A celebrated classic of the horror genre, and rife with shocking, graphic imagery from start to finish, The Omen's most unsettling moment nonetheless comes relatively early on. Strange, sinister happenings begin to occur, with increasing frequency, whenever young Damian Thorne is on the scene - because as we all know, he is the spawn of Satan and such things would happen. On his fifth birthday, in the middle of a lavish, outdoor party, his nanny publicly hangs herself from the mansion window, terrifying hundreds of onlookers. The heavy, slumping fall of a hanged body is an inherently grisly image to witness, and nowhere is it portrayed so much so more than in this scene of The Omen. The woman is a largely unknown character, being as she dies so early on in the narrative, and indeed her death is incidental, utilised more as fuel for the notion that something is amiss with Damian rather than as a celluloid psycho-analysis of self-destruction, but it is still a horrendously grim moment of suicide, and truly a standout moment for the horror genre - something which The Omen is full of.
26 year old novelist and film nerd from London. Currently working on his third novel and dreaming up more list-based film articles to flood WhatCulture with.
