There seems to have been a lot of horror classics around here lately, this one was one of my absolute favorites when I was younger, and as far as I am concerned it holds up a lot better than a number of the others I have pondered lately. Hot off the heels of the Exorcist this film stuck loads of bibilical mumbo jumbo into a sort of retro ‘One Missed Call’ plot. The mumbo jumbo really is just that, unlike the Exorcist which had that “they really do this stuff?” element, absolutely everything that is supposed to be in the bible here is completely made up. All the better for it really because it is totally badass and apocalyptic. If you cant guess from the title, Damien is the son of the devil, he ends up with a ‘normal’ American family, who just happen to normally be some 70’s 1%’ers with a father who is next in line for the presidency or something. Not that you’d ever know, he runs around graveyards for half the film and no one bats an eyelid. Anyway this all means that he has heaps of cash for flying all over the place, gives precisely zero shits about his devil son for half the film (honestly, he doesnt even notice that his son is a murderous sob for like 45 mins) with the added bonus of having 70’s paparazzi follow him all over the place. This is where the fun really starts, the 70’s paparazzi consisted of one guy who looks like he should be working for playboy – he keeps noticing weird shit on the photos he takes, portents of whats to come – brilliantly conceived and executed deaths! This movie has never been re-classified as some of those older films have, as their once horrific scenes become hackneyed and cliche, the deaths here are still bloody, and awesome, and you still have to wait till you are 18 to watch it. Bloody Awesome. The original tag line for this film was: “You Have Been Warned. If Something Frightening Happens To You Today. Think About It. It May Be “The Omen.” Adverts back in the seventies must have been bloody long to get all that in, its a great line but you would have to be scared of everything for it to make any sense. “Oh no! I have locked my keys in the car…Must be the Omen”, “Goodness! A splinter! – Omen!” “My word, I am out of toothpaste, must remind myself to pick some up later ….Omen.”