The Opening Titles of The Omen II

When watching the opening titles to the Omen II, i could tell instantly that there are many similarities between this film and the Exorcist II - The Heretic. Damien - The Omen II was made in 1978 by Director: Don Taylor. The storyline in this film is already similiar to that of the Exorcist's. It is about a boy whose body is led by the Devil, in contrast to the opening titles of the Exorcist, the Omens opening titles are easily connoted as being a horror film.

Both films set their opening titles upon a black background, the titles are split up from the film being shown before it. This means that once they are done, there are no more interruptions and all the audience have to think about is the film. The only difference with the Omen's titles are that along with the black background is a white eagle like image, whether or not this is icon is seen in the film i do not know, but i am sure this is there for a reason. There is red across the wing of the eagle, once again connoting blood, death and horror alike that used for the titles in the Exorcist. The font of the titles are also in red, this colour is certainly eye catching along with the background which also helps. The font style is bold and church like, this tells us something about the narrative before we have seen any of the film, it may tell us it has something to do with the Devil. In both opening titles, the titles are cut onto the screen quickly, this may be in order to shock the audience and give it that edgy theme, it then slowly fades out preparing for the next set of titles to be quickly cut to screen. This is also successful in creating a suspense horror.

The music is also similiar to that played in the Exorcist. Both tracks are to do with either religious things or have something to do with the Devil, in the Exorcist, tribe music is used along with a tribe singer, the Omen uses a dominant church organ along with a choir. Overall i feel the Exorcist made a much better choice in music being able to freak out the audience, the Omen also uses a parallel track to the story but i don't think it is scary enough, it tells us something about the narrative but i feel it is too loud and doesn't quite put the audience on the edge of their seats. Although the church organ is normally connoting a scary male figure, i feel at the beginning of the opening sequence, it sounds quite cheeky and not so scary, as the titles go on, it then gets a little more exciting with strings and brass instruments such as trumpets etc to build the beat and tone of the music.

After a few times of watching the titles, i realised that the eagle on the left side of the screen slowly gets bigger as they go on, and then about half way through slowly gets smaller. As it gets smaller it becomes easier to see and not so distorted. This isn't very good though as it obviously isn't very noticeable and doesn't do anything in order to scare the audience. I find that the opening titles are far too long in the Omen 2 also and could easily bore the audience, this is one of the reasons why overall i feel the Exorist has done much better with its titles.

To view these opening titles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3M05To6T1U