With the
smash-hit success of THE EXORCIST book-and-movie package, there was a media
vogue for devil-worship and occultism in the early 1970s. In that milieu this
dark script, derived from some dubious and badly-paraphrased Bible passages,
got an amen-hallelujah from Hollywood, to become a big-budget supernatural
production, with real money spent on its scares and an A-list cast (both were
still relative rarities for the horror genre at that time).
Though critics
didn't much like THE OMEN (Michael Medved listed it in 1980 as one of the 50
worst films ever made) and the basic idea was done with more insidious chills
and deeper psychological insight in ROSEMARY’S BABY, this movie was a
box-office hit, spawning several sequels, and getting a remake in 2006 that
nobody much remembers.
The original 1976
shocker is sturdily-built but predictable and downbeat, with its extravagant
death scenes tending to stand out more so than the lugubrious narrative from
director Richard Donner, who later did a much better, bang-up job with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (and, as far as some fans are concerned, THE GOONIES).
