The Omen (1976)

The Omen is a film that not only gets better with each viewing but also a film in which you notice elements that you had previously missed, making this one of the few horror films that have immense rewatchability.

Filled with layers of tension, great scares and creepy atmospheres, The Omen doesn’t rely on just blood and gore to give the audience a scare but rather takes a route that provides a better payoff. Another aspect that makes the film work is the simple premise of a child being the son of the devil played seriously and straight by the entire cast, especially Peck and Remick. At no point is there a hint of campy B-movie horror or tongue-in-cheek humour.

Now, every horror film has moments that are designed to highen the horror and send the audience crazy and The Omen is no different, with at least three moments that remain some of the most memorable and shocking death scenes in cinema history, the hanging, the church spear and glass beheading, all of which are on par with the chest-busting scene in Alien and the defibrillator scene in The Thing.

The original Omen is well and truly a horror Classic up there with The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining in terms of timeless employability.