Devil Dog
The Omen remake proves loyal, but shows off no new tricks.
BY GREGORY
Y'know how those pretty English nannies suddenly disappear from the overwrought birthday parties of their charge
who is The Devil Incarnate, only to reappear a few edits later atop a tall manor house, having quickly and industriously
fashioned a handy fifty-foot length of very strong rope into a professional-grade noose for the express purpose of
cheerfully-yet-terrifyingly hanging themselves, in order that the woman whom Woody Allen screwed over in favor of
boinking his own step-daughter may insert her sinister self into the manor-household, the better to vent her cinematic
revenge by torturing and slaying Julia Stiles for being a truly terrible excuse for an actress? Give or take some amusing
supporting talent and yet more lazy cinematic sucker-punches to Christianity, that’s pretty much the gist of this remake
of The Omen. Those who have forgotten the original may find themselves fondly recalling it, and -- more likely -- those
whose parents weren’t yet old enough to see the original back in 1976 will be donating more of their money to the
dubiously pervasive Horror Movie Remake Fund.
As for me, I’m laughing; The Omen is funny -- alas, not quite side-splittingly hilarious, but certainly it’s even funnier
than, say, Alexander or A Beautiful Mind. Some of its erratic chuckles are obviously intentional: like, for instance…
hm…wait a minute -- come to think of it, no -- none of its laughs seem at all intentional.
They’re there, though, including a treasure-trove of yuks in the atmosphere department. We have a therapist’s office and
a priest’s chamber both so obscenely thick with studio smoke that it’s a wonder the characters can breathe -- let alone
unravel the secrets of Satan. Meanwhile, outdoors, we have more amusingly invasive smoke machines as well as peculiar
snowflakes which float upward. We have a whack-job priest who clearly took over the lease on Kevin Spacey’s
apartment from Se7en (or Ben Kingsley’s apartment from Suspect Zero, among many others – you know, that chic style
in which the interior designer was basically instructed to “tape a whole bunch of creepy crap all over the walls” -- I
know it’s in the original too, but still). Massive tomb-lids made of solid Styrofoam? -- we can make ‘em seem heavy if
we add a couple of close-ups of characters theatrically panting after “struggling” to move them! We even get a
mysteriously untended rubbish-bin fire which roars on undeterred in a heavy rainstorm (clearly the work of Satan!) Oh,
and Stiles takes a break from watering dangerously-positioned plants to fall an amusingly long way and land with a very
satisfying thunk upon an Escher-inspired hardwood floor. The floor itself proved too ostentatious for me to feel badly for
her; I snickered.
Speaking of (throat-clearing sound) the talent, Liev Schreiber is funny for various reasons above and beyond his
character’s wall-to-wall absurdly scripted behavior, including loitering in front of a screen-wide American flag as if to
remind us that he also starred in the equally unnecessary remake of The Manchurian Candidate, plus looking like the
bastard spawn of Ray Liotta and Aidan Quinn, plus Mumbling With Intent (plus generally being a tricky person to spell
correctly -- happy I’m my own editor). Stiles, meanwhile, is simply too young, too boring and too utterly emotionally
detached to be attempting a “maternal” role like this (when she kvetches about her Devil-son playing a modern video
game with incongruous vintage video-game sounds -- the Antichrist digs Centipede? Wouldn’t he prefer Sinistar or
Satan’s Hollow? – I seriously thought that some DGA intern had wandered into Stiles’ position and sat down to run lines
for the take, which was then accidentally used in the film). Just as “genre” composer Marco Beltrami’s score is but a
patch on the stunning work of Jerry Goldsmith in the original, these two “leads” seem like drama students play-acting --
badly -- the parts that real actors Gregory Peck and Lee Remick made iconic in the comparatively brilliant original.
Typically, it’s the British thesps who do the heavy lifting. In the mode of John Hurt and Jim Broadbent recently
struggling to save the lackluster productions of The Proposition and Art School Confidential, respectively, a triumvirate
of Limey pros take on the “character” roles here. Michael Gambon appears briefly but impressively as Bugenhagen
(essentially this movie’s Basil Exposition). The always-enjoyable David Thewlis fills in for David Warner as That
Photographer Bloke Who Suddenly Realizes That Satan Is Messing Up His Prints. And the movie’s standout is Pete
Postlethwaite, bald and in manic Michael Stipe mode, as Father Brennan. Brennan is such a god-damned whack-job it’s
no wonder everything goes to Hell. Postlethwaite makes it fun, though. His ravings land far beyond reason (Yeah, yell
insane things at the government executive; that’ll help save the world from the Beast), however he scores a direct hit for
the producers in making Catholicism look crazy (“DRINK His blood! EAT His flesh!”) Why did I like him? Because he’s
funny, of course. And yet, alas, even these three and their ridiculous death scenes can’t salvage the overall movie.
