The Omen (2006) Review
- Viktoria
- Aug 25
- 5 min read
Director: John Moore
Year of release: 2006
Country of origin: United States, United Kingdom, Hungary
Spoiler status: Spoiler-heavy
Genre: Supernatural horror
Today, we look at the dark and unsettling world of The Omen. Am I speaking of the original from 1976, or its copy from 2006? Honestly, we could say it doesn't matter because they are virtually the same. That's why David Seltzer ended up credited with the 2006 remake. The script was so close to the original that the Writers Guild of America denied Dan McDermott the credit for it. If I did this in high school, I'd get flagged for plagiarism, but I'd also get an F, a trip to the principal's office, and probably an additional elaborate punishment. But hey, this is Hollywood after all.
What's worth noting is the fact that the original has a 7.5 IMDb score, while the remake stands at 5.5. That's mostly because audiences saw the 2006 remake as unnecessary and lacking the emotional gravity of the 1976 original.
But let's dive into this movie and see if it really is that unnecessary, or if it has some redeeming qualities.
The Plot of The Omen
The movie follows the Thorn family, who unfortunately lost their baby. The mother, Katherine (played by Julia Stiles), doesn't know this because her husband, Robert (played by Liev Schreiber), made a deal with a priest in the hospital. Allegedly, there was another baby boy whose mother died at birth. The deal the priest offered Robert was to take the child to shield Katherine from the pain, but also to give the orphaned baby a loving and happy family. In Robert's eyes, this was a win-win situation, so he accepted. Fast forward five years, and things weren't looking the best. Robert lost his close colleague in a freak accident, thus inheriting his position as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. After the Thorn family moved to the UK, things kept getting worse. First, the nanny hanged herself; then the priest who tried to warn Robert died in a freak accident, but not before leaving a cryptic prophecy behind.
When the Jews return to Zion, And a comet fills the sky, And the Holy Roman Empire rises, Then you and I must die. From the eternal sea he rises, Creating armies on either shore, Turning man against his brother, Until man exists no more.
-Father Brennan (played by Pete Postlethwaite)
This is where the plot actually kicks off and gets interesting. Slowly but surely, Robert started to believe. He started noticing the freak occurrences, the small details, and we learn he was lied to. Their real son was killed right after he was born. This was all an elaborate plan to get Robert and Katherine to "adopt" Satan's offspring and raise it as their own, since the Antichrist, according to Father Brennan's prophecy, must come from a political background ("From the eternal sea he rises, Creating armies on either shore").
Unfortunately, this story doesn't get a happy ending. Katherine dies in the hospital. She's killed by Mrs. Baylock (played by Mia Farrow), the replacement nanny. The photographer, Keith Jennings (played by David Thewlis), who was helping Robert uncover the secrets, was decapitated by a sign falling off a building. Robert tried to kidnap Damien and take him to the church to kill him, but the police found him right as he was about to stab the child, and they shot him on the spot. The last thing we see is Damien next to the President of the United States at Robert's funeral. This ending heavily implies that the child is taken in by the President, since Robert was his godson, so technically, Damien and the President are family. This further feeds into the political part of the prophecy from earlier.
The plot is definitely intriguing with its twists and turns, but the fact that they copied the script from the original movie heavily impacts the way the movie is received. Because let's be honest, we already had the original from 1976 with the same plot and maybe a bit better acting. I'm not saying that Julia Stiles and Liev Schreiber didn't do a good job, but they definitely lacked the emotional depth that Gregory Peck and Lee Remick brought to the story in the original. Remakes are made to add to the story, to put a creative spin on it, and creativity demands bravery. If you're not willing to be bold enough to introduce something new because you're scared audiences won't accept it, then simply don't do it.
Is The Omen Scary?
The 2006 movie definitely has its jump scares; I surely jumped once or twice while watching it. But the movie's atmosphere isn't exactly scary. It relies mostly on the viewer's moral compass. The movie's about a mother who's been lied to and knows that something's wrong with the child she's raising. Deep down, she knows Damien isn't hers, and she tries to explain this to her husband, who knows the truth, yet he still makes her feel like she's imagining things. The movie's also about a father who tries to keep his family safe but is desperately failing at doing so. The father who's willing to kill the child he raised as his own for the future of humanity. His tragedy is the sacrifice he was willing to make.
All of these things are scary in their own way, but if you put them together, they offer a terrifying vision. This movie failed to live up to the story's potential. It had all the right elements, but it felt like the team behind the movie didn't know what to do with them. They tried to copy the success of the original movie without truly understanding what worked in the 1976 version. Richard Donner built dread slowly and gradually without cheap jump scares. The original movie also had a more haunting, memorable score and a cast that understood their roles. Gregory Peck's delivery of the desperate father had gravitas, and it made this horrific story believable.
Even though The Omen (1976) and its remake share the same story, they are worlds apart. The movie was a part of the 1970s Occult Wave. It was the successor to religious and demonic horror movies like Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Exorcist (1973). Back then, it tied into something bigger. It tried to show that true evil is not religious or demonic, but political. Later on, these movies got dragged into the world of Satanic Panic and gained a whole different meaning. These movies formed a type of cinematic trope when it came to secret devil worshippers. When the Satanic Panic era started, that hysteria started feeding off those tropes, and everything got blown out of proportion. So, as you can see, the 1976 version of the movie had a starting point; it tied into horror history as well as pop culture, while the 2006 remake just was. It didn't really have a background like the original. It didn't have an original message either. It was just a retelling of a story that didn't need to be retold.
Final Thoughts
Rating: 🕯️🕯️(2/5)
Let's be real. The movie is far from bad, but that's (mostly) thanks to the script Dan McDermott copied from David Seltzer. It has nothing new to offer. In my opinion, if something works, you simply shouldn't touch it. If you really want to work with a story, you should create a spin-off, a sequel, or even fan fiction, as far as I'm concerned, but the original should not be touched.
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