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The Omen (1976) More at IMDbPro »

The most frightening movie ever made, 5 June 2002
Author: mkham6 from RI

This is a brilliant chilling masterpiece with letter-perfect performances by a great cast. Everything about this movie, from the Gregorian chanting to the monstrous nanny to the creepy child to the dogs of hell, evokes a sense of suffocating, ominous, impending doom. This tension and horror ratchet up step by step until the viewer is overwhelmed by the unknown approaching apocalypse. Every death is accompanied by slow-mo shattering glass (first time that was done), shocking mechanics, and strong premonitions. Even the slo-mo bullet was real- the novel and clever cinematography, like the tyke's bike view, puts you into the skin of the characters. The reluctant Peck, the dawning Remick, the persuasive Warner are dragged progressively into the hideous center of an eternal mystery that they are powerless to resist. The most terrifying scene ever filmed is the attack of the monstrous demonic nanny and I still, when people talk of their mother, have to suppress a yell, "I saw his mother: his mother was a jackal!"

I saw this movie at it's world premiere my second day in LA, after a legendary cross country odyssey, I picked up some hitchhikers in New Mexico, and they put me up. The next day we picked up some Swedish girls in a park and the hitcher kids got us all in free into the world premiere showing in Westwood of this movie, which I knew nothing about. It rattled and shocked me deeply, more than any other movie, but incredibly the Swedish girls were laughing throughout, till I was ready to strangle them ("what's the matter- it's just a movie?"). Blondes apparently do have more fun.

------Michael Hammerschlag

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