{"id":14782,"date":"2012-03-27T22:54:37","date_gmt":"2012-03-27T21:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=14782"},"modified":"2012-03-27T22:54:38","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T21:54:38","slug":"film-notes-6-the-omen-1976","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2012\/03\/27\/film-notes-6-the-omen-1976\/","title":{"rendered":"Film Notes #6: The Omen (1976)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/The-Omen.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14783\" title=\"The Omen\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/The-Omen.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>* SPOILER WARNING: Plot details will be revealed *<\/p>\n<p>Richard Donner&#8217;s horror film about a biblical prophecy forms the sixth film in my 30 day film watching experiment.<\/p>\n<p>For newcomers, the deal is that I must watch a film every day and make notes about it, with the following rules:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>It must be a film I\u2019ve already seen.<\/li>\n<li>I must make notes whilst I\u2019m watching it.<\/li>\n<li>Pauses are allowed but the viewing must all be one session.<\/li>\n<li>It can\u2019t be a cinema release.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The point is to capture my instant thoughts about a movie and my overall film diet for 30 days, as well as post interesting links to the film in question.<\/p>\n<p>Here are my notes on <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0075005\/\">The Omen<\/a><\/strong> (1976) which I watched on watched on a PVR on Monday 12th March.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This was green lit on the back of the enormous success of The Exorcist (1973)<\/li>\n<li>Nice font on the credits &#8211; big blocky and elegant &#8211; and the creepy image of a Damien&#8217;s shadow forming an inverted cross.<\/li>\n<li>The film starts straight off with a movie taboo &#8211; the death of a child &#8211; and the pacing is very good. No dicking around, straight into the story.<\/li>\n<li>In a way, Ambassador Thorn (Gregory Peck) reasons for adopting the baby and lying to his wife are understandable.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s a lot going on in the shot of Peck, the baby, the nun and the priest &#8211; interesting composition that fills the screen and reflected .<\/li>\n<li>What was exactly going on with the hospital in Rome? Didn&#8217;t anyone notice a Jackal giving birth? \ud83d\ude09<\/li>\n<li>Donner a very underrated director, his background in television gave him a solid grounding in storytelling.<\/li>\n<li>Like so many films of the 1970s that I first saw on TV in the 1980s, it is interesting to see it in proper aspect ratio (2:35).<\/li>\n<li>Widescreen lensing and compositions are more interesting than many modern horrors.<\/li>\n<li>Richard Donner is actually a visually interesting director who just happens to work in mainstream cinema.<\/li>\n<li>Gregory Peck and Lee Remick make a nice couple &#8211; Peck is actually looks like a US ambassador<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;You know, you could be too sexy for the White House&#8221; &#8211; Peck&#8217;s character is not wrong when he says this to Remick.<\/li>\n<li>Good use of fades to denote scene changes and strange &#8211; but very efficient &#8211; photo montage to take us up to the birthday party scene.<\/li>\n<li>When you stop to think about it, the scene where the babysitter hangs herself in front of a party of schoolchildren is seriously messed up (talk about a party pooper).<\/li>\n<li>The sound effect with the satanic dog is unnecessary.<\/li>\n<li>US embassy in the 1970s very different to the fortress it now resembles post 9\/11. Peck&#8217;s office is a convincing location &#8211; would probably be some crappy green screen work now.<\/li>\n<li>Patrick Troughton is perfectly cast &#8211; he looks like the definition of a haunted man.<\/li>\n<li>The ambassadorial country house is the old Guinness estate near Woking.<\/li>\n<li>Billie Whitelaw is effectively creepy as the nanny. Shrewd to cast one of Samuel Beckett&#8217;s favourite actors in a supporting role.