Translation:
I discovered "The Omen" (novel) in the library, and I must admit that it is the horror book that disturbed me more than all, perhaps precisely because I was still a kid. The book was already old at the time and I didn't know that there had also been a film. In reality, as Wikipedia tells us, despite having been released shortly before the film, the book is nothing more than the transposition of the screenplay into a novel, both by David Seltzer . And in fact, in a rare case, the film and book are interchangeable, there are no significant differences, unlike what normally happens when a film is based on a novel.
The plot is conceptually simple and deals with the advent of the antichrist, from birth to childhood. The growth and evolution continues in the two sequels of the trilogy: Damien's Curse (nice, but not up to the level of the first) and The Last Stand (bah...). It's just a coincidence that the brand new prequel is coming out in Italy right now: I didn't know, I had decided to publish this page for some time (but do coincidences exist?).
I lazily take the beginning from Wikipedia:
June 6, 1970, 6:00 am. Robert Thorn, an American diplomat in Rome, is informed that his son was stillborn. Some prelates who run the hospital suggest that the man accept the replacement of the dead newborn with a child born at the same time as him, whose mother (a woman without a family and unknown) died in childbirth. Thorn, still shocked by the sad news, allows himself to be persuaded to make the exchange, without revealing anything to his wife and leaving her to believe that the newborn is really their child.
Appointed Ambassador of the United States to Great Britain, Thorn, with his wife Kathie and little Damien, moved to London, where the family lived a happy and peaceful period. The tranquility is disturbed on Damien's fifth birthday, when his nanny, in front of a crowd of cheering children, commits suicide by throwing herself out of the window with a noose around her neck.
The death of the nanny leads one of the priests who had welcomed the child into the hospital to contact the diplomat, revealing to him how Damien was actually born by a jackal.
The rest of the plot continues with the truth that slowly becomes evident to various characters, but when they try to reveal it or stop (kill) little Damien Thorn they die in a violent and mysterious way. Therefore not at the hands of the satanic congregation that assists the antichrist, but by supernatural intervention.
The focus of this horror is the theological question: can evil be stopped when it is part of a global plan, (certainly not wanted but) granted by God? Spoiler: no, you can't!
The question is also posed in several places by the gospels, but perhaps the most significant episode is that of Gethsemane:
"And behold, one of those who were with Jesus, putting his hand to his sword, drew it and, having struck the servant of the high priest, cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put away your sword in his place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you perhaps think that I could not pray to my Father, who would send me at this moment more than twelve legions of angels?"
(Matthew, 26, 51-53)
Everything had to be fulfilled, and in fact in John 19.30 we find this precisely in the last words of Christ on the cross: "When Jesus had taken the vinegar, he said: «It is finished!» And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit."
This is to say that even horror films raise some serious questions, it doesn't mean that they are necessarily bullshit.
Coincidences:
Curiously, the English Wikipedia page does not report the sinister incidents that accompanied the production of the film. Clearly they are just coincidences (but do coincidences exist?), and this is not the first case of this kind as the Italian Wikipedia page specifies :
As happened in other films relating to the horror genre (think for example of Poltergeist - Demoniache Presences of 1982 or the Italian Cannibal Holocaust of four years later, or in particular of films relating to the devil, such as The Exorcist), a series of coincidences or incidents have been associated by the media or by the film production themselves with the type of topic the film deals with.
The same page reports four cases below which, however, deserve to be explored further, and there are also others missing, equally sensational, which can be found online by searching. Finally, the idea for this page started from a further singular coincidence that had struck me a lot for some time and which I have never found reported anywhere.
Let's see everything in detail.
The lightning of destiny:
As often happens, such tasty details are re-proposed by countless Italian sites and blogs, naturally without ever citing the primary source, which often seems to me to be Wikipedia itself, which instead cites the source for its part: "Interviews with the director and producer of the film in the documentary "Curse or Coincidences?", included among the extras on the DVD of the film The Omen published in 2001 by 20th Century Fox".
