The Omen

Noel Carrol was very descriptive when trying to explain horror movies.  In the beginning, for one of her hypothesis, she says that a horror movie must peak someone’s interest first, in a narrative form. The story has to be interesting so that we want to follow along. Part of what makes the story interesting, is that there is something scary and the characters must figure out what it is, and then attempt to stop the monster. The monster makes people curious because many of the times it is not something that actually exists and so it makes people wonder.

For me, the plot of the actual horror movie is the most important part. I feel that horror movies need to make someone really think about the situation. So while the characters are trying to figure out what is going on, you are too and it’s as if you are part of it. You try to be a step ahead of the characters and try to solve it first. Figuring out what the monster is or how to stop it, makes a movie more interesting. Another thing that I think makes horror movies scary is having a lot of situations that are unexpected. Not as in things like jump scares but plot twists.

 The Omen, was about the U.S ambassador for Britain, his wife, and their child. The couple was in Rome when the wife, Katherine, was giving birth. The baby died moments after being born and the priest at the hospital offered the father, Robert Thorn, another child to take home in place of the one he lost. He does, but he does not tell his wife that the child is not theirs. They name him Damien.  Strange things begin to happen when they get home. Their first nanny hangs herself publicly at Damien’s birthday party, Damien screams and refuses to go to a church, and big, black dogs appear from nowhere and seem to want to protect Damien. The Thorn family ends up getting a second nanny that an “agency” sent over. Then a catholic priest tries to warn Mr. Thorn that his child is not human. That, of course, angers Thorn so he doesn’t believe it. Later that day, the priest is impaled by a lightning rod. After that, a photographer, Keith Jennings, decides to investigate Damien. He finds shadows in the images of the first nanny and the catholic priest that predict their deaths and also a shadow in an image of himself.  So Robert goes to investigate the birth of Damien and Keith wants to help. Eventually, they find the grave of Damien’s original mother. It turns out that the mother was actually a jackal. The grave next to hers, is that of his actual child. His child had been bashed in the skull so that he would take Damien. While investigating, Keith ‘s head is sliced off in accordance to the shadow in the image. So Robert goes back home to find that the second nanny has killed his wife and so he decides that killing Damien is the only thing to do. As he is getting Damien to take him to a church, he kills the nanny in her attempt to stop him. He speeds to the church which leads to cops following in pursuit. Robert makes it to the church and is about to stab Damien with the first of seven knives, and the police shoot Robert. Then it shows the Funeral of Katherine and Robert. Damien is there holding the hand of the president.

After watching this movie, I did not find it scary. I think the main reason was because it seemed to be happening at such a slow pace. The movie just seemed to drag. Something interesting would happen, but then it seemed like forever until the next exciting moment.  Also, some of the events that happened-more so at the beginning- just were not intense enough to make me get scared. One of the only reasons I kept interest was to figure out what Damien’s actual mother was. Because when the priest was trying to tell Robert he said “His mother was a jack-!”, and was cut off.  I thought jackalope?, jack-o-lantern?, jack ass?, what was she? There were two interesting things I thought helped the movie. One was the intense music in Latin that would play throughout and that the second is that named him Damien because Damon, in Latin, means Demon. Another reason this movie did not really scare me was because Damien never actually did anything except make his mother fall and have a miscarriage, but even that wasn’t entirely his doing. The nanny had a large role in that. This movie technically had all of the elements that would make this movie scary and interesting. Although I did have a small interest in seeing how it ended, it was not scary. However, when the movie ended, there was something about it that made me want to watch the sequel…