When his wife, Kathy has a stillborn baby, Robert Thorn, the US ambassador, realises the grief would most likely kill her. He quickly substitutes the stillborn baby with another one, Damien, born on 6th June, 1976 (666), who's mother died in childbirth. He decides it would be best for everyone and keeps quiet - the only person apart from himself who knows is the priest who persuaded him to go through with the baby-swap.

After her arrival, the mysterious occurences become more and more regular, and a tormented priest follows Robert, and issues Robert a stark warning - Damien is the spawn of Satan (literally!), and sooner or later, will kill Kathy, Kathy's unborn baby and finally, Robert, in order to take over Robert's body and have a human outlet for Hell.

The Omen was brought out three years after The Exorcist, but is pretty much the same idea; the films are based around religion and children. I think The Omen is far more effective because The Exorcist was completely far-fetched and I had to resist the urge to laugh hysterically during the climax of the film!

All the performances were fantastic, especially Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, who played Robert and Kathy. Gregory pulls off the confused, shaken father perfectly. He is involved in most of the scenes and he is flawless in them all; his performance is excellent and solid. You feel both sorry and irritated by Robert; not an easy task I'm sure you'll agree! I thought Lee Remick would be your typical, irritating, beautiful blonde who meets a grisly death. I was right about the grisly death but she does put in an excellent performance as the terrified mother who's suspicions are raised long before her husband's.

The dialogue is pretty satisfactory; not amazing but not bad either! A lot of the scenes are in complete silence except for the backing music, and this works exceptionally well. Without any dialogue, your mind starts to wander and your imagination goes into overdrive - so whether those particular scenes are scary is up to you!

If you watch The Omen with your brain switched off, while tweezing your eyebrows or painting your nails (as I often do while watching films!), you will probably find this a mildly frightening film, but when you think hard about the storyline and the consequences and possibilties, that's where it gets frightening. Me, having such a mad imagination, got seriously terrified at parts! That said, although it IS a frightening film, I found the opening credits the most scary! If you can't remember or haven't seen the film; it is a black screen with Latin chanting in the background. The only image on the screen is the silhouette of a young child, who's shadow in front of him appears as the crucifix. Much more frightening than it sounds!