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Damien Thorn is the main antagonist of The Omen franchise.

He is the son of the Devil and Margaret Daino 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 utilize his apocalyptic powers against the world, but as he grew older, his influence expanded until his climactic battle with the Second Coming of Christ during the events of Omen III.

Portrayals[]

• He was portrayed by Harvey Spencer Stephens in The Omen.
• He was portrayed by Jonathan Scott-Taylor in Damien: Omen II.
• He was portrayed by Sam Neill in the Omen III, who also portrayed Charles Bromley in Daybreakers, Dr. William Weir in Event Horizon, Molloy in The Simpsons, Mr. McGregor in Peter Rabbit, Chief Inspector Campbell in Peaky Blinders, and John MacArthur in the 2015 TV miniseries adaptation of And Then There Were None.
• He was portrayed by Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick in the 2006 remake.
• In the Damien TV series, he was portrayed by Bradley James, who also played Varga in Underworld: Blood Wars.

History[]

The First Omen[]

The prequel reveals significant elements of Damien's origins that change the initial interpretation of how his background was originally viewed. Instead of a plot by Satanists and dark witches and warlocks seeking power and wealth from the Devil in exchange for their worship, the motivation for Damien's birth was a rogue faction of the Catholic Church, who feared the increasing abandonment of authority seen in generations growing up beyond WWII and thus orchestrated the birth of the Antichrist in order to use him to unleash a "controllable" amount of Biblical suffering upon the world, as to drive the people back into the clutches of the Church.

The steps to achieve this were more complicated than the original film entailed. For decades, a demonic jackal had impregnated women in order to make a healthy female, who, upon reaching maturity, would be impregnated by the same jackal in the hopes of a male offspring since the Antichrist can only be a man. The project took decades as most infants were stillborn, and each mother died or was left unable to gestate again, therefore murdered to keep the secret. However, eventually there were two successes: Margaret Daino and, years later, Carlita Scianna.

Prospective nun Margaret Daino was raised in an American orphanage, during which time she suffered horrific, nightmarish visions, which, upon passing her teens and being supported by Cardinal Lawrence, she was able to be convinced were merely symptoms of mental illness. Margaret was invited to Rome to complete her initiation, during which she would join the staff of an orphanage. The adolescent Carlita displayed antisocial behavior and drew unsettling pictures, which strangely endeared her to Margaret since Margaret had adopted the same habits as a youth.

Margaret is somewhat coerced into going clubbing with her roommate, Luz Valez, who argues she would appreciate the vow of chastity better once she knew how her beauty would be hidden. Luz and Margaret are approached by two men; Luz heads to the dance floor with one, while Paulo stays to talk with Margaret. Due to a prank from the Italian-speaking orphans, Margaret unwittingly calls herself a "butterfly" with suggestive connotations. Paulo drags her to the dance floor, but she eventually has fun, but due to drinking, she blacks out. Margaret wakes in her bed, drenched with sweat; she seeks reassurance from Luz that she kept her virtue, which Luz notes "mostly."

Father Brennan attempted to make contact with Margaret to warn her of his knowledge of the plan to birth the Antichrist; she initially brushed him off, but after numerous strange experiences and visions, she began to take him seriously. As she is bonding with Carlita, a disturbed nun, Sister Anjelica, goes to the top floor of the orphanage, exclaims, "It's all for you, Carlita," then sets herself on fire, then steps off the edge, revealing she had hanged a rope around her neck, which swings her into a window below, barring the fire, a mirror of the action undertaken by Damien's nanny years later.

In a secret hidden chamber, Margaret discovers filing cabinets, one of which holds evidence of the multiple failed births, most unfortunately born with severe malformations. Along with Father Brennan and another priest, Father Gabriel, they analyze the files in an attempt to find Carlita's information; Brennan notes that the Devil must breed with his own offspring in order to birth the Antichrist. To Margaret's horror, the 666 mark of the Beast on Carlita was on the roof of her mouth, yet the photo of the only healthy baby has 666 on its scalp; she has Brennan examine her head and discover the mark.