As for the kid in this one -- you guessed it -- he, too, is funny. There is absolutely nothing scary about this boy. Do you
know what he does in order to make evil happen? He scowls ever so slightly, as if he has accidentally pooped a bit. The
tousled little girls from the The Ring franchise (and all its various knockoffs) effortlessly out-evil this Damien. I only
hope that this child with the diabolically unflattering “Moe” haircut does not have his life ruined by starting off with such
a poor self-image projected around the world.
Frankly, I’m already exhausted thinking about how I could go on about the howler-a-minute narrative inconsistencies
splashed throughout this movie (mostly paralleling the original, also by David Seltzer, now with an upped political ante).
At the beginning, American diplomat Robert Thorn is told by a typically super-creepy priest in a hospital in Rome that his
baby “died,” so he oughta just tell his unsuspecting wife that, y’know, this other baby is their “son.” (Like any parent –
like any parent guzzling a bucketful of hallucinogens -- would do that. God may forgive this little deception, but the ever-
sober critic cannot.) Later on, hey, don’t bother checking your clearly apeshit (foreshadowing!) new nanny’s references
or anything. Then at the end, you know, the very best way to go about ending the life of a Hellspawn is to make a huge,
destructive spectacle in front of your own heavily-armed government security forces. Smart dude, that Robert Thorn!
Don’t even get me started on those brainy Satanists who bury jackal-skeletons and murdered-baby skeletons in carefully-
marked graves with all the detail-oriented finesse of window-dressers.
(It’s feeling quite easy to admit that, back when movies took risks, The Exorcist was a bona fide original, whereas The
Omen was a money-spinning wannabe -- but heck, I’m still shamelessly enjoying Exorcist spin-offs; they're fun!)
Oh yeah, the plot of The Omen: Some evil people pull Satan’s son out of a jackal’s ass and substitute it for the son of
American diplomats so that it can take over the world much in the way that George W. Bush has.
Speaking of real-life horrors, this movie goes to some lengths to appear relevant, by tying together lines of Revelation
with Hurricane Katrina and to the attack on the World Trade Center and etc. -- plus it very unsubtly explains that the
Antichrist will take over the world via politics.
No duh?
Those searching for depth in The Omen will be sorely disappointed unless they are stupid. There really isn’t any. The Da
Vinci Code represents the theological obsession of a lifetime by comparison (although the two movies would make an
amusing double-feature if audiences were allowed -- and encouraged -- to shout at the screen).
Rather, it is best to take (or leave) The Omen (2006) for what it really is: A silly little carnival ride. The sparse frights are
all of the cheap-shock variety (don’t you just hate it when The Demon In The Evil Mask happens to be standing beside
you in the bathroom precisely when you close the medicine cabinet to reveal him to the camera?), the characters are
creaky and two-dimensional (with peeling paint), and the whole business rushes you along before you get a chance to
inhale and say, “Wait a minute -- that was stupid!”
Also, let us not forget that the 1976 version of The Omen was essentially the breakout movie for Richard Donner, who
had spent many years honing his chops in television -- quite unlike this Omen’s kinda-sorta director, John Moore, who
appears to have honed his chops by watching television. Really, from highly indulgent use of what I call Crap-Cam (that
“professionally” shaky and zoomy rubbish that underconfident directors use to induce “tension”) to ridiculously framed
dialogue shots to the aforementioned haze-overkill to a forehead-slappingly show-offy (and utterly irrelevant) dolly shot
apparently stolen from the first Highlander movie (where it was equally useless, but at least added juice to an action
sequence), Moore seems like a talented guy -- but talented at emulating cool visual riffs -- not at storytelling.
Here’s a bit of advice: When you’re making a movie about the son of Satan arriving in the form of a child to take over
the world, it is a good idea to have some storytelling involved. (I have a Paypal account if anybody in development at Fox
would like to expense this wisdom for the inevitable sequel-remake.)
Sigh. Whatever. Since the publicity stunt for The Omen involves releasing this movie on “The Devil’s Tuesday,” perhaps
the producers could charge a flat-rate admission of $6.66, to match the date. Maybe then I could almost recommend it.
But as it stands, it’s merely trading on a borrowed reputation, rather than establishing a fresh one.
A revisionist ending also would have been nice.
The Omen (2006)
Entertainment Value: 6.66/13
Style: 3/13
Philosophical Insight: 3/13
-Gregory Weinkauf, 2 June, 2006
The Omen remake proves loyal, but shows off no new tricks.
