From the eternal sea he rises Creating armies on either shore, Turning man against his brother 'Til man exists no more. When the Jews return to Zion And a comet rips the sky And the Holy Roman Empire rises Then you and I must die. Munger, David Seltzer's script was inspired by a passage from the Book Of Revelation. Developed from an idea by LA advertising executive Robert L. Indeed, it had originally been offered to Warner Bros, as a Charlton Heston vehicle. The project was already underway by the time Peck signed on. The story of a father struggling to come to terms with his son's identity, therefore, had a certain cathartic appeal. Holidaying in France at the time, Peck blamed himself for not being in California when his child needed him. In the summer of 1975, Gregory Peck's son, Jonathan, was found dead with a gun at his side. But the driving force behind the production was, perhaps subconsciously, the desire of a parent to atone for what he perceived to be an unpardonable failing. Indeed, its timing couldn't have been better - coming eight years after Rosemary's Baby (1968), it had a feel of "What Satan Did Next". Even Regan from the The Exorcist (1973), managed to be both sinned against and sinning.Īlthough the hysteria surrounding William Friedkin's film had finally died down, there was still a popular anxiety about demonic possession by the time The Omen was released. Take, for example, the alien infants in Village Of The Damned (1960) or the sinister schoolboys in Unman, Wittering And Zigo (1971). But kids haven't always been defenceless victims. Both horror and sci-fi have exploited the vulnerability and innocence of children from the early days of cinema, perhaps most notably when Boris Karloff's monster tossed young Marilyn Harris into the lake in Frankenstein (1931). As the recent eruption of fury towards paedophiles demonstrates, there is nothing more terrifying, particularly in the eyes of a parent, than the imperilling of a child.
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