The Omen

1 9 7 6 (UK)

Coming out of the vogue for theological shockers in the wake of The Exorcist, The Omen arguably threatened to beat it at its own game.

In this tale of a family who begin to discover that their adopted son is in fact Satan junior, the gore and shocks come fast, but it's the growing sense of menace played against the seeming innocence of the young Damien that really makes this one disturbing. The movie is helped by imaginative death sequences, including the infamous decapitation, which director Richard Donner shoots from around 192 different angles!

The two sequels were a great example of diminishing returns, but The Omen is a brilliantly constructed and truly terrifying movie. Seeing lots of British character actors bite the dust in a dizzyingly bizarre fashion (such as Patrick Troughton being skewered by a falling lightning rod) was worth the price of admission alone.