The Omen (1976) [Special Edition] – DVD

***½/**** Image A- Sound A- Extras A-
starring Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Billie Whitelaw
screenplay by David Seltzer
directed by Richard Donner

by Bill Chambers I kind of enjoyed having nightmares as a child because they produced the most intense sensations then within my ken; the threat of death, as was so often the crux of these bad dreams, made me feel gloriously alive. Thus, when The Omen came into my life at the tender age of nine, it became an instant favourite, for it closely approximated the terrifying experiences I'd had with my eyes wide shut. In other words: it scared the pants off me.

It is with some remorse I must report that I no longer find the movie frightening, but now that I'm (relatively) grown-up, I actually find it rewarding on deeper levels. Today, Richard Donner's The Omen strikes me as a solid, memorable piece of cinema, an exciting synthesis of striking camerawork, convicted performances, and a chilling soundmix. And if age and experience have diluted the effectiveness of its shock tactics, the nihilism that fuelled their resonance in the mind's eye has ascended to the fore–and really does get under one's skin.

As Robert Thorn, an American diplomat living in Rome, Gregory Peck conceals the stillborn status of his son from wife Katy (Lee Remick), surreptitiously switching the body with that of Damien, a healthy infant who was orphaned in childbirth. This is a poor and rash decision, of course, but it maybe says a lot about how long they've waited to have kids, and makes the story that much more tragic. Soon after, Robert is appointed the U.S. Ambassador to Britain, and all could not be more idyllic for this picture-perfect family until five years down the road, when the karmic bill comes due. First, a nanny hangs herself in plain sight at Damien's (Harvey Stephens) birthday bash ("It's all for you, Damien!" she memorably yelps), then Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton, one of the original Drs. Who) is impaled by a lightning rod immediately after prophesying Katy's dark future. And, of course, there's a replacement nanny (Billie Whitelaw), who appears from nowhere just like the teeth-baring rottweilers that show up to menace Robert and co.

Check out now if you don't want any hint of Damien's true nature. Jennings (David Warner), a photographer whose pictures bear a psychic quality of late, contacts Robert: snapshots he took of both the original nanny and the doomed priest prior to their demise are smudged by double-exposures of the noose and the lightning rod, respectively. Jennings and Robert pair up, Hardy Boys-style; the journals Brennan left behind lead them back to Rome, where Robert will confront the possibility that he adopted Satan's offspring on that fateful day. I have to say, one of the things that appealed to me about The Omen at the age of nine–and still does–is that it's kind of a buddy movie about these two, and I could watch a whole film of these very serious men traversing Europe, investigating the occult with increasing trepidation.

The material certainly has the potential to inspire laughter, and if we look at The Omen's sequels, we see the first film's fragile tone succumb to humorous excess. David Seltzer's screenplay was lucky to have Donner at its helm: whatever else you can say about him, he's a director with little tendency towards camp, save the melodramatic deployment of a zoom lens now and again. (He also knows his way around a buddy movie.) Donner, in turn, was shrewd enough to cast Peck in the lead. If the evidence shown him by theologians convinces Atticus Finch himself, it is virtually assured that we will believe this far-fetched plot, too.

The Omen is not only gracefully executed–it has guts, too, with Peck putting his elder-statesman reputation on the line by accepting a part that asks him to hold a little boy at knifepoint. (Robert even points out the absurdity of this in dialogue that feels self-referential.) Innocents are grimly led to slaughter at every turn; the picture dispenses with movie-star politics entirely. General audiences have been conditioned to accept such an atmosphere of dread in only two kinds of entertainment: Russian plays and horror flicks–and even saying that, they tend to avoid the most depressing examples of either. Still, despite treating us like helpless voyeurs instead of accomplices (which is how slasher movies eventually went mainstream), this was Donner's breakout hit, and it definitely left a residue on the genre. Stanley Kubrick clearly referenced Damien's aggressive tricycling in the scenes of Danny Bigwheel-ing through the Overlook in The Shining, while the ominous open ending, which was in perfect tune with the hopeless tenor of Watergate-era cinema, became the paradigm in horror movies hereafter.

THE DVD
If The Omen is to have any impact off the big screen, DVD is your only acceptable alternative: Pan-and-scan videotape versions inhibit the tension generated by cinematographer Gilbert Taylor's dramatic 'scope compositions. Letterboxed at 2.35:1 or something slightly wider and enhanced for 16×9 displays, the image on this disc is unfathomably handsome, sporting true colours and perfect contrast. If the transfer is a bit on the hazy side, that's due to the inherent softness in the lighting style of many a British-lensed film from the Seventies.

As far as the DVD's audio is concerned, a remixed stereo track is loud and vibrant, owing any directionality to Jerry Goldsmith's Academy Award-winning score, here presented the way it was meant to be heard. I found the original mono sound to be mousy by comparison. A handful of fantastic extras justifies the Special Edition imprimatur of this release. My favourite of them is the new, 46-minute documentary "666: The Omen Revealed". Prefaced by the mad ramblings of a born-again reverend (who practically asserts that The Omen is the most important motion picture ever made), it features several members of the principal crew recalling in loving detail the ins and outs of the (surprisingly) low-budget production. I was shocked to learn how the baboon assault was achieved (simple: baboons were set loose on the cast), and ecstatic to have the curtains pulled back on that trick shot involving Remick's plummet over the stairs.

Donner and editor Stuart Baird contribute a full-length audio commentary, during which they wax nostalgic together in much the same vein as they do separately in the abovementioned making-of. (Watch the doc instead if pressed for time.) Additionally, Jerry Goldsmith submits to a four-part interview on specific musical passages that can be viewed in segments or as a whole. (Aside: as innovative as his score for The Omen is, I do feel that it is thrust upon us too relentlessly at times, undercutting the suspense rather than enhancing it.) A goofy, six-minute short featuring the same participants as the doc called "Cause or Coincidence?" (you can imagine…), plus the theatrical trailer and creepy animated menus, finish off this SE, packaged alone or together with its inferior follow-ups Damien Omen II, Omen III: The Final Conflict, and the made-for-TV Omen IV: The Awakening.

111 minutes; R; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 2.0 (Stereo), English DD 2.0 (Mono), French DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Fox