The Omen is a 1976 supernatural horror film directed by Richard Donner and written by David Seltzer. It was made by the United Kingdom and the United States together and features actors Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer Stephens (in his first film role), Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Troughton, Martin Benson, and Leo McKern. The story follows Damien Thorn, a young boy who was secretly replaced at birth by his father, without his mother knowing, after their real baby died shortly after being born. As strange events and violent deaths happen around the family and Damien grows older, they discover he is the prophesied Antichrist.

The film was released in theaters by 20th Century-Fox in June 1976. Critics gave it mixed reviews, but it was very successful financially, earning over $60 million in the United States and becoming one of the top-grossing films of 1976. Later reviews of the film were more positive, and it received two Oscar nominations, with one win for the musical score composed by Jerry Goldsmith. The film started a series of movies, including Damien – Omen II (1978), The Final Conflict (1981), and Omen IV: The Awakening (1991), as well as a 2006 remake and a 2024 prequel. A television series based on the film also aired for one season on A&E in 2016.

Plot

American diplomat Robert Thorn and his wife Katherine live in Rome, where Katherine gives birth to a baby boy. Robert is told by Father Spiletto, the hospital chaplain, that his baby died after taking one breath. Father Spiletto convinces Robert to secretly adopt another baby whose mother also died during childbirth that night. Robert does not tell Katherine that the child is not their own, and they name him Damien.

Five years later, Robert becomes the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom in London. Strange and troubling events begin to affect the Thorns: a scary Rottweiler appears at their home, Damien’s nanny publicly hangs herself during his fifth birthday party, a new nanny named Mrs. Baylock arrives suddenly, Damien strongly resists entering a church, and animals at a safari park become extremely frightened by his presence. Robert meets Father Brennan, who warns him that Damien is not human and urges him to take Holy Communion. Father Brennan later claims Damien is the son of Satan, that Katherine is pregnant, and that Damien will harm his unborn sibling and parents. After Robert ignores these warnings, Father Brennan is killed when a church spire falls due to lightning. Katherine tells Robert she wants an abortion, but he disagrees. Damien pushes Katherine over a railing, causing her to be hospitalized and to lose her baby.

Photographer Keith Jennings notices strange shadows in photos of the nanny and Father Brennan that foreshadow their deaths. He later sees a similar mark on himself in a photo and shows Robert the images, along with news articles and Bible verses from Father Brennan that suggest the coming of the Antichrist. Keith accompanies Robert to Rome to investigate Damien’s birth. They learn that a fire destroyed the hospital, including Katherine’s medical records, and killed the staff working that night. They find Father Spiletto in a monastery, severely burned, unable to speak, blind in one eye, and partially paralyzed. He directs them to a cemetery where Damien’s biological mother is buried. In her grave, Robert and Keith find a jackal’s body, and in the next plot, they discover a child’s skeleton with a broken skull. Robert realizes the child was his own son, murdered so that Damien could take his place. A group of Rottweilers forces Robert and Keith to leave the cemetery.

Robert calls Katherine in the hospital and tells her she must leave London. Before she can escape, Mrs. Baylock throws Katherine from the window of her room, killing her. Robert and Keith travel to Jerusalem to meet Carl Bugenhagen, an expert in removing evil spirits. Carl claims that if Damien is the true Antichrist, he will have a birthmark shaped like three sixes. Carl gives Robert seven daggers to use against Damien on sacred ground. Robert refuses to kill Damien, but Keith believes it is necessary. Soon after, Keith is killed by a piece of glass from a moving truck. Horrified, Robert finally agrees to his task.

Robert finds the birthmark on Damien’s head while he sleeps and is attacked by Mrs. Baylock, whom he kills with a dagger. Armed with the daggers, Robert drives Damien to a local cathedral. His reckless driving causes police to pursue him. Robert drags a screaming Damien onto the altar to kill him and begs God for forgiveness, but the police arrive and shoot Robert as he raises a dagger.

A double funeral is attended by the U.S. President and First Lady. As the camera zooms out, it is revealed that the funeral is for Robert and Katherine. Meanwhile, Damien stands with the president and first lady, turns toward the camera, and smiles.

Production

According to producer Harvey Bernhard, the idea for a movie about the Antichrist came after a Bible discussion with Bob Munger, a friend of Bernhard's. When Munger shared the idea in 1973, Bernhard immediately contacted screenwriter David Seltzer and hired him to write a screenplay. It took Seltzer one year to complete the script.

The film was considered by Warner Bros. Pictures, but the project did not move forward until Alan Ladd Jr. of 20th Century Fox bought the rights to the story. Seltzer and director Richard Donner disagreed about the film's message. Donner wanted the audience to decide whether Damien was the Antichrist or if the violent deaths in the film were accidents. Seltzer disagreed and insisted the film clearly show that Damien Thorn was the Antichrist and that all deaths were caused by Satan. Bernhard supported Seltzer's interpretation.

