DAY 21 OF 31: THE OMEN (1976)

Published October 21, 2022 by Philip Ivory

Building upon an interest in all things Satanic set in motion by films such as ROSEMARY’S BABY and THE EXORCIST, and drawing upon the biblical book of Revelations for inspiration, THE OMEN is a chronicle of the birth and early childhood of Damien Thorn.

He’s a chubby-cheeked tot, the doted-upon son of highly born parents, American Ambassador to the UK Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) and his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick). This child of privilege also happens to be the Anti-Christ.

Harvey Stephens as Damien, center, with Lee Remick and Gregory Peck.

Directed by Richard Donner, THE OMEN is slick, handsomely made, well-appointed with A-list stars and opulent sets. It’s most memorable for the shocking deaths that seem to be supernaturally visited upon anyone in the film who becomes too nosey about who Damien really is.

The story’s set in motion when Robert, wishing to spare Katherine sorrow because her pregnancy has resulted in a miscarriage, agrees to a deception suggested by a mysterious priest. A motherless baby will be substituted for the Thorns’ dead child, and Katherine will never be the wiser.

As the baby, Damien, grows into a seemingly happy and healthy child, bizarre deaths happen around him. Damien’s young nanny hangs herself during his fifth birthday party. A new nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw), mysteriously appears to take her place.

“I am here to protect thee, little one,” says Mrs. Baylock (Billie Whitelaw).

An acolyte of Satan, she’s there to protect Damien so he can grow up and fulfill his destiny, which is outlined neatly in this poem:

When the Jews return to Zion

And a comet rips the sky

And the Holy Roman Empire rises

Then You and I must die.

From the eternal sea he rises,

Creating armies on either shore

Turning man against his brother

‘Til man exists no more.

This poem is recited to Robert by another priest, Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton), who was in on the conspiracy of Damien’s birth. He has repented and wishes to warn Robert. Pretty soon, during a freak storm, a bolt of lightning causes a church spire to fall, impaling Brennan.

An untimely end for Father Brennan (Patrick Troughton).

Photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) also tries to warn Robert, and travels with him to Italy to ferret out the truth about Damien’s unnatural birth. (Hint: a jackal was involved.)

Jennings succeeds in convincing Robert that Damien is the Antichrist and must be destroyed, but Jennings’ reward is to suffer a horrific death involving a sheet of plate glass that decapitates him.

Robert Thorn is helped in his search for the truth about Damien by Jennings (David Warner.)

Even Damien’s mom, frightened of Damien and unable to love him as her own, comes under attack by the unseen forces that protect the boy, especially when she becomes pregnant with an actual child of Robert and Katherine.

Robert comes into possession of the seven sacred daggers of Meggido, the only weapons that can extinguish the life of the Antichrist. Will he have the nerve to use them? Or will Damien kill him first?

THE OMEN is intriguingly structured as a mystery, as Robert works to discover the truth about his adopted son. The mystery element is lost in the subsequent films, each of which stands as a tableau of unfolding elaborately staged deaths.

For this reason as well as for others, the original installment of THE OMEN remains the best, and well worth discovering.

UP NEXT:

“I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes… the devil’s eyes. “

FINAL ROUND: NYC Midnight Short Story Contest

Published June 24, 2022 by Philip Ivory

On and off over the past few years I’ve participated in writing contests held by NYC Midnight. What’s unique about these competitions is that writers receive parameters — genre, locations, objects, and etc. — and tight deadlines within which to incorporate these parameters into a successful piece of writing.

Each contest has multiple rounds that writers proceed through if advanced by the judges. I’ve never made it to the final round … before now.

This week I learned that my third round entry in the NYC 2022 Short Story contest has earned me advancement to the final round.

Sure, I’m excited, but the looming reality is that the final round begins (gulp!) at midnight NY time this evening. That’s 9 pm for me here in Tucson, less than four hours away. That’s when I’ll receive a new prompt for a 1250 word story that needs to be completed and uploaded in 24 hours.

Whatever happens, I’m grateful for NYC Midnight for its sometimes maddening but always stimulating prompts, which bedevil a poor writer by informing him that, for instance, he has 48 hours to write a short story in the romance genre featuring localism and an evening student. (That was round three. Romance not being my favorite, I tore my hair out for a while but finally set down to write a passable piece, which got me to tonight’s final round.)

In fact, while I haven’t yet come close to winning the contest, I’ve greatly benefited from the prompts, which helped me arrive at some published stories I would never otherwise have written. Here are two of them:

The Swamp Rat

Miss Brompton Falls 1938

Wish me luck tonight! I’m grateful to friends in The Writers Studio, especially including Rene Bibby and Betsy Mahaffey (Happy Birthday, Betsy!), who provided feedback and encouragement to help me survive earlier rounds.

New Fiction: Miss Brompton Falls 1938

Published October 26, 2018 by Philip Ivory

For years I’ve been interested in Menacing Hedge, which identifies as “a quarterly journal of poetry, fiction and artwork, which is committed to fostering access to emerging and experimental poetry and prose.” This month, I”m excited that Menacing Hedge is featuring my 11th published piece of fiction, a short story called “Miss Brompton Falls 1938.”

I’m not really sure if this story is a feminist fable, or an old-timey stew of sex and violence. Maybe you can let me know. Either way, it’s my third published piece that originated from my participation in the NYC Midnight online challenge, which requires you to concoct a story within a limited time frame based on a number of parameters that are arbitrarily assigned.

In this case, I was given drama for my genre, a beauty pageant for a setting, and a cash register as an object that had to be included. Sometimes it’s really difficult to incorporate all these elements, but in this case they came together in a fairly organic way.

