The Omen by David Seltzer Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Omen
Book Review: Creepy Fun!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is another one of those great 70's horrors (Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby) that's guaranteed to give you goose bumps. I especially liked the apocalyptic themes, the prophetic connections to Revelations, and the historical significance of Megiddo. And Seltzer sure knew how to create a creepy kid. I could feel Damien's silent, staring eyes, I could sense his mother, Katherine's panic and anxiety, and I could relate to his father, Jeremy's desperation. The Omen is well written, full of suspense and darkness.Book Review: Exciting,Chilling,Scary and very well written
Summary: 4 Stars
The book is extremely well written and you are always on the edge wondering what's going to happen next.It never gets boring and keeps you engrossed all through even getting scary at times.Readers with higher imaginative quotient might really feel frightened at times so the book delivers a lot more than it promises.Read it as a book and try not to pick it up if you get frightened easily.Book Review: Not as frightening as I'd hoped
Summary: 3 Stars
The Omen / 0-451-21942-2
I thought the concept behind "The Omen" was quite frightening, in a subtle claustrophobic manner - there's something deeply scary about a changeling child destroying a family from within, and all the photographic death foreshadowing, and the ancillary "the staff is in the employ of Satan" aspects all serve to create a dizzying tailspin as the senator and his wife are almost inexorably destroyed.
In that respect, there is nothing terribly wrong with this novel - all the details are here, just as creepy as ever, and the writing is well done and professional. And yet, there just seems to be something lacking - somehow, despite checking all the thriller/horror boxes, this novel somehow fails to really frighten or chill the reader.
Maybe it's too dispassionate - the hanging scene, for instance, is described with an almost artistically minimalist flair, but the reader is rushed by it so fast that the absolute horror of a smiling woman hanging herself at a public birthday party isn't allowed to sink in fully. (Indeed, the included full color photo of the same scene from the movie is more scary than reading about the event here in print.) Or perhaps the problem is that the characters are largely un-relatable - the senator's wife, especially, seems so devoid of human emotion (she is largely characterized as a chronically depressed empty shell) that it's hard to really take her victimization as the tragedy as it is, if only because she leaves behind neither a void in her family nor in the novel itself - it's hard to miss a character that hasn't been a fundamental part of the story anyway.
In the end, I felt like the technical aspects of this novel were well done and worth admiration, and I enjoyed the story and the narrative ride to the finish, but I was slightly disappointed that I was never really frightened or disturbed. I'm glad I read this book, but I probably wouldn't read it again.
~ Ana Mardoll
Book Review: Not as scary as I expected
Summary: 3 Stars
This wasn't a terrible book, there were some good moments while I was reading, but the writing style was sparse, and for the subject, this book simply did not have the thrills and chills that one would usually expect. It would have been better if this book was more descriptive and horrifying.Book Review: Wow
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great book. I loved the original movies and the remake. Even though this book is a work of fiction, it is so prophetic.It makes for great late night reading.