Bernhard said Gregory Peck was chosen to play Ambassador Thorn from the beginning. Peck joined the project through his agent, who was friends with Bernhard. After reading the script, Peck liked that the film focused more on psychology than horror and agreed to star in it. He was initially unhappy with the props and effects used for the death scenes but was satisfied with how restrained and non-exploitative they were in the final film.

Although Bernhard claimed Peck was the first choice, other actors were considered because studios were hesitant to cast Peck as a child killer. Warner Bros. Pictures thought Oliver Reed would be ideal for the role. William Holden was also approached but declined, saying he did not want to star in a film about the devil. Holden later played Thorn's brother, Richard, in the sequel, Damien – Omen II (1978). A firm offer was made to Charlton Heston on July 19, 1975, but he declined on July 27, citing concerns about spending a winter alone in Europe and fearing the film might be exploitative. Roy Scheider, Dick Van Dyke, and Charles Bronson were also considered for the role of Robert Thorn. Van Dyke turned it down because of the violence and gore, later calling the decision "stupid."

According to interviews with Donner and Harvey Stephens, over 500 boys auditioned for the role of Damien. The then-four-year-old Stephens won the role after Donner encouraged the boys to attack him during a group audition. Stephens reportedly clawed at Donner's face and kicked him in the groin. Because Stephens had curly blonde hair, Donner straightened and dyed his hair black and gave him colored contacts to make him look scarier.

Principal photography for The Omen began on October 6, 1975, and lasted eleven weeks, ending on January 9, 1976. Scenes were filmed in Bishops Park in Fulham, London, and Guildford Cathedral in Surrey. The Thorns' country manor was shot at Pyrford Court in Surrey. The church in the Bishop's Park neighborhood is All Saints' Church, Fulham, on the western side of Putney Bridge Road. The church in the final climactic scene is St. Peter's in Staines-upon-Thames. Additional filming took place at Shepperton Studios near London, as well as in Jerusalem and Rome.

For the scene where Katherine's car is attacked by baboons, the production team first tried to get the baboons to attack by placing food near the car and putting a baby baboon in the back seat with a zoo official. When this failed, the official replaced the baby baboon with the alpha baboon, which caused the attack. Richard Donner said Lee Remick's fear during the scene was real.

Analysis

American scholar Brad Duren said that The Omen was part of a group of movies that showed scary, cosmic horror, beginning with Rosemary's Baby in 1968. However, The Omen was unusual because it focused on the "end times" described in The Book of Revelation and a belief about the end of the world called premillennialism, which was popular among American dispensationalists. Duren also said that the movie's success at the box office, which told the story of the first steps in the Apocalypse as the Antichrist is born, showed what was happening in 1970s America.

In 1973, Robert Munger, an advertising executive and evangelical Christian who had read Hal Lindsey’s book The Late Great Planet Earth, suggested to film producer Harvey Bernard that the Antichrist might be a child unknown to most people. This idea inspired Bernard to create The Omen. Bernard asked David Seltzer to write the movie’s script. Seltzer used many ideas from dispensationalism, especially from The Late Great Planet Earth, but also added his own. For example, a quote from The Book of Revelation in the 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”—was not actually in the Bible. Additionally, the Bible does not describe the Antichrist as the son of Satan, but in The Omen, the Antichrist is shown as Satan’s child.

Jim Knipfel, writing in The Omen: The Pedigree of a Horror Classic on Den of Geek, said that the movie’s success in 1976 might have been because of a sense of worry or sadness in the West at the time. Film critic John Kenneth Muir wrote: “What if the Bible is correct? What if the signs of the Apocalypse are happening now? Would we believe them? Would we even notice?” Duren wrote that even though few people in 1976 likely believed in dispensationalism, the feeling that the world or the West was declining made the movie meaningful. Duren also noted that the movie’s influence on culture led many people to accept the dispensationalist view of The Book of Revelation as correct, even though this view was and still is rejected by many churches. Duren said that dispensationalism, once an uncommon idea in Protestant theology, became more widely accepted after The Omen became popular.

Duren also pointed out that in the movie, Robert Thorn is told that the number 666 is the “mark of the beast.” He speculated that in 1976, most moviegoers were not familiar with this part of The Book of Revelation. However, because of the movie’s popularity, the number 666 became well-known in popular culture, and even people who are not religious now recognize its dark meaning.

Music

An original score for the film, including the movie's theme song "Ave Satani," was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, for which he received the only Oscar of his career. The score includes a part with a choir singing, featuring an ominous Latin chant. According to Goldsmith's wife, Carol, the composer had trouble thinking of ideas for the score until one evening when he suddenly and happily told her, "I hear voices," meaning he heard an orchestral chorus or choir. The Latin in the song has some mistakes: "We drink the blood" should be "Sanguinem bibimus" (the accusative form of "sanguis"), "Hail Satan!" should be "Ave Satana" (the vocative form), and "Ave Versus Christus" is incorrect in Latin. The correct phrase is "Ave Antichriste" (the vocative form of "Antichristus," the Latin name for the Biblical Antichrist).

