The Omen was released in 1976, directed by Richard Donner. Follwing three years after The Exorcist (in which Pazuzu makes a guest appearance), The Omen was immensely popular with the theater-going crowds. It has been called 'a thinking person's horror movie', for it relies heavily on the prophecies of the Antichrist from the Book of Revelations and well executed suspense. Gregory Peck and Lee Remick play the Thorns - Robert and Kathy. Mr. Thorn is an ambassador, sent to England with the American Consulate.

As the movie begins, the Mr. Thorn is called and told that his new-born son has just died. He rushes to the church where a priest offers him a sort of changeling child -- another infant whose mother died in childbirth. All is not what it seems and as the movie unfolds, things get creepier and creepier. Damien's young nanny hangs herself at his birthday party, after having confronted one of the Rottweiler dogs that depict the Hounds of Hell. With her last breath, she says it's for him. What this means is that she's removing herself from the scene so that the ever so creepy Mrs. Baylock can move in and take over as Damien's hellish nanny. Billy Whitlaw is superb in this role, cold and scarey as hell. Often thwarting the wishes of the parents, she has her own ideas about how Damien should be raised. Damien becomes progressively more evil under her dominion.

The excellent cast is joined by David Warner, who plays the free-lance photographer Keith Jennings. Keith begins to notice strange shadowy markings in the photographs that he takes of the priest Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), who has come to warn Robert Thorn that his son is the Antichrist. It is during one of these conversations that Father Brennan utters a sound-byte that appears on The Nephilim at the very beginning of Last Exit for the Lost. Thorn leaves in a huff, unable to stomach what Father Brennan is saying about his boy. "I never want to see you again!" he says as he storms off. Father Brennan replies, "You'll see me in hell Mr. Thorn. There we will shout out our sentence." Shortly thereafter, an evil wind arises and Father Brennan struggles his way toward a near-by building. The large lightning rod topping the tower there breaks free and falls to the ground, skewering Father Brennan where he stands...echoing the shadowy markings in the photographs that Keith Jennings took of the man.

Jennings goes to Robert Thorn and shows him what's going on. They go to the priest's apartment and when Jennings takes a picture of the door with a mirror on the back, he finds the same shadowy mark in his own reflection when developing the print. Jennings and Thorn team up to find the meaning of all this, and we spend most of the rest of the movie in high suspense waiting for Jennings to meet his end.

In the meantime, Mrs. Baylock and Damien manage to put his mother in the hospital, after causing her to fall over the railing of the second-floor walkway in their home. This puts Kathy out of the picture and Robert and Keith go off to Meggido to find the 'cure' for Damien. The 'cure' is several skewer-like daggers that Thorn must put into Damien in a specific order, to end his life. Jennings dies trying to retrieve these items of destruction after Thorn tosses them away, his head sliced off by a sheet of glass sliding off a rolling truck. It is then that Thorn realizes what he must do. He returns to England and shortly thereafter, Kathy dies falling from her hospital room window. Of course, she's helped out by Mrs. Baylock.

Thorn goes home, determined to carry out what he must do once he finds the 666 mark hidden in Damien's hair. He finds himself in a battle royal with Mrs. Baylock who knows what he is about. One of the best one-on-one fights in the history of cinema, it is a no-holds barred knock down drag out, wherein we learn alternative uses for fondue forks! Thorn barely prevails and carries Damien out to the car where he makes a mad dash off his own grounds. His own guards call the bobbies, unsure just what's going on. Thorn takes Damien to a church and has him laid out on the altar, ready to do the deed when Damien begins to cry "Daddy, Daddy". It's just enough to make Thorn hesitate as he raises the dagger to Damien's chest. Just long enough for the cops to show up and shoot Thorn before he can accomplish his mission.

The movie ends with the military type funeral of Kathy and Robert Thorn. As the priest lays them to rest, he says, "...and so to their final rest do we commit these two and entrust them unto our Lord. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen." You will hear "...and so to their final rest do we commit, we commit, we commit" at very ending of The Watchman before it churns into Phobia. The man and woman who now have little Damien in their care are none other than the President and First Lady of the United States.

Continuing on with bytes from The Nephilim, click on Rose below to read about the moody 14th century murder mystery, The Name of the Rose.