The Omen

Twentieth Century Fox | minutes | | | Standard DVD reviewed by: Christopher Bligh

In 1976, the movie-going audience was warned that the end of the world was near. For what or by whom, it wasn't known. What was known was this, the 20th Century Fox logo appeared with no trumped up fanfare. Just a logo and silence summed up the first 15 seconds of this end of the world warning. After that came a faint piano, a silhouetted figure with credits, and the voices of a choir for this warning is the start of the film The Omen.

Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) has just been named ambassador to England. A few weeks prior, his wife (Lee Remick) had given birth to a stillborn child in Rome. At that moment Robert trades his dead child for a newborn child of a dead mother at the hospital. The good news is that the child is cutesy and lively and the Thorns couldn't be happier to have a new addition to the family named Damien. The bad news is something starts happening to some people around the child resulting in bizarre deaths. Robert can't understand what's happening around him until a priest comes to warn him about the child. At first, Robert takes the priest for a crazy person but slowly starts to believe the horrible truth about his son. Around Thorn's tail is a mysterious photographer (David Warner) that starts to notice something a bit intriguing about his pictures taken just before a few of those bizarre deaths. Can Thorn do something about his son before it's too late?

This was the first big film for director Richard Donner and no matter how many people I talk to about this movie, the one thing they forget is that he directed it. Who would've thought this director would go on to direct such big movies as Superman, The Goonies, Lethal Weapon and The Toy (well the last one wasn't so big, but he did direct it). Nevertheless, The Omen has a great Oscar winning score by Jerry Goldsmith that haunts, creeps and rearraged every movie that followed dealing with the Devil. It's one of those scores that doesn't leave you long after the film is done.

As for the acting, all are good but the one who steals the show is little Harvey Stephens. It just takes a few looks and almost nothing said to show what demonic power he has without going over the top. The story is intriguing and the international settings are great, but the one thing that plays against this movie is the comparison it has to The Exorcist.

It deals with the same evil demonic character and a family that has to deal with it in young form, That is as far as the parallel comparison goes. This film is wider in scope and it takes it time to get to it's climax and the rest of the movie takes it time but does so in a subtle way that there is no big showdown between good versus evil. It's built up but close enough for a whisper. There are shocks, twists, turns and much excitement that there is room enough in the world for the both of them.

In short, The Omen is another in a long list of seventies thrillers that still holds up today thanks to it's quiet creepy atmostphere and it's spooky score by Jerry Goldsmith.

The Omen is shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and judging from the past video releases of the film, this is a remarkable improvement. The print is very clean and crisp with a lot of eye popping images and international cinematography. There is the occasional speckle every now and then but that does not deter from the clarity of the transfer. The only upshot is the black levels are most of the times hazy and it's difficult to make out some things in scenes but overall the disc provides a very good transfer.

If there was one problem the video had every time I viewed the film via rental or owning it, it's that the sound of the film was one of the lowest tracks I had ever heard. Did that repeat itself on DVD? Not by a long shot. The audio is pretty well spread around the center and the score spreads around all surround channels. There are times when the audio goes in and out but it doesn't lose any volume during the dialogue. The viewer can make out the majority of what's said and the disc provides for a decent audio track. This film also has an English Mono and French Mono track as well as English and Spanish subtitles.

This Special Edition of The Omen has a decent amount of extras on there and the good news is they're all very well done starting with a commentary by director Richard Donner and editor Stuart Baird. Like the Superman commentary, Donner provides a reminicing kind of commentary with Baird about the actors, the choices that they made with the final product and even though the commentary was a bit gappy, it didn't take away the fact that it was another good Donner track. Baird surprised me putting in some intriguing input and it made for a very good track with the two of them.

Next is a fourty-six minute documentary called "666: The Omen Revealed". In it the filmmakers and some of the crew go through the evolution of the film behind the scenes. It's not a fluff piece but it does tend to use a lot of scenes from the film that could be a big spoiler for a first time viewer that has never seen the film. Other than that, it does bring up some of what was mentioned on the commentary as well as some additional notes. A good documentary at that.

Also there is a six minute short with a few occurences that happened during the making of the Omen. It's a good piece but one wonders why it wasn't put into the full documentary portion of the DVD. Maybe the common number of 6 perhaps?

Then there is the four-part seventeen minute piece called "Jerry Goldsmith on the Omen score" noting four pieces of the score plus his comments and the piece of the score played. It's better put together than watched seperately as I feel for multi chaptered featurettes. Why this function still exists, I'll never know but either way an interesting viewpoint from the score master's point of view.

Finally we have the film's theatrical trailer. Overall, a great seventies movie that has been given good justice at the hands of the DVD that would fit great into any DVD collection.