However, I found another interesting page online in English, Conspiromedia , which also takes into consideration a second source, a documentary entitled "The Curse of The Omen" which aired on "Channel 4".
If in both documentaries the testimonies agree on the fact that in 1975 two planes carrying members of the crew were struck by lightning, and both agree that in one case Gregory Peck , alias Robert Thorn in the film, was on board, they disagree on the second name clearly. The documentary included in the DVD says that the other member was David Seltzer, the screenwriter and author, while in the "Channel 4" documentary the executive producer Mace Neufeld tells us that he was the protagonist of the second little misadventure.
However, there is no question about the dark period of the protagonist Gregory Peck: on 26 June 1975 his son was found dead from a gunshot wound. The coroner ruled that it was a suicide, although there seems to be some gray side to this death. Jonathan Peck was a reporter and worked for KCOY in Santa Maria , he had left a better paying job as a writer for KNXT in Los Angeles to learn the trade. I refer you to the article opposite for more details on the perplexities of suicide (which I need to give a further touch of disturbing mystery).
To recap, to avoid creating urban legends based on nothing: it is absolutely established that Jonathan Peck, son of the protagonist of the film, died in that year, and it is quite supported by testimonies that the plane carrying Gregory Peck to Los Angeles was hit by lightning, an event not incredible but all in all rare. Let's say, however, that there may be some doubts about the second lightning bolt.
The subway, the plane and the baboons:
While the film crew was on their way to Green Park station "on 9 October 1975, terrorists belonging to the Irish Republican Army, better known as the IRA, detonated a bomb just outside the station; the latter killed a twenty-three-year-old who went by the name of Graham Ronald Tuck". Undoubtedly the 1970s were quite intense for terrorism of all kinds, so it was not extremely unlikely to pass by some similar event.
However, if we add to this that a member of the cast, Syndey Bamford, died after being mauled by a tiger while filming the scenes in the Windsor Safari Park (according to conspiromedia), there may have also been some incidents with the management of the baboons and dogs ( according to Wikipedia) a disturbing scenario begins to take shape.
To complete the picture of stage accidents, we must add that of the plane rented for business from above in London. The plane (an HS125) should have been used the day before, but it had been taken away by Chinese customers who had paid better, so coincidence wanted them to be on board that very day when a flock of birds, including lapwings, crossed the path of this plane as it took off, causing the pilot to lose control. The plane broke through the fence and crashed into a car that was passing by at the time, causing the death of the wife and 5 daughters of one of the airport's pilots.
Perhaps in this case we could talk about geopolitical synchronicity, rather than the curse of the film, because the Chinese businessmen (later taken to hospital, but without any particular consequences) were visiting to buy military planes.
The road accident:
Small spoiler: Keith Jennings, the photographer character of the film who is discovering the horrendous truth about Damien, meets a particularly gruesome end: his head is cut off by a sheet of glass.
The creator of this special effect was John Richardson , a special effects expert. On Friday the 13th (sic!) of August 1976, the same year "The Omen" was released, he and his assistant Liz Moore were in a car accident in which she died. Now I find two versions with slightly different details: Wikipedia tells me that she was his girlfriend (as well as a collaborator for the special effects), that the accident occurred in Belgium (or that in any case they were stationed in Belgium for another film " That 'last bridge ') and that she was decapitated by a metal plate. Conspiromedia tells us that Liz Moore was only the assistant, the accident occurred in Holland ("The Last Bridge" is set in Holland) and that she died cut in half by the front wheel.
The only thing in which the versions agree perfectly is that Richardson who survived the accident unharmed got out of the car and saw the sign "Ommen 66 Km". Now the similarity between the name of the Dutch town, Ommen , and the title of the film "The Omen" are evident, which differ by only one letter, as well as the similarity between the 66 Km and the 666 number of the Beast that Damien has engraved on his scalp . They are remarkable similarities, perhaps a little too remarkable, and frankly of the whole story they are the ones that leave me a little perplexed. The municipality of Ommen with its 18,295 inhabitants does not even appear in the list of the main Dutch cities and being in the Netherlands by definition it is not an extremely isolated town. I therefore wonder if it is possible (maybe it is) that there is a sign that indicates Ommen 66 kilometers away . I would understand Amsterdam, but Ommen? I can accept, yes, that influenced by the film and the other incidents, after the shock of the collision, Richardson believed in good faith that he saw the sign.
