A Bloody Good Time: Ranking The Omen Movies

Opening Logo courtesy of Benjamin J. Colón (Soul Exodus)

I don’t talk enough about The Omen.

It was a film that, for a time, thought was kind of overrated. But I’ve grown to love it with multiple rewatches. I’ve found that as I get older I have more time for slower, more mature horror films than I did as a dumb teenager that only wanted bloodshed. Strange how that works, huh?

So naturally, when I got an HBO Now subscription and saw all four original series movies, I had to watch them. And that is your benefit because now I’m going to rank those and the remake in order of least favorite to favorite. Obviously, you probably have an idea of which is the top and which isn’t, because The Omen series is like that. It’s not like say, Halloween where there’s a really good one, then later becomes hit or miss. It’s more or less steadily downhill. Of course, that doesn’t mean my order will be exactly like that.

So let’s look at a franchise that started out strong and eventually became fodder for a series that not even Lifetime wanted.

#5: Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

Prior to writing this column, this was the only one I hadn’t seen all the way through. I remember clips airing when it first aired, but I was too young to watch then. I finally watched it and guys, I don’t even know where to start.

I’ve seen some bad movies but Omen IV is bad. It’s a watered-down remake of the original, sure, but it also has some terrible acting, a horrendously-written script and an Antichrist so annoying you hope she does take over the world just so she’ll shut the hell up. You know what my favorite part of Damien in the original was? He didn’t talk. He just sat there and made faces because Richard Donner understood that child actors aren’t always great. Delia here is awful and she ruins every moment she’s in by acting like a brat. Guess what? She’s in most of the movie! The whole point of these movies is that it’s unbelievable that this person is the Antichrist because they act so kind and innocent around the average person. Anyone with a brain could tell Delia is bad.

The only time the movie gets to anything approaching good is when we follow Michael Lerner’s character as he investigates the origins of Delia (surprise, she’s Damien’s kid). That’s because Lerner is just giving a performance and he’s not a stupidly-written character. His death, which happens too soon, is kind of hilarious though. Especially when the demonic zombies show up shouting Latin at him. I’m not joking. I wish I were joking.

And then there’s the whole subplot with psychics and the psychic fair that goes nowhere and only exists to waste time and up the body count. I mean, this movie is frustrating. It’s an absolute slog to get through and the fact that it’s stupid too is just irritating. I know some people like to watch a complete series but I’d recommend you don’t watch this.

#4: Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

There may be some irritated by me moving this below the remake but I feel I have to. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like about Omen III but it begins and ends with Sam Neill. He gives a terrific performance as a villain (which he’d do again in Daybreakers) and if the flaws elsewhere weren’t so apparent this would be my #2. He’s so good at his job that while you never sympathize with him (because seriously, he orders a mass killing of babies), you’re at least interested in watching him to see what he does next.

The problem is just about everything else. Let’s start with the protagonists. With a movie like this you need strong protagonists because otherwise you will have no one to cheer for. You can’t exactly cheer for the baby-killing son of Satan, right? Well this movie makes that difficult by making him interesting and the priests against him a total bore. Not only are they nothing, one-note characters, but they’re killed off in exceedingly stupid ways. I don’t mean the usual “bizarre accident” that Omen movies tend to have, but because they just don’t pay attention to surroundings. A guy is thrown off a horse to his death because he didn’t have the common sense to get off of it when Damien was making it go crazy. You know he has powers over animals.

The movie also has a lot of weirdness, including a bizarre scene where Damien unleashes this long monologue against a statue of Christ…while caressing it lovingly. And if you made a drinking game out of how many times Damien calls Jesus “The Nazarene”, you would be dead. Plus there’s the abrupt ending, where Damien is killed by a single stab to the back and then taunts a vision of Jesus as he dies. Okay. Cool.

#3: The Omen (2006)

If you have never seen an Omen movie in your life, you would probably realyl enjoy this one. It’s easy to like. It has a top-notch cast (Liev Schrieber, David Thewlis, Michael Gambon, Pete Postlethwaite, Mia Farrow) and direction that gives it a nice visual style. The problem is that they’re working off a script so blatantly slavish to the original that writer David Seltzer was given a credit even though he technically wasn’t a part of this production.

That’s the biggest problem with the 2006 Omen. It’s a good movie, bordering on great at times. It’s just the exact same story and nearly the exact same script we’ve seen before. It’s pointless if you’ve seen the original. It’s still a little pointless if you haven’t because you’d be watching a lesser film. Everyone’s trying hard but it’s like watching a revival of a stage play. Yeah, this is nice, but it was so much better getting to watch Gregory Peck trade lines with David Warner.

If you have to remake a movie, take a chance with it. Even if it’s bad at least it’s different. Say what you will about the Nightmare on Elm Street movie, but the best parts of that film were the parts that were new. The same can be said for The Hills Have Eyes or Evil Dead. They weren’t slavish to their source material and while whether or not they’re better is up for debate, they’re certainly different. I’d say in spite of it being a better quality film than any of those three, The Omen 2006 is a worse movie simply because it doesn’t try to be anything more than the same exact thing.

#2: Damien: Omen II (1978)

Truth time, I kind of like the novelization of this movie better than the movie. It spends more time with Damien finding out he’s the Antichrist and not wanting it before circumstances make him give in. With that said, Damien: Omen II is as good of a follow-up to the original story as you’re going to get.

It would be uninteresting if they continued days later with a kid Damien still acting innocent while people die. So instead we get the story of a teenage Damien as he learns who he is and starts to lean into the role a little bit. By the end he’s truly accepted his destiny and is perfectly fine with it. Before that, however, he’s just a normal, if somewhat bossy, kid. He has friends, he has goal, he has a loving family. However there’s still enough off about him that you worry how badly it’s going to turn out for all those people at the end.

While this ends abruptly too (a problem with all the sequels), it has a strong build and a decent supporting cast (including a really young Lance Henriksen) to back up Damien. It also has a surprisingly high body count, as two people are killed within the first ten minutes and then a new person dies probably every five-to-eight minutes after that. It’s like a slasher movie. People are literally introduced at points to die. It’s enjoyable, as some of them are elaborate set pieces, but it’s also surprising. Some of them get pretty violent, too. A doctor gets cut in half in a scene that seemed like it was placed solely to top the decapitation in the original. It doesn’t, but I appreciate the effort.

#1: The Omen (1976)

Okay so yes, the original film is the top choice here. It’s a classic for a reason. The story is tremendously-paced and honestly, it’s the most watchable of the rest. There’s never a dull moment, even in slower film like this. If Gregory Peck isn’t commanding the screen then Jerry Goldsmith’s score is. If you’re not into the brilliant staging of the decapitation sequence then you’re being blown away by the nanny hanging herself.

There’s a lot to like here and I feel dumb that I ever thought negatively about it before. It definitely holds up and gets better the more I watch it. The subtlety they take with Harvey Stephens, for example. The kid doesn’t really act, he’s too young. So instead they give him simple directions, he does them, and Richard Donner makes them seem malevolent with his direction. Like Damien’s smile at the end is just a smile. There’s nothing sinister about it. But because of where it’s staged and the music playing behind it, it feels evil.

If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, then go watch it. It’s moves pretty fast for a slower-paced film and every aspect is tremendous. Plus it has one of the greatest decapitations in cinema history, so you owe it to yourself to see that at the very least.

Tune in next week when I rank another franchise I haven’t hit yet, which you can guess if you use HBO Now. Then come back to see if you’re right!

Ending Notes:

That’s it for me. Leave some comments here, on my Twitter or my Facebook.

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