Release

The film The Omen was released after a $2.8 million marketing campaign inspired by the one used for Jaws the year before. The campaign included two weeks of early showings, a book written by the film’s screenwriter, and a logo with the number "666" in the title as the main part of the advertisements. An early screening of the film took place in many U.S. cities on June 6, 1976.

The film opened in the United States and Canada on June 25, 1976, in 516 theaters. It was a major success, earning $4,273,886 in its first weekend (a record for Fox at the time) and a total of $60,922,980 (equivalent to $334,414,696 in 2024). It generated $28.5 million in theatrical rentals in the United States and Canada. Worldwide, it earned $46.3 million from a budget of $2.8 million. In the United States, it was the sixth-highest-grossing movie of 1976.

When the film was released in South Africa under the apartheid regime, the Publication Approval Board removed the final scenes showing the killing of Robert Thorn and Damien’s survival.

Richard Eder of The New York Times called the film "a dreadfully silly film" but said it was "reasonably well-paced." He noted that the film kept viewers curious about what would happen next. Variety praised Richard Donner’s direction as "taut" and the performances as "strong." It also said the script was "sometimes too expository, too predictable, too contrived, but a good connective fibre." Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4. Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune also gave it 2.5 stars, praising the "firepower soundtrack" and some "memorable" scenes but calling the story "goofy." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times said it was "an absolutely riveting, thoroughly scary experience" and compared it favorably to The Exorcist. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called it "the classiest Exorcist copy yet" but said it could not match the appeal of Jaws. Gene Shalit called the film "a piece of junk," and Judith Crist said it "offers more laughs than the average comedy." Jack Kroll of Newsweek called it "a dumb and largely dull movie." Duncan Leigh Cooper of Cinéaste said the film succeeded in frightening viewers despite its improbable story and violence. Richard Combs of The Monthly Film Bulletin described it as a "matter-of-fact exercise in Satanic blood and thunder" with a straightforward narrative.

In 1978, two years after its release, The Omen was included in Harry Medved and Harry Dreyfuss’s book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. It was the most recent movie featured in the book.

Later reviews of the film were more favorable. On the review site Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 85% based on 53 reviews and an average rating of 7.20/10. The site’s consensus says: "The Omen avoids too much gore and focuses on suspense, creating an enduring horror classic." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 62 out of 100 based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

The Omen was ranked number 81 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years… 100 Thrills list. The score by Jerry Goldsmith was nominated for the AFI’s 100 Years of Film Scores. The film was ranked #16 on Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments. The Chicago Film Critics’ Association named it the 31st-scariest film ever made. It has also been ranked as one of the best horror films of 1976 by Filmsite.org.

The film was criticized by the Catholic Church, which said it misrepresented Christian beliefs about the end of the world. Some Protestant groups praised the film, and the California Graduate School of Theology in Glendale gave the filmmakers a special award during its 1977 graduation ceremonies.

The Omen was released on VHS by 20th Century Fox Home Video in 1980. A VHS reissue was released by Fox in 2000. That same year, a special-edition DVD was released as a standalone product and in a four-film set that included its three sequels. A newly restored two-disc collector’s edition DVD was released in 2006, along with the film’s remake.

The film had its debut on Blu-ray in October 2008 as part of a four-film collection that included the first two sequels—Damien: Omen II and The Final Conflict—and the 2006 remake. The fourth sequel, Omen: The Awakening, was not included in this set. On October 15, 2019, Scream Factory released a deluxe-edition box set featuring the original film, all three sequels, and the remake. This set included newly commissioned bonus materials and a new 4K restoration of the original film.

Franchise

A book version of The Omen was written by screenwriter David Seltzer and released two weeks before the movie. In the book, Seltzer added more details about the story and characters, and changed some small things, such as character names: Holly became Chessa Whyte, Keith Jennings became Haber Jennings, and Father Brennan became Father Edgardo Emilio Tassone.

The Omen was followed by three sequels: Damien – Omen II (1978), The Final Conflict (1981), and Omen IV: The Awakening (1991). A remake of the movie with the same name was released in 2006. Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles played the roles of Robert and Katherine, and Mia Farrow portrayed Mrs. Baylock. A prequel to the first movie, titled The First Omen, was released on April 5, 2024.

In 1995, a television pilot titled The Omen aired on NBC on September 8. Directed by Jack Sholder, the one-hour episode was meant to turn The Omen into a TV series. Although director Richard Donner was involved as an executive producer, the pilot was not successful, and the series was not made. This version of The Omen is unrelated to the earlier films and follows a group of people searching for an entity connected to all of them.

A television series called Damien was being developed by the network Lifetime but later moved to A&E. Bradley James played the lead role. The series aired from March 7 to May 9, 2016. It acted as a direct sequel to the original movie, following 30-year-old Damien, who has forgotten his demonic past, as he confronts his true identity. Ann Rutledge (played by Barbara Hershey), who has protected Damien his whole life, helps him accept his role as the Antichrist.