Pulling the strings:
I would take it for granted that the accident occurred on Friday 13 August 1976, the year the film was released, and that this accident was particularly gruesome and similar to the aforementioned scene in the film regarding the death of Liz Moore.
I would like to spend one last note on this very talented sculptor whose name is unjustly ignored. Nobody knows who she was, but everyone knows her most famous work: C-3PO (D-3BO in the Italian version of the original trilogy), the golden anthropomorphic robot from the Star Wars saga. Here I have reported (hoping not to violate any copyright) a photo of her with the busts of the Beatles: a truly remarkable artist, destined to always remain in the shadows due to her role.
A little scoop:
It's a small thing, but no one seems to have noticed it so far. To tell the truth, it was the starting point of this page: I was thinking of making a brief mention of the book and the film and then pointing out this curious coincidence. After doing some research, to my amazement, I found myself faced with all the other sinister coincidences I have talked about so far.
As we said at the beginning, the plot begins with the diplomat Robert Thorn who arrives in Rome where his son is being born. In reality, as a diplomat he is destined to be ambassador to Great Britain, but Rome is probably called into question as the center of Christianity.
The question may seem bizarre, however... in reality, is there any Thorn, a diplomat, who has had anything to do with Rome?
If we add a letter "e" to the end of the surname the answer is yes, there was indeed! This is David Thorne , "American diplomat and entrepreneur, former ambassador to Italy under the Obama administration", to be precise he was from 2009 to 2013, 33 years after the film. David's twin sister Julia was John Kerry's first wife. I would like to point out, but only as a side note, the fact that he was a member of Skull and Bones .
Obviously it's just a small coincidence that makes you smile.
However... in the film there is the scene in which Damien is taken to the church to be baptized (against all the "wise" advice of the new nanny, adept of the devil), but when he arrives in front of the church entrance the newborn begins to crying, screaming and throwing tantrums that almost seem like he should die. Whereupon the parents decide to postpone the baptism. Well, I wouldn't want to interfere in other people's religious choices, but I would be very comforted to know that David Thorne's two children were regularly baptized.
These are all ridiculous coincidences and I absolutely don't believe there are any correlations, but... you never know.
Blackstar:
If we can accept the assonance between the title "The Omen" and the Dutch town Ommen then we can also accept the similarity with the Swedish town of Ormen . This city is the hub of Blackstar, the last song by the great David Bowie .
In reality, I don't think that this assonance matches our story in the slightest (even if the video itself is rather disturbing), but it gives me the opportunity to draw attention to this masterpiece which unfortunately went unnoticed by most. The video, the choreography, the music, the lyrics of Blackstar are in my opinion inseparable elements for this work, which is complex, cryptic, fascinating and summarizes an artistic career. I believe that here Bowie gave his best, in every sense since he couldn't give more than that: the cancer was now consuming him, and you can see it well in the video, but he didn't want to leave without leaving us this pearl.
I found online that Ormen means snake, and I'll stop here because it actually has nothing to do with the rest, but...
In the villa of Ormen, in the villa of Ormen
Stands a solitary candle
In the center of it all, in the center of it all
Your eyes
[...]
How many times does an angel fall?
How many people lie
instead of talking tall?
He trod on sacred ground
he cried loud into the crowd
(I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar, I'm not a gangstar)
In Ormen's mansion, in Ormen's mansion
There's a lonely candle
In the center of it all , at the center of everything
Your eyes
[...]
How many times does an angel fall?
How many people lie
instead of speaking up?
He walked on holy ground
he shouted loudly in the crowd
(I'm a black star, I'm a blackstar, I'm not a gangstar)
