Much scarier than fellow possessed child flick The Exorcist, which predated it by three years, The Omen contains some of the most memorable untimely deaths in cinema history.

The performance of Harvey Stephens as the young Damien has invested the film with the chill of genuine credibility.

This apocalyptic movie mostly avoids physical gore to boost its relatively unoriginal storyline with suspense, some excellent acting (especially from Warner and Whitelaw), and a very deft, incident-packed script.

Suspenser starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick as the unwitting parents of the Antichrist. Richard Donner's direction is taut. Players all are strong.

The Omen takes all of this terribly seriously, as befits the genre that gave us Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist. What Jesus was to the 1950s movie epic, the devil is to the 1970s, and so all of this material is approached with the greatest solemnity, not only in the performances but also in the photography, the music and the very looks on people's faces.