"He was born at 6am on the 6th day of the 6th month. The coming of Armageddon, the site of the final confrontation between the forces of good and evil, as foretold in the book of Revelations, will begin with the birth of the son of Satan - in human form.

I bought this movie in the hope that watching it would be a terrifying experience, as recommended by some friends and family. Picture this: I settle myself in the lounge with some suitable movie watching munchies, close all the curtains, turn up the surround sound, and begin watching the film with the lights off alone in the house. The music is chilling, brilliant at building suspense, but that's all the film seems to be; suspense, but no substance.

*PLOT*

The priest who arranged for Damien's underhand adoption on that fateful day makes a reappearance, apparently realising his mistake at handing over the son of the Devil to some poor unsuspecting family. This is where Dad Robert starts to twig that there's something not quite right about his son, and where the plot starts to get a bit strange. He teams up with a photographer who has made some connections between the various deaths that have happened so far and photos taken of the victims before they met their untimely ends. Together they go on a somewhat pointless wild goose chase to Rome and such, and from here on in it's not that great to watch. Just more deaths and more scary music to come, and even the ending is rubbish! It just seemed to fall flat and didn't exactly leave me salivating for the Omen sequels, nor was I trembling behind the sofa like I'd hoped.

I can't quite put my finger on what it was that let down what had the potential to be an incredible movie. The actors were good and very believable, especially Billie Whitelaw, who played the nanny. She sort of reminded me of the nanny in 'The Hand that Rocks the Cradle'. The child who played Damien was quite wooden, but I think that was part of the character rather than his acting. The story was a brilliant idea. After all, (and I'm not religious) if Jesus can be the son of God and live among us, why can't there have been a son of Satan? The special effects were good as well; I'm the first to point out when a stunt looks badly done or fake, but there were no problems like that in this film. I think the plot just lacked direction, and at times wasn't very realistic; suddenly the father goes dashing off around the world with a practical stranger, leaving his wife alone with a killer Devil child?

I'd recommend the '6-minute Short: Curse or Coincidence?' if nothing else; the amount of strange going on that happened during filming is enough to make you at least think twice about whether this idea is entirely fictional! The Documentary is also worth watching; how they decided who to cast for the pat of Damien and the saga of a certain death scene in particular (not giving anything away of course!) was actually quite interesting stuff. Also included in the special features is the Director's Commentary, the original Omen trailer, and an interview with Jerry Goldsmith; the man behind the movie soundtrack. None of these appealed to me personally but they may do to others.