<\/li>\n<li>Damien&#8217;s freakout is at Guildford Cathedral. Effective scenes that shows that a horror set-piece doesn&#8217;t have to involve a death.<\/li>\n<li>Good build up in the Windsor Safari Park sequence &#8211; first the giraffes and then the baboons! Reminds me of the animal freakouts in the US version of THE RING (2002) and its sequel THE RING 2 (2005).<\/li>\n<li>Jerry Goldsmith&#8217;s score &#8211; in particular the piece &#8216;Ave Satani&#8217; &#8211; is frequently mistaken for Carl Orff&#8217;s &#8216;Carmina Burana&#8217;.<\/li>\n<li>The film cleverly plays on post-natal fears &#8211; there is a lot of focus on Lee Remick&#8217;s doubting herself as a mother.<\/li>\n<li>Widescreen compositions of Troughton&#8217;s face in the Putney Bridge meeting are ace &#8211; DP Gilbert Taylor also shot REPULSION (1965) and STAR WARS (1977).<\/li>\n<li>The biblical rhyme is pretty creepy.<\/li>\n<li>Note the outside lighting changes for the satanic storm that immediately whips up after Peck leaves and features some old school practical effects.<\/li>\n<li>The move Peck plays with Damien by holding his hands is rather funky.<\/li>\n<li>Was that sequence where Cathy falls an influence on THE SHINING (1980)? E.g. kid on bike<\/li>\n<li>The fact that Damien lets his (adopted) mother fall and subsequent bit where Cathy says to Robert &#8220;don&#8217;t let him kill me&#8221; is kind of chilling.<\/li>\n<li>Empty spaces of the manison are depicted well.<\/li>\n<li>Editing style is a reminder that you can maintain pace and tension without the need of quick cutting on an Avid.<\/li>\n<li>Script by David Seltzer is very tight and well paced &#8211; events click into place and there are several memorable moments e.g. David Warner showing Peck the &#8216;marked&#8217; photograph<\/li>\n<li>The biblical hokum could be ridiculous but the way Donner handles all the elements really sells it.<\/li>\n<li>Burnt priest and subsequent graveyard scene very effective. Another creepy image &#8211; this time of a infants skeleton, which reminds us of the child murder that began the whole plot.<\/li>\n<li>Graveyeard scene is almost certainly a studio soundstage but is good work from the production design team.<\/li>\n<li>Cathy&#8217;s death reminds me of the opening of Donner&#8217;s LETHAL WEAPON (1987) &#8211; also featuring a woman slamming into a vehicle from a great height.<\/li>\n<li>Peck delivers some fine acting on hearing of his wife&#8217;s death &#8211; nice shot of his head as he recites the poem and the anounces he wants Damien to die.<\/li>\n<li>More great location work in the Israel sequence.<\/li>\n<li>Did the bit where the photographer&#8217;s head gets cut off through by &#8216;accident&#8217; influenced the entire FINAL DESTINATION franchise? It really is spectacular and shows what can be down with a fake head and editing.<\/li>\n<li>Peck&#8217;s doubts about kiiling a child are eminently reasonable.<\/li>\n<li>Interesting (almost) wordless sequence where Gregory Peck goes back to murder Damien &#8211; only dialogue spoken is when Billie Whitelaw says &#8220;Run, Damien, Run!&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The church at the end is in Staines.<\/li>\n<li>Bit where Damien says &#8220;please Daddy, no!&#8221; is very clever as it puts you right in Robert Thorn&#8217;s shoes and plays on his doubts about killing a child.<\/li>\n<li>The graveyard at the end is Brookwood Cemetery, one of the largest in Europe.<\/li>\n<li>Apparently Donner struggled to get the kid playing Damien to smile at the end.<\/li>\n<li>The idea that Damien is heir to the US presidency is a highly effective pay off.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><script src=\"http:\/\/storify.com\/filmdetail\/film-notes-6-the-omen-1976.js\"><\/script><noscript>[<a href=\"http:\/\/storify.com\/filmdetail\/film-notes-6-the-omen-1976\" target=\"_blank\">View the story &#8220;Film Notes #6: The Omen (1976)&#8221; on Storify<\/a>]<\/noscript><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Donner&#8217;s horror film about a biblical prophecy forms the sixth film in my 30 day film watching experiment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2487],"tags":[897,2502],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}