The Omen and the Amityville Horror
Analyzing More Movies About the Devil
The Omen put the demonic into the body politic in 1976 with a story about how Satan & Co. conspired to sire the devil's son through a U.S. diplomat's wife.
Antichrist Damien Thorn, son of U.S. ambassador to Italy Robert Thorn, would be born into the mortal world with a mission -- and with political connections.
Whereas The Exorcist suggested Satan was an evil prankster who used little girls to lure priests to their doom, The Omen finds the forces of evil organized into an almost corporate structure, with minions and messengers, both human and animal, whose sole purpose is to manufacture, fine-tune and nurture a product: the anti-Christ, The big plans hinted at in the first film become even more clear in the second sequel, as Damien aspires to be president.
The Omen Rose After Administration Fell
The 60s and early '70s established the idea that The Establishment was hopelesssly corrupt, and the counterculture was holding the bullhorn. The Nixon admnistration fanned these flames, and economic deterioration throughout the '70s put a pall over the American Dream until the gung-ho '80s could take root. The implicit message was that the monsters aren't under the bed: They're running corporations and the government. Another film from 1976, Network, had similar messages.
Thus, it makes sense that the Omen devil would utilize The System, with its inherent snakes in the garden.
David Seltzer, who wrote the screenplay, said in a making-of documentary on a 2001 DVD release that the political angle came not from the 70s' societal mood, but from the Bible's Book of Revelation, in a verse about the origins of the Antichrist: "From the eternal sea he rises, creating armies on either shore..." Using interpretive texts, he found that theologians generally interpret "sea" to mean the turbulent world of politics, so he made that the engine for Damien's rise.
Still, the political and social climate when the film was made suggests the script was a product of its time.
Amityville Introduces Suburban Beelzebub
The Amityville Horror, however, hits closer to home, so to speak. By 1979, the devil had tired of the human vessel and instead turned to real estate. In the film, a young couple move into a Long Island, New York, home that has a murderous past. Soon, strange, otherworldly phenomena begin haunting the family.
Buying a home has been a big part of the American Dream since the post-World War II baby boom years, when suburbs sprang up, and a booming economy provided people with enough income for down payments.
Housing in pre-World War II Hollywood films usually came in three forms: mansions, apartments (from swanky Manhattan digs to tenements) and farms.
By the 1970s, urban decay had driven most middle class families into suburbs. The Amityville Horror seems to imply that you can run to the 'burbs, but you can't hide from the devil.
The Good Life Gone Bad
Other films in the 1970s showed a darker side of suburbia. The Stepford Wives used science fiction to suggest the suburbs were bland prisons where women became mind-numbed robots and sexual slaves to their husbands. Dawn of the Dead suggested suburban consumerism was turning Americans into mindless shopping zombies trolling suburban malls.
Amityville, however, is allegedly based on a true story, and the film used the book written by the real-life Lutz family, who said they lived in a haunted Amityville home. It's difficult to ascribe any hidden meanings in a screenplay based on alleged nonfiction, but one can still feel the underlying anxiety of moving into a new home.
The devil sought upward mobility in the late '70s.
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