Margaret had been experiencing visions of a demonic creature groping and licking her face, which she realizes were actually memories of her assault by the demon jackal, the Devil's vessel on Earth; she realizes that she was brought to Rome because Carlita was too young to become pregnant, and the faction seeking the Antichrist wished to advance sooner. Knowing she is already pregnant, Margaret has Brennan, Gabriel, and her loyal driver take her to receive an abortion. Before they can make it there, another vehicle T-bones their car, killing the driver and Gabriel and knocking Brennan unconscious. Margaret awakens, feeling intense pain; she exits the car and begins acting bestial, growling and jerking about. She falls to her knees as her abdomen engorges, becoming akin to a nine-month pregnancy in spite of the assault happening weeks ago. Margaret passes out.

When Margaret wakes again, she is strapped to an operating table within a torch-lit chamber, full of nuns and priests, as well as Cardinal Lawrence. Margaret is horrified and disgusted that her father figure was the architect of her misery; however, Lawrence tries to reassure her that the coming of the Antichrist is actually a good thing, since it will revitalise the Church and bring people back to God. A surgeon appears and takes one of the surgical blades from the table; he performs a Caesarean section on Margaret without painkillers of any kind. Margaret screams and begs for help, but the assorted cabal merely observes.

The surgeon removes the sac from within Margaret; after he places it on a surgical table, he pierces the sac with a scalpel, with fluid gushing out. The sac is opened apart, revealing twins—a girl and a boy—the latter causing a raucous celebration from the corrupt Catholics. Margaret is stitched up; she makes an appeal to Lawrence, asking that she hold the boy since she is his mother. Fooled by this, Lawrence almost hands the child over, but Margaret stabs Lawrence in the jugular with the scalpel she stole; she takes the boy but cannot bring herself to kill him. Luz stabs Margaret in the stomach as the conspirators flee with the boy and set the chamber ablaze to cover their tracks.

The flames draw the ire of something behind a ceremonial curtain. The demonic jackal roars in disapproval. Carlita arrives to help Margaret, who cradles the abandoned female baby. The demonic jackal catches fire too, but Margaret, Carlita, and the baby girl all escape the conflagration as it appears to burn to death.

The corrupt Catholic cabal is able to successfully reach the hospital that holds Kathy Thorn, wife of US diplomat Robert Thorn; they abduct and kill their newborn while deceiving a bereaved Robert into adopting the baby boy they present.

Years later, Margaret and Carlita have lived safely in secluded mountains, raising the baby, who has now become a seemingly normal little girl. Father Brennan tracks them down; Margaret threatens to shoot him, but Brennan placates her by saying he means no harm; rather, he is there to warn Margaret that the cabal knows she and her daughter survived and will stop at nothing to hunt them down. Brennan ends his visit by revealing that her son's name is Damien.

The Omen trilogy[]

The Omen (original)[]

In the original film, Damien was born of Satan and a jackal in Rome at 6:00 AM on June 6, 1970, which is linked to the number 666, the traditional sign of the Devil, and 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 son died in what he was told was a stillbirth, a fact he hid from his wife, and together they raised him as their son. Things started fine until Damien reached 5 years old, at which point the Devil arrived during his birthday celebrations in the form of a dog and hypnotized 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 Mrs. Baylock manages to obtain the position of Damien's new nanny and secretly becomes the budding Antichrist's guardian.

Damien's behavior 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. 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 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 human's, 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 similar corpse and give him some hope that his son could be alive. To his horror, this isn't the case, and the grave holds the remains of a human child, with the skull having a wound showing it was murdered at birth.

At this point, the Devil is tired of the two men snooping as a pack of dogs suddenly sets 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 Israel to find a man named Bugenhagen, an archaeologist who knew how to stop the Antichrist.

Robert learned 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.

