David Seltzer's The Omen (2017)

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The classic 1976 horror film was based on a novel... and as part of one of BBC Radio's occasional Halloween 'Fright Night' seasons, the Book at Bedtime slot broadcast a five-part reading of it by Owen Teale.
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If you're interested to learn about the century-long history of ghost and horror stories broadcast at Christmas on British television and radio, you might like to check out HOLLY WRAITHS (and its companion volume HOLLY TERRORS), an A-Z guide available in paperback and ebook from Amazon and Lulu.com.

[@abbywebb7985]

Omg I've been so desperately trying to find this for so long, I searched the internet far and wide a few months back with no luck and on a punt I thought I'd try again and you've posted it! Amazing, thank you!

[@mysteriousmagpie]

Glad to be of service..!

[@JamesQ-zp4wo]

I had no idea this had been a book first. No pauses, let's gooo!!

[@sonofeyeabovealleffoff5462]

@James Q "Born in the Sacred Flames; Of the Sixth Day of the Sixth Month, In the Sixth Hour!" -Iced Earth. Salutations, lil' bro.

[@EM-lz9kg]

Owen Teale reads the novelisation of David Seltzer's academy award-winning horror story. Kathy, wife of American diplomat Robert Thorn, gives birth to a boy. They name him Damien.

[@canman5060]

Part III The Final Conflict was a bit of a disappointment.Seems to me that Damien has 'retired' !

[@fairyfairy6090]

absolutely fabulous xx

[@tomleaf5790]

Thank you for posting this. As ever, a worthy addition to your incredibly comprehensive collection. Please keep up the good work; fascinating and very much appreciated.

[@EM-lz9kg]

Ty so much iv been looking for this since it was played on bbc radio last Halloween

[@afzals2007]

Very good, thank you. I recently also enjoyed the prequel, The First Omen, much better than you'd assume.

[@JohannaLeigh]

Even scarier that a child reads the credits. Ominously eerie.

[@manusha1349]

Brilliant 👏🏽

[@stephenbarnigham5192]

Yes,indeed Criminally abridged,but,very,very well read indeed!

[@JohannaLeigh]

Pretty please, would you have Damien; Omen 2 in audiobook form?

[@mysteriousmagpie]

I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't.

[@JohannaLeigh]

@@mysteriousmagpie oh well. Thanks for letting me know as well as for all the audio stories you've posted. Much appreciated.👍

[@JohannaLeigh]

That score is as epic as JAWS but warns of something MUCH MORE TERRIFYING than a 🦈 It warns of EVIL. 👹

[@mysteriousmagpie]

Courtesy of the great Jerry Goldsmith...

[@JohannaLeigh]

Yup. EPIC TERROR! 😮​@@mysteriousmagpie

[@stephanmccormack3826]

I like it keep it coming very good friend.cmc.

[@colinglass1342]

Brilliant thanks

[@Norfolk250]

11:58 Thank goodness I wasn't listening to this on headphones! KaZOIKS!

[@EM-lz9kg]

This is absolutely brilliant

[@mysteriousmagpie]

And, I found myself thinking the other day, quite apt that it's narrated by Ser Alastair Thorn..!

[@EM-lz9kg]

@@mysteriousmagpie yes he’s been brill on radio he’s also on the witch farm radio drama

[@anthonycompiccia2498]

I like the omen movie better then this book

[@EM-lz9kg]

It was the 6th month the 6th Day the 6 th Hour - THE OMEN what a classic

[@canman5060]

666.

[@allthingshorrorrelated]

where's the rest of it?

[@mysteriousmagpie]

This is the full radio broadcast - but it's abridged. So this is as complete as this reading gets, I'm afraid.

[@sonofeyeabovealleffoff5462]

The way it opens, although it predates the joke/subject of my comment. Me: "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOOOD GOOOOOOOD!!!!!!! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THROOOOOONE!!!!! LET THE GALAXY BUUUUUURN!!! " Some random guy: "Dude... this is the Omen, a story about the Anti-Christ, not a Chaos god from 40k. Get a life, ya loser." Me: "IRRELEVANT!"

[@mysteriousmagpie]

Ah, but you can be certain that the guys who created 40k grew up on stuff like The Omen... The early days of 40k showed a lot of influences...

[@sonofeyeabovealleffoff5462]

​@Mysterious Magpie You are correct. The early incarnation of 80s, 40k was very jokey and chock full of pop-references. What ended up happening in the 35 years (I'm, 35, I got into it 2007) is that the comedy was steadily dropped and the references were turned more inwards and the Black Library authors got better and more mature at their literature-craft which created a darker, more serious universe. The jokes, and pop culture are still there, you just have to know where to look and see what editions of the rulebooks and army books contain them. My favorite is the reference to the Wizard of Oz and Monty-Python's Holy Grail where a lost little girl with scarlet slippers and a black dog appears before the Mouth of the Maze, a top-rank lieutenant of Tzeentch, the Chaos God of Change, the Architect of Fate and the entity of warp-magick. It posed three questions and she answers all three correctly and this angers Tzeentch and he asks the sub-entity why he lost to a little girl of all things and the Mouth petulant ly retorts that she cheated.

