability, but the hanging, the baboon frenzy, Lee’s cruel falls, the decapitation (a first-date reaction tester), and—above all—the graveyard dog pack attack rate high on the armchair grabbing list. As opposed to the successfully showy nonsense of The Exorcist.**

Apart from ably projecting nervousness and dread, Remick, 40, isn’t given all that much to do: after a great early career (A Face In The Crowd, Anatomy Of A Murder, Wild River, Days Of Wine And Roses), the age-wary (with leading ladies) studios couldn’t seem to find her roles with the depth to match her style and talent. Trusted warrior Peck, 59, soldiers thru with authority in a part unlike anything he’d tackled before; he needed the hit that this provided. At 34, Warner had been accumulating a choice gallery of oddballs (Morgan, Straw Dogs, The Ballad Of Cable Hogue, Time After Time, The Island, Tron); he gets perhaps the most audience-gasping moment. Five-year-old Stephens fits the ick-bill as the ultimate babysitter-beware tot. Most impressive of all is Billie Whitelaw as the immediately unnerving Mrs. Baylock. At 43, she’d won stage acclaim (mostly with works by Samuel Beckett) and had made a mark in British films and TV for 24 years before the huge success of this chiller brought her worldwide attention—the riveted kind. A 5’2″ dynamo of smiling, raven-eyed menace, she’s fiend enough to make Play Misty For Me‘s ‘Evelyn’ run blubbering to Mommy. Her baleful close-up, underlined by Goldsmith’s summoning of ancient, ageless evil is class-A horror show.

Donner and producer Harvey Bernhard pulled it off for $2,800,000. An equal amount was then devoted to a devilish advertising blitz that basically dared you to see it—“Remember…You have been warned.”  The fear-loving faithful trooped in as if ordered by the anti-Christ himself. Cogerson anoints the domestic gross at $86,500,000, the 5th most-attended of 1976. A goodly amount was duly reaped internationally and on subsequent shiver-at-home venues. **

Besides Master Jerry’s win, a nomination went up for…Song?  Yep, “Ave Satana”, written & sung in Latin.  111 minutes, with Patrick Troughton, Leo McKern, Martin Benson, Holly Palance (Jack’s daughter) and Robert Rietty.

“Look at me, Damien! It’s all for you!”

* Something Wicked That Way Came?—the production over in England reamed up a slew of dire “happenings”; accident coincidences that made for good copy, the same Curse Schtick that we’ve been told bedeviled The Exorcist and Poltergeist.  Heaven & Hell may be speculative, but a dead certainty is that there is one “born every second minute.”

David Seltzer, screen genie: “I did it strictly for the money. I was flat broke. I do find it horrifying how many people believe all this silliness.” Plenty, Dave: sequels arrived with Damien: Omen II, The Final Conflict and Omen IV: The Awakening (or ‘Fight to Stay Awake’).  A needless if financially successful remake arrived in 2006—its release date was 06-06-06. In 2024 came a well-reviewed prequel. Satan never sleeps: he might lose money.

One gentleman who didn’t regret risk was Gregory Peck. After seven dismaying duds in a row he opted to take a pay cut ($250,000) vs. a percentage of the gross—and made out like Lucifer’s credit card. With a trail blazed by Charlton Heston (Planet Of The Apes, The Omega Man, Soylent Green), the elegant, esteemed Peck’s participation helped further pry open ‘respect’ for the burgeoning fantasy genre. Fading yet still vital Old School actors who hadn’t been associated with déclassé ventures into horror or sci-fi manned up: Holden, Lancaster, Widmark, Douglas…

** Pea soup spit-take—sorry, Exorciser’s: ‘Regan’s head & neck doing a 360, the ceiling cracking and more projectile barfing than a boatload of seasick Ayahuasca first-timers. Really? There are actual demons out there, in penthouses as well as sewers, more than enough to worry about without having to persist pretending they come from a D-tatorship kingdom in the center of the earth. As for Hounds of Hell, though…having several times narrowly avoided being ripped asunder by unleashed canines this agnostic can attest to hitting the Instant Prayer button, right after expelling the f-word with the sincerity of the doomed. Those Rottweilers going after Peck & Warner (a stuntman was injured, go figure) are the stuff of nightmares. Pepper spray, folks, pepper spray.

Whitelaw (1932-2014) on little tyke Stephens: “I wanted to strangle him. He really was a little devil.”