Damien: Omen II[]

In the second film Damien has returned and lives with his uncle Richard and his wife Ann and Damien is enrolled in Davidson Military Academy.

He has been chosen to succeed his uncle in his business, but a Satanist in the business desires Damien to kill his cousin Mark and start his reign of terror. Damien accidentally shows off his powers in military school by reciting all of a historical battle's events as if he had been present. Sergeant Daniel Neff, Damien's platoon commander and, secretly, one of the Satanist plotters, approaches him after class and warns him to keep a low profile because now is not the time for the world to know who he is. Confused, Damien asks him who he is, to which he is told to read Revelations because it speaks of the near future and Damien's role in it. Shocked at finding out he is the Antichrist, Damien initially rejects his powers out of fear. However, after careful thought, Damien begins plotting to conquer.

During a school trip to Thorn Industries, Damien and the other students are infected by loose gases. However, when the doctor examines Damien's skeleton for damage, he finds to his shock Damien's internal system is that of a jackal. Horrified, he attempts to alert the authorities, but the Devil kills the doctor by malfunctioning an elevator he was riding.

From here, Damien only grows in power. Knowing he is protected by the Devil, he kills his own cousin Mark after a horrified Mark threatened to reveal Damien's secret. However, Damien only reluctantly kills Mark as he truly cares about his cousin and wanted Mark to accept him. Richard is devastated but retrieves the Daggers of Megiddo. He attempts to kill Damien at a museum, but his wife betrays him, revealing she was also a Satanist and kills Richard. She then yells for Damien, who nonchalantly sets the museum on fire, burning her to death, as Damien calmly walks out into the night and is rescued by police.

Omen III (The Final Conflict)[]

In the third and final film, Damien had grown into a powerful politician, and revered cult leader who commanded a crowd of fanatically devoted, Satanic 'Apostles' known as the Disciples of the Watch, 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. He also uses his Hellhound to manipulate Barbara Dean into killing her husband, Harvey, and her son with a hot iron.

Later in the film, he rapes journalist Kate Reynolds, whom he had become romantically involved with and manipulates her son Peter into being his disciple, but later uses him as a human shield against Father De Carlo when he tries to stab him, resulting in his death. However he was unable to stop destiny and ultimately died in the climax of this movie: having been stabbed by three mystical daggers by Kate 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 film ends it is heavily implied that the Second Coming has occurred: sealing Damien's fate forever. In other words, he will never hurt or manipulate anyone ever again.

Legacy[]

Although Damien Thorn died in the Omen III he was succeeded by a daughter of his who became the antagonist of the less popular Omen IV and joining her younger twin brother who is the other child of Damien himself.

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 marketing device due to the date 06.06.06 - which makes up the numbers "666", Damien's birthmark and the traditional symbol of the Beast.

Personality and Traits[]

Due to his unholy heritage and his destiny as the Antichrist, Damien possessed several harmful and unholy abilities and weaknesses. He could cause machinery to break down and/or stop working and could cause people to see horrific visions and develop aneurysms. He also knew vast information about virtually every known historical event.

It was also shown that Damien was seemingly immune to all major and minor mortal ailments (from colds and chickenpox to chemical poisoning) and that the Seven Daggers of Megiddo are the only weapons that could harm him, and even then, Damien had to be killed with all seven of the daggers on a church altar to destroy his body and incapacitate his soul. He could cause people to see others as someone else and could also control animals such as dogs and horses.

Because of his Satanic status and lineage, Damien deeply feared churches as a child and felt discomfort and pain when the second Star of Bethlehem formed during the Second Coming of Christ.

Despite his Satanic heritage, Damien seemed capable of forming a connection with someone as he was genuinely attached to his cousin, Mark, considering him like a brother, and the first manifestation of Damien's powers as a pre-teen was to torment a bully that had been harassing Mark, although the bully harassed him before also. After Damien embraced his evil destiny, he tried to convince Mark to join him; however, after Mark's repeated, adamant refusals, Damien killed him, but it filled him with sorrow. But this still doesn't stop him from continuing, as he lied to his family about his death, and in Omen III, he seems to get over that sorrow and fully accept his position as the Antichrist.

