Damien Thorn

"Suffer the little children to come unto me. Your words, Nazarene. Not mine.." ~ Damien Thorn (Omen III)

Damien Thorn is the villain of the horror film, The Omen and its sequels as well as its 2006 remake - he is the son of the Devil and the biblical Antichrist who is destined to bring on the apocalypse, in the first movie Damien was a child and was just beginning to utilise his apocalyptic powers against the world but as he grew older his influence expanded until his climatic battle with the Second Coming during the events of Omen III.

The Omen (Original)
In the original film Damien was born in Rome at 6am on June the 6th, 1976 - which is linked to the number 666, the traditional sign of the Devil, the number 666 also appears on Damien's body as a birthmark.

Damien was adopted by Robert Thorn, the American Ambassador to Britain after his child died in what he assumed was a stillbirth, a fact he hid from his wife and together they raised him as their own son - things started off fine until Damien reached 5 years old, at which point the Devil arrived during his birthday celebrations in the form of a dog and hypnotises Damien's nanny into hanging herself in front of the crowd while declaring it was all for Damien.

Soon after Robert is approached by Father Brennan, who tries to warn him of Damien's true-power but fails and Robert remains unconvinced, Father Brennan would meet a grisly end for his stand against the Antichrist however when he was impaled by a church spire that was knocked down by lightning presumably summoned by Satan himself - around this time a demonic woman by the name of Ms Baylock manages to obtain the position of Damien's new nanny and secretly becomes the budding Antichrist's guardian.

Damien's behaviour becomes more unnatural as time progresses and his mother Katherine ultimately loses her next unborn child when Damien knocks her off a balcony using a tricycle and Robert finally begins to question the origins of his "son", with some added help from a photographer named Keith Jennings.

Together Robert and Keith seek out the hospital where Damien was born in order to find his birth-mother and get answers - only to discover the hospital burned down in a horrible accident, killing several people and all of the records - however they learn of one of the survivors, the head priest at the hospital, and locate him - finding him gravely ill but alive and he tells them where to find Damien's mother, who turned out to have been buried at an ancient and abandoned Etruscan graveyard.

Robert and Keith head to this graveyard and find the woman's grave next to the grave of Robert's true son - when they remove the cover of Damien's mother's grave they find a jackal's corpse in place of a humans, confirming Damien was not of the natural world. Keith understandably becomes alarmed and wanted to leave but Robert wanted to uncover the grave of his son in the hope it would contain a similiar corpse and give him some hope that his son could be alive - to his horror this is not the case and the grave holds the ramins of a human child - the skull having a wound showing it was murdered at birth. At this point the Devil must of tired of the two men's snooping as a pack of dogs suddenly set upon them and drove them from the graveyard.

During these terrible events Katherine is thrown out of the hospital window by Mrs. Baylock to her death - devastating Robert when he finds out, later he and Keith journeyed to Isreal to find a man named Bugenhagen, an archaeologist who knew how to stop the Antichrist. Robert learnt that he had to stab Damien with the seven daggers of Megiddo to end the Antichrist's power but Robert was repelled by the thought of killing a child and threw the daggers away, Keith ran after them only to meet his fate as he was decapitated by a pane of glass from a run-away truck - this death prompts Robert to return to London with the daggers, intending to kill Damien and put an end to the carnage.

Returning home, Robert finds Mrs. Baylock's guard dog awaiting him but he manages to lock it in the cellar and then goes upstairs to check whether Damien has the "666" birthmark of the Antichrist, when Damien is revealed to indeed have the birthmark Robert knows what he must do. However Mrs. Baylock attacked him on Damien's behalf but was fought off, ultimately being killed when Robert stabbed her during their violent struggle - after this he dragged Damien to a church with the intent of killing the Antichrist on the altar.

Robert arrived at the church and laid Damien on the altar, reaching for the daggers and prepared to kill Damien but is shot dead by police who arrive on the scene and thus Damien's life was spared.The movie ends with Robert's and Katherine's double funeral, where Damien is seen holding the hand of the U.S. President, their backs facing the camera. Suddenly, Damien turned completely around, and looked straight at the audience and gave a sinister smile - knowing his reign on earth had just begun.

Omen II
A week after the burial of Robert and Katherine Thorn, archeologist Carl Bugenhagen (Leo McKern) asks his friend Michael Morgan (Ian Hendry) to deliver a box to the guardian of Thorn's young son, Damien. He reveals that Damien is the Antichrist and that the box contains a warning and the means to kill Damien. As Morgan is unconvinced, Bugenhagen takes him to the ruin of Yigael's wall, showing him an ancient depiction of the Antichrist with Damien's face. Morgan is convinced, but the two are buried alive as a tunnel collapses.

Seven years later, 12-year old Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) is living with his uncle, industrialist Richard Thorn (William Holden) and his wife, Ann (Lee Grant). He gets along well with his cousin Mark (Lucas Donat), Richard's son, with whom he is enrolled in a military academy. However, he is despised by Aunt Marion (Sylvia Sidney), who favors Mark and thinks Damien a bad influence, even threatening to cut Richard out of her will if he does not separate the two boys. The same night, the appearance of a raven wakes her and causes a fatal heart attack.