BY GREGORY
Y'know how those pretty English nannies suddenly disappear from the overwrought birthday parties of their charge
who is The Devil Incarnate, only to reappear a few edits later atop a tall manor house, having quickly and industriously
fashioned a handy fifty-foot length of very strong rope into a professional-grade noose for the express purpose of
cheerfully-yet-terrifyingly hanging themselves, in order that the woman whom Woody Allen screwed over in favor of
boinking his own step-daughter may insert her sinister self into the manor-household, the better to vent her cinematic
revenge by torturing and slaying Julia Stiles for being a truly terrible excuse for an actress? Give or take some amusing
supporting talent and yet more lazy cinematic sucker-punches to Christianity, that’s pretty much the gist of this remake
of The Omen. Those who have forgotten the original may find themselves fondly recalling it, and -- more likely -- those
whose parents weren’t yet old enough to see the original back in 1976 will be donating more of their money to the
dubiously pervasive Horror Movie Remake Fund.
As for me, I’m laughing; The Omen is funny -- alas, not quite side-splittingly hilarious, but certainly it’s even funnier
than, say, Alexander or A Beautiful Mind. Some of its erratic chuckles are obviously intentional: like, for instance…
hm…wait a minute -- come to think of it, no -- none of its laughs seem at all intentional.
They’re there, though, including a treasure-trove of yuks in the atmosphere department. We have a therapist’s office and
a priest’s chamber both so obscenely thick with studio smoke that it’s a wonder the characters can breathe -- let alone
unravel the secrets of Satan. Meanwhile, outdoors, we have more amusingly invasive smoke machines as well as peculiar
snowflakes which float upward. We have a whack-job priest who clearly took over the lease on Kevin Spacey’s
apartment from Se7en (or Ben Kingsley’s apartment from Suspect Zero, among many others – you know, that chic style
in which the interior designer was basically instructed to “tape a whole bunch of creepy crap all over the walls” -- I
know it’s in the original too, but still). Massive tomb-lids made of solid Styrofoam? -- we can make ‘em seem heavy if
we add a couple of close-ups of characters theatrically panting after “struggling” to move them! We even get a
mysteriously untended rubbish-bin fire which roars on undeterred in a heavy rainstorm (clearly the work of Satan!) Oh,
and Stiles takes a break from watering dangerously-positioned plants to fall an amusingly long way and land with a very
satisfying thunk upon an Escher-inspired hardwood floor. The floor itself proved too ostentatious for me to feel badly for
her; I snickered.
Speaking of (throat-clearing sound) the talent, Liev Schreiber is funny for various reasons above and beyond his
character’s wall-to-wall absurdly scripted behavior, including loitering in front of a screen-wide American flag as if to
remind us that he also starred in the equally unnecessary remake of The Manchurian Candidate, plus looking like the
bastard spawn of Ray Liotta and Aidan Quinn, plus Mumbling With Intent (plus generally being a tricky person to spell
correctly -- happy I’m my own editor). Stiles, meanwhile, is simply too young, too boring and too utterly emotionally
detached to be attempting a “maternal” role like this (when she kvetches about her Devil-son playing a modern video
game with incongruous vintage video-game sounds -- the Antichrist digs Centipede? Wouldn’t he prefer Sinistar or
Satan’s Hollow? – I seriously thought that some DGA intern had wandered into Stiles’ position and sat down to run lines
for the take, which was then accidentally used in the film). Just as “genre” composer Marco Beltrami’s score is but a
patch on the stunning work of Jerry Goldsmith in the original, these two “leads” seem like drama students play-acting --
badly -- the parts that real actors Gregory Peck and Lee Remick made iconic in the comparatively brilliant original.
Typically, it’s the British thesps who do the heavy lifting. In the mode of John Hurt and Jim Broadbent recently
struggling to save the lackluster productions of The Proposition and Art School Confidential, respectively, a triumvirate
of Limey pros take on the “character” roles here. Michael Gambon appears briefly but impressively as Bugenhagen
(essentially this movie’s Basil Exposition). The always-enjoyable David Thewlis fills in for David Warner as That
Photographer Bloke Who Suddenly Realizes That Satan Is Messing Up His Prints. And the movie’s standout is Pete
Postlethwaite, bald and in manic Michael Stipe mode, as Father Brennan. Brennan is such a god-damned whack-job it’s
no wonder everything goes to Hell. Postlethwaite makes it fun, though. His ravings land far beyond reason (Yeah, yell
insane things at the government executive; that’ll help save the world from the Beast), however he scores a direct hit for
the producers in making Catholicism look crazy (“DRINK His blood! EAT His flesh!”) Why did I like him? Because he’s
funny, of course. And yet, alas, even these three and their ridiculous death scenes can’t salvage the overall movie.
As for the kid in this one -- you guessed it -- he, too, is funny. There is absolutely nothing scary about this boy. Do you
know what he does in order to make evil happen? He scowls ever so slightly, as if he has accidentally pooped a bit. The
tousled little girls from the The Ring franchise (and all its various knockoffs) effortlessly out-evil this Damien. I only
hope that this child with the diabolically unflattering “Moe” haircut does not have his life ruined by starting off with such
a poor self-image projected around the world.
