Fear in The Omen (1976)

Personally, I am not a big fan of horror films. I get anxiety at the mere thought of watching one. Thus, I chose to watch The Omen (1976) this week (during the daylight and with the lights on!) hoping the combination of dated effects and a relatively tame storyline would limit the amount of “pop out at you” scenes for which the genre is notorious. Thankfully, this was the case.

            For those of you who have not seen the film, it is about a couple, Robert and Katherine Thorn, that adopts a baby boy, Damien, whose mother has just died from childbirth when Katherine gives birth to a stillborn child. However, this all occurs unbeknownst to Katherine who believes the child she takes home from the hospital is in fact her own. After the couple moves to London, strange events start to occur leading Robert to discover that his son is the Antichrist.

            The film is a combination of the ideas presented in Cynthia Freeland’s Realist Horror and Sigmund Freud’s The Uncanny. Last week, we discussed Noel Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror. While this piece presents interesting, and definitely valid, concepts regarding the horror genre, its focus is more on the fictional components of horror, like monsters. As a result, we can’t use these concepts to evaluate all films within the genre because not all have monsters. Freeland uses the term “realist horror” in reference to this subset of the genre that doesn’t include monsters. Unlike Carroll’s “classical” approach, realist horror doesn’t provide us with the reassurance that what we are viewing is impossible. Instead, realist horror is “a Chicago man [that] steals corpses and skins them to make himself a suit. A drifter from Texas [who] confesses to 600 murders. A Milwaukee man [who] cannibalizes and has sex with the corpses of numerous boys he has killed” (Freedland). What makes realist horror so terrifying is that despite its seemingly fictional basis, it creates a scenario in which anyone is a potential victim. Also, while monsters do exist in realist horror, they are not the same as those defined by Carroll. Instead, monsters in realist horror are serial killers, rapists, cannibals, etc.

            In Freud’s The Uncanny, he introduces the idea of the uncanny being the opposite of what is familiar and how this in turn leads to fear. He says, “The uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar.” The example he provides to help explain this concept is a wax figure. Based on our prior knowledge of wax figures we know they are replicas of people that, like store mannequins, just stay in place and don’t move. Suppose, however, that while you are admiring one the figure winks at you, or smiles. This fear you experience is derived from the uncanny.

            The Omen, while displaying some characteristics of realist horror, deals mostly with concepts in Freud’s The Uncanny. Damien is the definition of the uncanny. We perceive and associated children with innocence and purity. However, Damien’s role in the film as the antichrist goes against everything we hold to be true and familiar when we think about children. Thus the fear we experience when watching the film is a result of the unsettling feeling we get from Damien straying from what we believe his role should be. We perceive Damien to be the monster. However, Damien’s role as the monster doesn’t exactly fit into Freeland or Carroll’s definition of a monster. Damien is not a realist horror monster because the fear he creates for the viewer is not a result of being a potential victim. Nor can Damien be considered a classical horror monster because he is not fictional being, but rather a human child. Thus Damien’s role as a monster remains somewhere in between the two concepts. However, if we view Robert Thorn’s role in the film as also that of a monster, we can say he is a realist horror monster. While Robert’s role as a monster is debatable, it can be argued that by wanting to kill his own son, regardless of who is son is, Robert is a monster.

            Overall, I thought The Omen was a great horror film. Aside from the corny music and dated effects, the film had an interesting plot and created a sense of fear without all the unnecessary (at least from my point of view!) “jump out at you and make your hair stand up” scenes that most horror films have these days.