The first and best in the series of films about devil-child Damien teamed a great cast (Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Patrick Troughton, Billie Whitelaw) with Harvey Stephens in a chilling performance as the child.

The deaths most of the cast meet are inventive and in some cases, memorable for many years after viewing the film - giving the opportunity for some unusual and striking visuals, while the whole film is soaked in that loud Goldsmith score to great effect.

The sequels, alas, were poor in comparison, but 'The Omen' stands alone of its type of seventies horror schlock.

• Charlton Heston, Roy Scheider, Dick Van Dyke, and William Holden turned down the lead role. Gregory Peck, accepted the lead. William Holden did eventually accept a role in a sequel.
• To make the baboons attack the car in the Windsor Zoo park scene, an official from the zoo was in the back seat of the car with a baby baboon, but the baboons had no response at all. They then took the head of the baboons, and the baboons outside went crazy. Lee Remick's terror as the baboons attack the car was real.
• When the fishbowl falls to the ground, (dead) sardines painted orange were used in place of actual goldfish, which director Richard Donner refused to kill for the sake of making a movie.