The Omen -- 1976 -- R

[George Willson]

This quasi-religious horror movie succeeds on many levels. The movie asks the question: what if the Anti-Christ were living among us as a child? A woman gives birth and the baby dies. Another woman gives birth on the same night, but she dies. The priest attending asks the father of the dead baby if he would like to take the child of the dead mother and adopt it as his own, never telling his wife that her own child died. He agrees.

What follows is one bizarre series of events. The movie begs the question: are these events mere coincidence or is there a higher power at work here? Is the child causing these things to happen, or are we just convincing ourselves that he is? Is this child truly the son of Satan or is he just a little boy whose father lapsed into a paranoid fit and needs psychiatric evaluation?

In beautiful fashion, the movie never answers these questions, but leaves it ambiguous ending in the audience's hands.

SPOILER -- I HAVE TO DO THIS.

Happy ending or not? On the one hand, if the child is the antichrist, the father did not complete his mission and evil won. On the other hand, if the father had lost his mind in a paranoid scheme and tried to kill an innocent child, then he was duefully stopped and the child lives. Which is it? Only the sequels will tell.

[Travis Brashear]

Which is it? Only the sequels will tell.

And tell they do.

[George Willson]

And the library doesn't have them, so we are cursed to wait for Netflix or (gasp!) rent them from Blockbuster. Actually, I think I have them on tape at home somewhere when I taped them off of AMC one night when there was a marathon. I need to dig them out.