Damien’s Earthly Birthday in The Omen (1976) Was a Really Bad Villain Strategy

Reader, if we’re to uphold The Omen as a documentary, then today is (or would be) the 54th birthday of Damien, the Antichrist. You see, it’s the sixth day of the sixth month, and wouldn’t you know it, he was born at 6:00 a.m.¹ Also his mother was a jackal, but he can’t help that.

I’ve always found this cinematic holiday to be a rather fun one because of how silly it is. When June 6th rolls around each year, I almost always bring it up in some sort of conversation.² It’s just one of those little details from a film that sticks with you. Or it stuck with me, at least.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized just how dumb it makes Satan look.

Let’s dive into the strategy that was used to get the Devil’s son to Earth. Again, there’s the thing with the jackal. What’s that all about? Why does Satan believe a jackal is the ideal mammal to carry and bear his child? And are we to believe that his minions snuck a jackal into a Roman hospital so that they could whisk its human baby away to the NICU? Maybe this was the first sign that Old Scratch didn’t really think this through.

But the plan works insomuch as a few of the doctors and nurses are able to deliver the Devil baby, murder the newly arrived child of another couple (Robert and Katherine Thorn), and pawn Satan’s son off on that unsuspecting couple with the help of the hospital chaplain, who tells Robert (played wonderfully by Gregory Peck) that their son died in childbirth. Now the Antichrist—whom the adoptive parents unknowingly but aptly named Damien—has an upper-class home to grow up in.³

However, for all the work these Satanists did to bring Damien into the world, their master sure didn’t do a very good job of covering his tracks. I mean, if you were Satan, and you were attempting to swallow the souls of every person on the planet, wouldn’t you be a little more chill about not leaving a paper trail for your earthly vessel? But he sure didn’t do that. He just loves the triple sixes too much.

And that means his son has an incredibly traceable birthday. Not very discreet, Lucifer.

Consider how many babies are born every year—or at least how many were born the year Damien arrived. Birth rates declined in the late 1960s after the baby boom peaked in the middle of the decade, but according to The Daily Mail, there were still 783,155 babies born in England and Wales in 1971.⁴ Which means that, on average, 2,146 babies were born on any given day that year in the U.K.

Because Satan couldn’t settle for plain old June 6th or even any time during the sixth hour of that day—it had to be precisely 6:00 a.m. on the dot—it’s pretty easy to narrow it down. There are 1,440 minutes in a day, which means that the number of British babies born at a distinct minute, hour, and date in 1971 was almost exactly 1.5. So there was most likely only one other baby born at the exact same time as Damien Thorn. Maybe it was a really busy minute and there were half a dozen. But maybe he was the only baby born that minute.

Either way, it wouldn’t take much detective work to track down the Antichrist and eliminate him once you’ve pinpointed his very obvious birthday. Sure, the hospital where Damien was born burned down soon after he arrived—and all of the birth records with it—but the Devil really didn’t have to go to all that trouble. And he certainly didn’t have to give his son a birthmark that looks like three sixes either. I mean, does he even want his boy to succeed? Why is he putting obstacles in his way? Does the Devil have OCD?

Funnily enough, there’s a plot point in The Final Conflict (the third movie in the Omen franchise, which really should’ve just been called Omen III) where a 32-year-old Damien (played by a young Sam Neill) has his followers murder every baby boy born on March 24, 1981, in the U.K. because that’s the day that the second coming of Christ has been foretold. Sort of a taste of his own medicine, given that it would’ve been just as easy for a band of Christian zealots to round up every British kid born on June 6, 1971. Sure, without the hospital records to narrow down the minute and the hour, that would’ve meant tracking down more than 1,000 male children, but we’re talking about the fate of humanity here.

It’s been said by many theologians (and also Christopher McQuarrie) that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. Maybe that dumbass wouldn’t have had to do any convincing if he’d just picked a random birthday for his son.

The Omen isn’t streaming anywhere at the moment, but Damien’s birthday doesn’t fall on a Friday until 2031. It is, however, available to rent.

1. Did I plan on writing about The Omen more than a year ago and also schedule this post to publish an hour and 45 minutes earlier than usual? You bet I did.

2. My friends Art and Suzi got married on June 6th several years ago. I mentioned Damien’s birthday to Art a day or two before the wedding. He didn’t find it as amusing as I did.

3. I can’t help but think of Damien Thorn whenever I hear a mention of any other Damien. Apologies to Damiens Chazelle and Rice, Damians Lillard and Marley, and also Damion Lee.

4. The events of The Omen mostly take place in the present day when Damien is five years old, which means he was born in 1971. Yes, I consulted the lore.