Gallery[]

Images[]

Damien on a poster of The Omen.

Damien in South Park perspective

Videos[]

Analyzing Evil- Damien Thorn From The Omen Franchise

ICED EARTH - Damien (Album Track)

Trivia[]

• Damien is one of the only 3 characters to appear in more than one of the original Omen films, the others being Carl Bugenhagen and Brother Mattheus.
• The first film implied that Damien was aware of his Satanic nature, however, he apparently does nothing evil for 7 years until the first sequel, in which he was ignorant that he was Antichrist, until a Satanist manipulated him into "discovering" the truth. Granted, an excuse could be following the logic for the usual development of children, where they generally have trouble remembering when they are younger than 4.
• All the actors who portrayed Damien had their hair dyed jet black for the role.
• The name Damien has become somewhat symbiotic with the Devil, because of the reputation of the film; the name Damien means "the subduer". This is both appropriate and ironic for the Devil's son. Appropriate because of how he attempts to subdue mankind and rally an army against God, but ironic because "Damien" is also the name of a saint.
• In the original ending for The Omen, Robert managed to stab and kill Damien with the Daggers of Megiddo before the former was shot.
• Originally in Damien - Omen II, Damien was going to be 15 instead of 12. He would also have had a girlfriend so that when he discovered that he was the Antichrist, he would be torn between love and destiny. This idea was ultimately scrapped.
  • Although an element of this remains, since at his graduation, he is receiving devoted attention from two girls in his peerage.
• Some aspects of Damien's life appear to mirror those of Jesus Christ's, possibly because of how Damien, as the Devil's son, is an unholy mockery and polar opposite of Christ. When Damien was born in Rome, a new star formed over Europe (similar to how the Star of Bethlehem formed over Bethlehem when Jesus was born there); and Damien was just under 33 at the time of his death, which is the approximate age Jesus was when he was crucified.
• In The Omen and Damien - Omen II, Damien's 666 birthmark was on the top of his scalp. But in The Final Conflict, it was above his right ear.
• In Damien - Omen II, when Richard left for New York, Damien had a pimple beneath his bottom lip; and when Damien screamed after killing Mark, fillings were visible in his teeth. However, it was made apparent in the first Omen film that Damien is immune to mortal ailments. Although, these were more likely inserted by Damien himself to blend in with human society, rather than as any teething problems. Also if they were made of silver, this would showcase his wealth to the world.
• In The Final Conflict, it was indirectly indicated at one point in the film by Damien that he was born in 1949. But at another point in the film, Kate Reynolds indirectly indicated that Damien was born in 1945.
  • In the first film, however, the year is clearly shown as June 6, 1970, at 6 AM when Damien is born. This means his childhood portion of the first film takes place in 1975 when Damien is five years old; (though he states in the final movie the Devil visited him when he was six) and the second movie's events should take place in 1982 when Damien is roughly an early teen; then the final film takes place in 2003, which is also fitting as it implies the Millenium is a new golden age for humanity.
• While the original trilogy posited that Damien was born of a female jackal impregnated by the Devil, The First Omen alters this by displaying that his mother was actually a human woman, Margaret, born of the human woman seeded by a demonic male jackal, and his father was still the Devil, but in the form of the same demonic jackal that sired his birth mother, meaning Margaret took the mantle of being the Jackal, but not exactly as one.
• The First Omen revealed that Damien was born with a twin sister, although it goes on to show she was alive and well just prior to the events of the first film, but doesn't explain what happens to her after this, during the original trilogy.
• Comparing the events of the First Omen and Final War, it is safe to assume when Damien mocks Jesus that "he wins nothing", he means that anti-Christ like him will always exist as long as human continues to lust for power since he was born thanked to the desire for power and control of the rogue clergy of the Church.

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