The cash register suggested a general store, and that made for an odd but interesting setting for a beauty pageant. I hit on a Depression-era setting, which brought with it associations with economic desperation and the era’s fascination with outlaws. As I continued to revise the piece, the original parameters became less important, and the story took on a life of its own.

I had fun writing a period piece, trying to make sure the slang and the cultural and consumer references were as true as possible to this era. Mostly, though, I was concerned with the idea of portraying a woman whose inner state is in deep conflict with the situation she finds herself in, although circumstances make it impossible for anyone but the reader to understand why.

Click on the picture above to read it. You can also choose to listen to the audio file of me reading the story.

My thanks to Menacing Hedge, NYC Midnight and a number of loyal writing friends, including Alice Hatcher, Bryn McFarland and Renee Bibby’s Writers Studio Master Class, who provided invaluable feedback that helped me fully develop the story.

New Scary Fiction: Keep Me Company

Published October 12, 2018 by Philip Ivory

In keeping with the season, I have a new scary story published. It’s called “Keep Me Company,” and it’s about an emotional bond between brothers that endures beyond the divide of death. And it features walkie-talkies!

The story’s featured in the 2018 Samhain edition of Oklahoma Pagan Quarterly, a literary magazine “dedicated to folk religion, spirituality, and paganism of all paths and stripes.”

This issue showcases ten tales of terror, including mine, which were entries in the journal’s 2018 Spooky Samhain Contest. (My story tied for third place.)

My thanks to the Horror Writers Association, which ran a competition earlier in the year which I didn’t win but which inspired me to write this story.

The Samhain issue of Oklahoma Pagan Quarterly, which features other spooky content including ghost hunts, interviews and recipes, should make for great Halloween reading. So please check it out.

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Spooky Samhain 2018 Contest

Published September 24, 2018 by Philip Ivory

I’m excited to announce that a scary short story I wrote earlier in the year called “Keep Me Company” has tied for third place in the Oklahoma Pagan Quarterly’s Spooky Samhain 2018 Contest.

Click on this partial list to see all the winners:

My story will appear in the fall issue of Oklahoma Pagan Quarterly, which should be available soon in print and digital form. I’ll post more when the issue is available.

My thanks to Oklahoma Pagan Quarterly for selecting me as a winner and publishing my story. Consider buying an issue or — best deal! — getting an annual subscription.

How We Cured Racism

Published December 30, 2017 by Philip Ivory

My new short story is called “How We Cured Racism.” But first, some back story.

Embed from Getty Images

A couple days ago, I found a woman’s wallet lying on the pavement in the parking lot where I was food shopping. I spotted a woman getting into her car and rushed over to return the wallet to her, for which she was very grateful. As I walked back to my car, a man standing by his truck spoke to me. He had observed the scene and told me that I had done a very good thing. He seemed very impressed, almost amazed by this simple act. (It made me wonder — would he have done the same?) Then he told me the universe would do something good for me.

“I hope so,” I said in return.

Maybe he was right, because in the last two days I’ve had two works of fiction accepted for publication. One won’t appear until well into 2018. (More on that when it appears.)

The other was a story I had developed by participating in NYC Midnight’s 11th Annual Short Story Contest, which I wrote about in this blog earlier in the year. I didn’t win the contest, but have been sending the story out for publication for the last few months.

Today, which happens to be my birthday, I woke up to an email informing me that the story had been accepted at a journal called Rosette Maleficarum, which identifies itself as “a literary journal of dreams, nightmares and madness.” Not only that, but it had been published today and was already online.

Here’s Rosette Maleficarum’s creedo:

“This literary journal shows the beautiful, yet depraved nature that lies within reality, both in humanity and the environment surrounding us. From dark, Gothic fairy tales, to dream-laced poems, the Maleficarum dances between the boundaries of life and death itself.”

So whether it was because of good supermarket karma, or because it was my birthday, or for whatever reason, I’m grateful for the publication.

It’s an edgy, speculative story that leans toward the dark and disturbing. In some ways I think it reflects the tumultuous, divisive, unhappy world we currently find ourselves in. It is perhaps all the more disturbing in that the voice that narrates the tale is that of a child.

Find out for yourself. Read “How We Cured Racism” at Rosette Maleficarum today.

Thanks, and a much happier New Year to all of us.

The Masters Review Fall Fiction Contest

Published February 27, 2017 by Philip Ivory

I must be feeling ambitious, so I have submitted a new story not only to the Epiphany contest (deadline March 1) mentioned in my last blog entry, but also to the Masters Review Fall Fiction Contest (deadline March 13, see link below.)

Both offer generous cash prizes and publication, and both require $20 entry fees.

Take a look, and if you decide to enter … Best of luck!

The Masters Review Submission Manager Powered By Submittable – Accept and Curate Digital Content

Source: The Masters Review Submission Manager – The Masters Review Anthology – Judge Roxane Gay $5000 awarded

Epiphany Magazine Spring Writing Contest

Published February 23, 2017 by Philip Ivory

Deadline’s been extended to March 1 for this contest run by Epiphany magazine. There’s cash money to be had, so consider entering!

ANNUAL WRITING CONTEST

Our annual Spring writing contest deadline has been extended until Wednesday, March 1. We have four fantastic judges—writers whom we respect and admire—judging this year. They are:- Peter Ho Davies (Fiction)- Saïd Sayrafiezadeh (Nonfiction/Memoir)- Patricia Smith (Poetry)- Ann Goldstein (Translation: Fiction) —–1st Prizes: $400 + publication in our contest issueRunners-up: $100 + publication in our contest issue*Contest submission fee includes a free 1-year subscription to Epiphany (a $23 value). Join our mailing list to be notified about future submission periods.

Source: Epiphany Magazine Submission Manager