The Omen

The Omen is a 2006 horror film about Robert Thorn, an American diplomat stationed in Rome, whose wife Katherine loses their baby during a difficult childbirth. A priest present at the hospital persuades Robert to secretly adopt another newborn and raise the child as their own, without telling Katherine what happened. They name the boy Damien and settle into family life, but as he grows, strange accidents and deaths begin to occur around him, and Robert comes to suspect that his son is not an ordinary child.

The film is a remake of the 1976 horror picture of the same name, with a screenplay by David Seltzer, who also wrote the original. John Moore directed it, placing it third in his filmography after Behind Enemy Lines (2001) and Flight of the Phoenix (2004). Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles play Robert and Katherine Thorn, and Mia Farrow appears as Mrs. Baylock, the family's housekeeper. David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite and Michael Gambon round out the principal cast, which totals forty credited performers.

Made for a budget of 25 million dollars, the film took in roughly 120 million dollars worldwide, a strong return on its cost. Audience responses were mixed: it holds a rating of 5.5 out of 10 on IMDb, based on about 66,000 votes, and a similar 5.6 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller group of voters. A critics' rating of 4.8 out of 10 from 167 reviews sits below both audience scores.