Streaming Availability: Rental
In 1976 two Antichrist films came out. The cheap, largely unfinished
sequel, Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby was little-seen and little-remembered. That is a good example of how to do a film about the devil's son wrong. Turns out nobody wanted
desert casinos and acid rock, Americans wanted their eschatology to have
gore, ominous Latin chanting, and a creepy little kid. The Omen dares ask the question: could a movie make audiences cheer when a father nearly murders his toddler son?
The actual usage of the word "Antichrist" in the New Testament is pretty vague, mostly used as a category of sinner, not one person. It is important to remember that the Bible is not a code book written to warn about the future, it was written by people of a time for people of that time. Context is important. When the Book of Revelation talks of "the Beast rising out of the sea", they're referring to the Roman Empire, the terrible enemy of both Judaism and early Christianity in the first century. Revelation was written to give hope that the persecutions could last forever, the cavalry is on its way, Christ will return. (He still hasn't.) Fast forward centuries later and suddenly bishops are terrified that the fall of the Western Empire is the end of the world. The Antichrist by that point had become a singular guy with a singular role, to be Satan on Earth and bring about the end of the world.
The
Antichrist is an interesting kind of demon, in that he has had
thousands of faces throughout history, yet also never existed. Maybe
he's Nero, maybe he's Attila the Hun, maybe he's Biden. To be called "the Antichrist" is basically an empty insult, it just means you're sufficiently annoying to some author so you're now the ultimate evil. The early Protestants loved to call the Pope the Antichrist, seeing the entire Catholic system as a perversion of an imagined True Religion. You still see some remnants of that anti-Catholicism in today's movie, because, of course, priests are working with the Devil.
The Omen is in conversation with the 20th century American form of Antichrist speculation. It might as well be an adaptation of Hal Lindsay's 1970 book of apocalyptic speculation, The Late Great Planet Earth. (Which predicated that Satan was coming in the Eighties, he didn't.) The people who made The Omen are not interested in the deeply flawed scholarship of premillennial dispensation like Lindsay is, they just see the paranoid vibe of the early evangelical movement and think it makes for a good movie. Specifically that paranoia has core elements of severe conservatism, Antisemitism, and Anti-Communism. Their speculation of the Antichrist is a merging of old Jewish conspiracies and Soviet terror. The US will lose its position of power from liberal world governments, watching as Europe rising and is controlled by a charismatic demonic dictators. Also Israel is always central to these complex schemes in confusing ways. I'm not clear whose side the Jews are supposed to be on, but the vibes are not great.
A a Jew, I'd prefer you leave us out of this. Consider me neutral, neither Pro or Anti-Christ. Or maybe I'm in the Antichrist's camp considering the political program of people like Lindsay and his successors, the Left Behind authors. Awful people.
In the case of The Omen, its primary terror is that the traditional WASP power structure of America will be infiltrated by demons. Its protagonist is the Ambassador to the United Kingdom, a prestigious post, supposedly a stepping stone to the presidency. (Despite Joseph P. Kennedy's hopes, that has not happened since 1868.) Our heroes are "beautiful people", to whom nothing wrong should happen. They have no particular politics, nor do they need one, they simply are of a ruling class. Democrat, Republican, irrelevant, they just need to look the part. Notably even by the Seventies, this vision of politics was ten years of date, yet still must have been the imagined ideal for many.
Our hero is Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), a rising political star whose one failure in life was to have a stillborn son. Luckily the hospital in Rome quietly supplied him a replacement. That child, Damien (Harvey Stephens) has grown into a little babe, smiling sweetly with his demonic rottweiler. After one nanny hangs herself at his birthday party, an unsettling new woman, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw) takes her place. Thorn still has no idea that anything is wrong until a series of men trying to warn him die in spectacular fashion. Finally, Thorn realizes the Devil needs him and his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick) out of the way.
Robert needs to be dragged along through every step of the plan. He does not even realize that '666' is supposed to be spooky. Or maybe audiences of the time were so ignorant of apocalypticism that they needed to be taught the scary number.
Speaking of spooky numbers, The Omen is willing to use guys like Lindsay for exploitation purposes, but it does not care at all for accuracy. There is a passage, supposedly from the Book of Revelation quoted many times in this movie: "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." That might sound like John of Patmos's surreal imagery if it did not rhyme. But there's multiple obvious errors. The Jews had not left Zion when John was writing Revelation. Also Holy Roman Empire, excuse me?? I guess it sounds good, though the movie has to really stretch itself to make this fit. "Eternal sea" is meant to mean politics. At least it is getting into the spirit of twisted logic to make predictions fit, The Omen is truly at home with the dispensationists.
Even if I despise most of the foundation to The Omen's philosophy, I'll admit that Richard Donner directs a decent thriller here. The unfolding mystery of just where Damien came from is a decent one that builds the stakes well. Jerry Goldsmith's score is great, the creepy Latin chanting is endlessly iconic. Scary Latin would become a core trope of demon movies within a few years. The kills are great. The Omen predicts the Final Destination film series by staging various anti-miracles, with Satan murdering people in elaborate freak accidents. The best one is seeing poor David Warner's head fly off. And the acting is solid, especially Billie Whitelaw, who has a perfect slasher smile. This franchise's biggest mistakes is not keeping its Evil Mary Poppins character around for the sequel.
My biggest issue in terms of aesthetics is that The Omen does very little with Damien. He's not on screen enough to be have any personality or even do anything all that creepy. All we get out of Harvey Stephens is some screams and one wicked smile. I know working with child actors is hard, but the Antichrist seems important to this movie, he should be a character.
This franchise had a better idea of where to go
than Rosemary's Baby did. However, after four movies and some terrible choices, it all still collapsed. In 2006 there was a remake directed by John
Moore, which was okay if also completely pointless. That did not restart
the franchise engine. Maybe the upcoming prequel will do better. But also, I'm exhausted after twenty years of listening to Republicans scream that trying to reform health care is a sign that you're in league with Lucifer. This has all become less fun to me. Maybe we don't need Omen movies.
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