R.I.P. XI: Movie Review: The Omen (1976)

The Omen (1976) with Gregory Peck is number 25 on the list of TimeOut.com's top 100 horror films of all-time. The story opens with Gregory Peck's character Robert rushing in a car, worried and frantic that his baby died and that he can't tell his wife. He's in Italy and heads to an orphanage or hospital where a priest and a nun hand him a new baby he can present as his own to his wife. (I already had problems with this...why can't he treat his wife as a grown-ass adult and tell her what happened? sheesh...)

Flash forward a few years and all seems well. The happy family moves from Italy to England in order for Robert to be the American ambassador to England. So they're ridiculously rich and live in the middle of nowhere....

Flash forward two more years and little Damien is 5. It's his birthday and he's having a huge party all for him. He has a nanny who within minutes after looking into the eyes of a random Rottweiler on the property hangs herself from the top story of the house in front of everyone. And thus it begins....

I'd heard the director wanted it written vague enough to make it seem like the mother could be hallucinating it all. I kind of like that route. The whole time I'm watching it I'm thinking it's all the crazy fundamentalist adults who are blaming this poor little kid into being the AntiChrist.

The music is haunting. I loved the monk chorus. It was very haunting. The way the journalist dies was pretty crazy and spooky.

Overall I can see why it's a horror classic going along with pagan- like scares of the 60s and 70s with Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist.

I watched this for the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril challenge hosted by Carl over at Stainless Steel Droppings.