Frankly, I’m already exhausted thinking about how I could go on about the howler-a-minute narrative inconsistencies
splashed throughout this movie (mostly paralleling the original, also by David Seltzer, now with an upped political ante).
At the beginning, American diplomat Robert Thorn is told by a typically super-creepy priest in a hospital in Rome that his
baby “died,” so he oughta just tell his unsuspecting wife that, y’know, this other baby is their “son.” (Like any parent –
like any parent guzzling a bucketful of hallucinogens -- would do that. God may forgive this little deception, but the ever-
sober critic cannot.) Later on, hey, don’t bother checking your clearly apeshit (foreshadowing!) new nanny’s references
or anything. Then at the end, you know, the very best way to go about ending the life of a Hellspawn is to make a huge,
destructive spectacle in front of your own heavily-armed government security forces. Smart dude, that Robert Thorn!
Don’t even get me started on those brainy Satanists who bury jackal-skeletons and murdered-baby skeletons in carefully-
marked graves with all the detail-oriented finesse of window-dressers.
(It’s feeling quite easy to admit that, back when movies took risks, The Exorcist was a bona fide original, whereas The
Omen was a money-spinning wannabe -- but heck, I’m still shamelessly enjoying Exorcist spin-offs; they're fun!)
Oh yeah, the plot of The Omen: Some evil people pull Satan’s son out of a jackal’s ass and substitute it for the son of
American diplomats so that it can take over the world much in the way that George W. Bush has.
Speaking of real-life horrors, this movie goes to some lengths to appear relevant, by tying together lines of Revelation
with Hurricane Katrina and to the attack on the World Trade Center and etc. -- plus it very unsubtly explains that the
Antichrist will take over the world via politics.
No duh?
Those searching for depth in The Omen will be sorely disappointed unless they are stupid. There really isn’t any. The Da
Vinci Code represents the theological obsession of a lifetime by comparison (although the two movies would make an
amusing double-feature if audiences were allowed -- and encouraged -- to shout at the screen).
Rather, it is best to take (or leave) The Omen (2006) for what it really is: A silly little carnival ride. The sparse frights are
all of the cheap-shock variety (don’t you just hate it when The Demon In The Evil Mask happens to be standing beside
you in the bathroom precisely when you close the medicine cabinet to reveal him to the camera?), the characters are
creaky and two-dimensional (with peeling paint), and the whole business rushes you along before you get a chance to
inhale and say, “Wait a minute -- that was stupid!”
Also, let us not forget that the 1976 version of The Omen was essentially the breakout movie for Richard Donner, who
had spent many years honing his chops in television -- quite unlike this Omen’s kinda-sorta director, John Moore, who
appears to have honed his chops by watching television. Really, from highly indulgent use of what I call Crap-Cam (that
“professionally” shaky and zoomy rubbish that underconfident directors use to induce “tension”) to ridiculously framed
dialogue shots to the aforementioned haze-overkill to a forehead-slappingly show-offy (and utterly irrelevant) dolly shot
apparently stolen from the first Highlander movie (where it was equally useless, but at least added juice to an action
sequence), Moore seems like a talented guy -- but talented at emulating cool visual riffs -- not at storytelling.
Here’s a bit of advice: When you’re making a movie about the son of Satan arriving in the form of a child to take over
the world, it is a good idea to have some storytelling involved. (I have a Paypal account if anybody in development at Fox
would like to expense this wisdom for the inevitable sequel-remake.)
Sigh. Whatever. Since the publicity stunt for The Omen involves releasing this movie on “The Devil’s Tuesday,” perhaps
the producers could charge a flat-rate admission of $6.66, to match the date. Maybe then I could almost recommend it.
But as it stands, it’s merely trading on a borrowed reputation, rather than establishing a fresh one.
A revisionist ending also would have been nice.
The Omen (2006)
Entertainment Value: 6.66/13
Style: 3/13
Philosophical Insight: 3/13
-Gregory Weinkauf, 2 June, 2006
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| A Small Plea for Calendrical Sanity: As the de facto representative for the Gregorian calendar, I must ask of everyone (including marketing execs as well as cattle): If the current standard Western calendar began with Year Zero (rather than, as it does, with the bizarre Year One: What, did Jesus emerge from Mary's womb already crawling and saying "Ma-Ma"?), then -- I ask you -- wouldn't this year we arbitrarily call "2006" in fact be the SEVENTH (not sixth) year of this (arbitrarily-assigned) millennium? Hey, it's your ticket. I'm just asking because somebody should. -Gregory |
| Recommended counter-programming: (It's intentionally funny.) |