The Omen

A film about a man realising his son is not his, dressed as a satanic thriller.

An American diplomat's baby dies at birth in Rome and he agrees, without telling his wife, to substitute another. Five years later the nanny hangs herself at a birthday party and says it is for Damien.

Richard Donner has been consistent that he directed it as though the supernatural might not be real: every death can be read as an accident, and Thorn's investigation is a man losing his mind, right up until the film commits.

Jerry Goldsmith won his only Academy Award for the score, and the Latin chorus is doing an enormous amount of work.

Harvey Stephens was cast after Donner asked him to attack him at the audition and he did it properly.

The production accidents that followed became the marketing, which was Fox's doing and not a coincidence.