The Omen (franchise)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Omen film series was a popular horror film franchise created in the 1970s. The story was originally written by David Seltzer, who chose not to continue the series after the first novel. The second novel and screenplay were then written by Joseph Howard, and the third by Gordon McGill. After the third movie was produced, a fourth was made on TV in an attempt to bring back the series, but did poorly. It was non-canon with the rest of the films and novels.
The series centres around Damien Thorn, a child born of Satan and given to Robert and Katherine Thorn, before being passed along the Thorn families as a child. It is revealed among the families that Damien is in fact meant to be the Antichrist, and as an adult is attempting to gain control of the Thorn business and reach for the presidency.
Media
Four movies were produced:
- The Omen, in 1976, directed by Richard Donner.
- Damien: Omen II, in 1978, directed by Don Taylor.
- Omen III: The Final Conflict, in 1981, directed by Graham Baker.
- Omen IV: The Awakening, in 1991, directed by Jorge Montesi and Dominique Othenin-Girard
There are five novels in the Omen series, the first three being novelizations of their movie counterparts:
- The Omen, written in 1976 by David Seltzer.
- Damien: Omen II, written in 1978 by Joseph Howard.
- Omen III: The Final Conflict, written in 1980 by Gordon McGill.
- Omen IV: Armageddon 2000, written in 1983 by Gordon McGill.
- Omen V: The Abomination, written in 1985 by Gordon McGill.
A TV movie was also produced in 1991, titled Omen IV: The Awakening.
A remake of the first movie was released in 2006, directed and produced by John Moore, starring Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles. The film was met with mixed reviews.
Film series plot
The films follow Damien as he goes through life, first as a child, then as a teenager, and finally as an adult. He is unaware of his own powers in the first film, but learns of them in the second. He is constantly assisted by Satanic followers, such as his nanny in the first film, his uncle's business partner in the second, and a large cult when he is an adult in the third.
The first film introduces Robert Thorn, an American Ambassador in Italy. His pregnant wife Katherine goes into labor, and Robert arrives in time to find out that the baby died. At the advice of a priest, Robert accepts another child who was born at the same hour, unknown to his wife. As the years go by, Damien Thorn, the child, grows up. On his fifth birthday, his nanny hangs herself during his party at the Thorn Mansion in London. A photographer begins noticing strange hints in the photographs he takes, foretelling the deaths of the nanny, and of a priest who confronts Robert to tell him that his son is from Satan before being impaled by a falling church spire. Soon, Robert and the photographer leave to Meggido to find Bugenhagen, a man who apparently knows how to stop the antichrist. In the mean time, Katherine is murdered by Mrs. Baylock, the Satanic second nanny of Damien, back in London. Robert learns that he has to stab Damien with the Seven Daggers of Meggido, and refuses to stab a child, instead tossing the daggers aside. Jennings, the photographer, ends up getting decapitated while picking up the daggers, a death foretold once again by his own photographs. Robert, now convinced, picks up the daggers and leaves back to London. There, he is attacked by Mrs. Baylock while trying to find a birthmark on Damien's head that would show if he is the Antichrist or not. After a struggle, Mrs. Baylock is stabbed in the neck, and Robert grabs Damien, driving him to a church where he attempts to stab the child. However, the police interfere, and shoot down Robert, killing him. Damien is then left in the care of his uncle, Richard Thorn.
The seconds film introduces Richard and his wife Ann, the guardians of Damien and his cousin Mark. Damien and Mark, both 13, are off to military school. Richard's aunt Marion tries to convince Richard and Ann that Damien is evil, attempting to convince them to send him to a different school than Mark. Marion later dies of a heart attack. Damien soon learns from his school general that he is meant to be the antichrist mentioned in the Book of Revelation, and confirms this after finding three 6's on his head, a mark he was born with. Upon learning this, he begins killing everyone who stands in his way, including his cousin Mark, and eventually Richard and Ann.
The third film follows Damien as an adult, the head of his uncle's industry, trying to find the reborn Christ. While doing so, Damien and his followers are stalked by seven monks who each brandish one of the seven Daggers of Meggido. While killing off the monks one by one, Damien takes interest in a journalist named Kate Reynolds, as well as her son Peter, whom he begins to possess. At the same time as all of this, Damien is also aiming to elevate his rank among the world. He orders that all the male children born on March 24 are to be killed, as one of them is most likely to be Christ. Once he is born again, Damien's powers begin dwindling, and Father DeCarlo, the only one remaining of the seven monks, warns Kate about Damien. In a final fight, Damien and DeCarlo fight, and Damien uses Peter as a shield against DeCarlo's dagger. Peter is wounded, and as a desperate attempt, Damien calls out for Christ to show himself. Kate grabs the dagger and stabs Damien in the back, and as he lays dying, Christ appears in a flash across the sky, bringing peace to the earth.
The fourth film's story centers around a young girl of mysterious origins called Delia, who is adopted by two attorneys, Gene and Karen York. At first, nothing seems wrong. But Jo, their nanny with remarkable psychic powers, begins to reveal aspects of Delia's personality that become very, very suspicious. Jo reveals part of her worries to Karen, as well as to Noah, Jo's partner. When meditating with Delia to help her discover why Delia has such trouble, bringing negative energy everywhere she goes, Jo is murdered. Alarmed and suspicious of her adoptive daughter's mysterious birth, Karen hires a private investigator to seek out the identities of Delia's real parents. What follows is a string of bizarre accidents, resulting in Karen falling into a paranoid state as she fears people are conspiring against her as she tries to reveal her daughter's true identity. It is eventually revealed that Delia is the daughter of Damien Thorn, the Anti-Christ, thus the granddaughter of Satan. What's worse, Karen's pregnancy increases her feelings of paranoia around Delia. After delivering her son Karen finally sets out for the truth about Delia, and finds out that the Anti-Christ is not Delia but her twin brother, whose embryo was implanted into Karen; she has just given birth to Delia's biological brother, the son of Damien. After killing the doctor, she heads home and tries to kill Delia and her baby, the 666 symbol shown directly on his palm. At first we can't tell who was shot because the camera pans out into view of the house. At the end it shows that Karen shot herself instead.