[@mysteriousmagpie]

@@sonofeyeabovealleffoff5462 My memories of early 40k... and to be clear, I've never been a massive fan of it, but I did regularly get White Dwarf magazine just at the time it transformed from a RPG magazine to a 40k Catalogue... And I would have preferred it not to have changed like that, but on the flip side the 40k universe was certainly something I enjoyed peering into every month... anyway, my strongest recollection of the context is that it was heavily influenced in tone and content by 2000AD comic (and I've a feeling GW had a bit of creative crossover with the comic at the time - certainly, GW produced a number of games based on 2000AD content). In particular 40k has always struck me as VERY reminiscent of the Nemesis The Warlock universe, which was thematically deadly serious but tonally included plenty of humour and allusion (which was true of even the most straight-faced 2000AD strips at the time, including Rogue Trooper which I suspect was likewise a bit of an influence on 40k). Perhaps tellingly, around this time GW also rereleased the Stormbringer RPG (with Michael Moorcock's gods of chaos etc) and Call of Cthulhu had reached its 3rd edition - very difficult not to see the cosmic horror of that echoed in the Warhammer Chaos Gods. All of this is without paying attention to the enormous general influence of James Cameron's Aliens at the time (honestly, it was gigantic in how it infiltrated people's imaginations - and all this at a time when, if you can believe it, people generally regarded Star Wars as old hat, something over and done with. When Space Hulk first came out, nobody was in any doubt at all that it was 40ks take on an Aliens tabletop game). And of course, many of these things were in turn heavily influenced by earlier things too - 2000AD was happy to openly parody things that really ought not have been in a kid's comic, again part of its particular tone. Anyway, as I've peeked in on 40ks development over the years its seemed to me that, apart from anything else, it is of course driven by different generations of creatives, and aimed at different generations of people raised with different influences and imaginative contexts. It would, I suspect, be fascinating to map out those influences over time - but sometimes it's quite difficult to see these things after the fact. I'd hope that 40k continued to feed on what was going on around it - but it would be natural (and perhaps both ironic and appropriate) if it was still fuelled by the relics of 1980s imaginations, handed down with a diminishing sense of what created them, like a suit of Space Marine armour... All of which said, my original point was going to be - the music in this audiobook is maybe the first instance of 'Evil Church Music', composed for the film of The Omen - but it was *gigantic* in influence and recognisability. Well, in fact, Orff's O Fortuna was often referred to incorrectly as 'The Music from the Omen' because of its similar choral intensity... likewise Verdi's Requiem. But Jerry Goldsmith's music lodged right in the popular imagination. You might even find that if you'd asked the original 40k writers what the soundtrack should be for a chaos ritual, they'd have cited 'the music from The Omen'...

[@JohnDoe-il7dp]

Absolutely rubbish.

[@NewmanAlfonso]

The Omen still remains the scariest film I have ever seen.

[@derekorford1964]

Beautifully done, on every level of the production. High, high standard and the narration by Owen Teale is perfection. Thanks for posting!!!!

[@neftaliriverajr503]

Ohhh this sounds so Creeepy my Imagination went wild picturing this drama in my Head, 😮 I enjoyed it but was Scaryyyy THE OMENNNNN AKA DAMIENNN THORNNN AKA THE BEAST/THEEE ANTI-CHRISTTTTTT👀🐈‍⬛

[@EM-lz9kg]

Listening AGAIN after seeing the film “ first omen “

[@canman5060]

Jerry Goldsmith's magnificent music score.

[@thekillingfieldsable]

Criminally abridged, yet well read.

[@mysteriousmagpie]

I actually have to agree on both counts - it rather felt to me as if it only really works if the listener already knows the story, because one or two important points seem to be missing. But hey ho, it works as a 'highlights' exercise...

[@BenjaminBartle-li3pc]

I saw a film similar to this. It was about a child born parent less and grows up with a political family. But it turns out he was the son of the devil

[@mysteriousmagpie]

Is it possible you saw one of the films of The Omen? As the films progress Damien grows older and becomes more powerful... but of course there were other variations of this story in the 70s... if you remember the name of the film I'd be very interested to know what what it was...

[@BenjaminBartle-li3pc]

@@mysteriousmagpie I think it was called Damian or something he pushed his mum off the balcony and a man got his head cut off. Oh and a priest got impailed by a long stick

[@mysteriousmagpie]

@@BenjaminBartle-li3pc Yeah, that's The Omen. The priest was killed by a falling lightning rod and the photographer decapitated by a sheet of glass...

[@BenjaminBartle-li3pc]

@@mysteriousmagpie oh ok thanks so much. It was truly a great film as I remember it now that I know it was the name

[@mysteriousmagpie]

It's definitely a classic - the music from the film was used in this audiobook. The film has been uploaded to YT if you're curious and want to revisit it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p6nSoJWVjalqf80