Through a friend, Dr. Charles Warren (Nicholas Pryor), who is the curator of the Thorn Museum, Richard is introduced to journalist Joan Hart (Elizabeth Shephard). She was a colleague of Keith Jennings (David Warner) from the previous film. Having seen Yigael's Wall, she draws a link to all the deaths that surrounded Damien, including Jennings'. She tries to warn Richard, but he throws her out. After a confrontation with Warren and Ann Thorn at the Thorn Museum, she becomes unsure as to whether Damien's face matches the painting on Yigael's Wall. Hart goes to meet Damien at his school, but when she sees his face she drives off in a panic. On the road, her car's engine mysteriously dies. She is attacked by a raven, which pecks her eyes out, causing her to be run over by a passing truck.

At Thorn Industries, manager Paul Buher (Robert Foxworth) suggests expanding the company's operations into agriculture; however, the project is shelved by senior manager Bill Atherton (Lew Ayres), who calls Buher's intention of buying up land in the process immoral. At Mark's birthday, Buher introduces himself to Damien, invites him to see the plant, and also speaks of his approaching initiation. Buher seemingly makes up with Atherton, who drowns after falling through the ice at a hockey game the following day. A shocked Richard leaves on vacation. As Richard agreed to the agriculture project in principle and left him in charge of the company, Buher then initiates the plans on his own.

Meanwhile, at the academy, Damien's new commander, Sgt. Neff (Lance Henriksen), takes the boy under his wing and warns him not to draw any attention to himself until the right moment. He also points him to Revelation, chapter 13, in which Damien reads about the beast. Finding its number,666, scarred onto his scalp, he flees the Academy grounds in a terrified panic, distraught at being chosen as the vehicle for Satan's will.

Another Thorn employee, David Pasarian (Allan Arbus), alerts Buher that some people were murdered after having refused to sell their land. Before Pasarian can inform Richard the next day, his is the victim of a fatal accident at work. Chemical machinery explodes and releases toxic fumes, killing Pasarian and his assistant, and injuring Damien's class, who were visiting the plant. Damien alone is unharmed, but is taken to the hospital as a precaution. A doctor (Meshach Taylor) discovers that Damien's blood cell structure resembles that of a jackal, but before he can report this, he is cut in half by a falling elevator cable.

Meanwhile, Bugenhagen's box has been found in the ruins and delivered to the Thorn Museum. Dr. Warren opens it and finds the Seven Daggers of Meggido, the only weapons able to kill Damien, along with a letter explaining that Damien is the Antichrist. Warren rushes to inform Richard, who angrily refuses to believe it and throws him out. The next day, Richard confronts Anne with the letter, but she convinces him that it is preposterous.

Mark, who overheard Richard's altercation with Warren, confronts Damien, who first reluctantly and then proudly admits to being the Devil's son. Damien tries to convince Mark that he truly cares for him as his brother and asks Mark to join him, but Mark refuses. Damien kills Mark by introducing ananeurysm into his brain.

Shaken by his son's death, Richard follows Warrens' invitation to New York. A half-crazed Warren takes him to Yigael's Wall, stored in a cargo carrier, on which Richard sees Damien's image. Immediately afterward, a switching locomotive hits the carrier, impaling Charles and destroying the wall, convincing Richard beyond doubt that Damien is the Antichrist.

Upon his return, Richard has Damien picked up from a ceremony at the academy and argues with Ann about him. When they find the daggers in Warren's office in the Thorn Museum, Ann uses them to kill Richard, proclaiming that she "always belonged to him". Ann is then engulfed by a fire, caused by Damien who overheard the altercation from outside. Damien, now heir to Thorn Industries, exits the museum and is picked up by a driver as the fire department arrives.

Omen III
In the third and final film Damien had grown into a powerful politician, and reverred cult leader who commanded a crowd of fanatically devoted Apostles, who sought to take over the world - going as far as committing a modern-day Massacre Of The Innocents when he became aware of the coming of the Messiah. However he was unable to stop destiny and ultimately died in the climax of this movie: having been stabbed by three mystical daggers and laying by the image of what is presumably Jesus - defiant to the end Damien looked upon the face of the Messiah and uttered "you have won.. nothing" before collapsing, the death of Damien was symbolic of a fresh beginning and as the movie ends it is heavily implied that the Second Coming has occured: sealing Damien's fate forever..

Legacy
Although Damien Thorn died in the Omen III he was succeeded by a daughter who became the antagonist of the less popular Omen IV.

The Omen (Remake)
In 2006 Damien Thorn was introduced to a new generation of viewers in a remake of the original film - this remake sought to bring The Omen to a new audience and was also likely designed to play on a one-time marketting device due to the date 06.06.06 - which makes up the numbers "666", Damien's birthmark and the traditional symbol of the Beast.