THE OMENOUS

THE OMEN (1976)
dir: Richard Donner

THE OMENOUS
MAD #189, March 1977
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Harry North, Esq.

Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) is an Ambassador to Great Britain. He and his wife Kathy (Lee Remick) have a baby. She doesn't know that it has died shoertly after its birth, and he adopts a new baby, Damien (Harvey Spencer Stephens). A few years pass and Damien is having a party, the nanny hangs herself and Keith Jennings (David Warner), the photographer of the event, takes notice of this. Later, at work, Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), warns Robert about Damien and is shooed away.

Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw) shows up without being hired and announces she is the new governess. The Thorns go to a wedding at a church which scares Damien, and he hits his parents. Kathy slowly starts to worry about Damien and insists on seeing and psychiatrist, Robert just sees him as a little boy. A Rottwelier that was in the woods at the birthday party is adopted by Mrs. Baylock, which Robert insists she give up. Robert finally relents and sees what the priest wants.

Father Brennan warns again about Damien, Robert ignores him, and during a storm the Father runs to the church, and impaled by a pole before he gets there (not in front of Robert). Kathy is doing tasks around the house and falls from the balcony while Damien is playing and he does nothing about it. Keith contacts Robert about omens he sees in his photos.

Robert looks for clues at the hospital where Damien was born but the monestary where birth records were stored burned down. A surviving monk from that monestary, Father Spiletto (Martin Benson) has answers but is paralyzed from the fire. Robert and the photographer go to the remains of the monestary and find the graves of the real baby and Damien's biological mother, which was a wolf. Before they can investigate further, Rottweilers come out.

Robert warns Kathy of the omen and how they must leave at once, but before she can, Mrs, Baylock shows up at the hospital and throws her from a window.He gets an exorcist, Father Bugenhagen (Leo McKern) who says that if Damien is the antichrist he will have the birthmark of '666', and if the child does, Robert will have to kill him.

The names mentioned in the middle panel were all bodybuilders and physical fitness experts. I think they meant Bonnie Prudden.

Damien has '666' on his scalp (not shown). Robert refuses to kill him, but Keith will. Before he can, he is decapitated by a pane of glass on a runaway truck. Robert finally has to but at hat moment he is shot by police. At his funeral, Damien looks into the camera, foetelling the omen of a sequel, of which there were two.

Parallels were made between this movie and the inauguration of Jimmy Carter, and they printed a few letters about it.

Cover for the British edition.

A scene that wasn't used in this parody, another sign that the child was possessed, was an attack by baboons while touring a zoo.


THE O, MAN!
Crazy #23,March 1977
w: Tom DeFalco
a: Kent Gamble

Years earlier, Gregory Peck had been in Moby Dick. Linda Blair was also a possessed child in The Exorcist.