Like most movie genres, horror films go through various phases from time to time where different sorts of stories and filmmaking styles become popular with both filmmakers and moviegoers. In the 1960s and '70s, that involved the "serious" horror story involving the guy from down under. No, not Paul Hogan or Steve "Crikey" Irwin, but the devil himself, a.k.a. Satan, Beelzebub, et al.
There was "Rosemary's Baby" from 1968 where Mia Farrow ended up pregnant with Satan's spawn. In 1973, Linda Blair became possessed by you know who in "The Exorcist," while little Harvey Stevens played the bearer of bad tidings (not to mention the old "666" birthmark) in 1976's "The Omen."
All were helmed by men who were or became big stuff in their profession (Roman Polanski, William Friedkin and Richard Donner respectively) and the films scared the bejesus out of millions of moviegoers, becoming cultural icons for their day and pretty much thereafter.
Notwithstanding the theatrical and made for TV follow-ups they spawned, that success meant they'd eventually be ripe for the picking in terms of remakes, with the latter film getting the first such treatment. Pretty much following the original in terms of plot, characters, scares and means of supernatural death, "The Omen" may very well be the best comedy of 2006.
Of course, I both jest and exaggerate, as this is not a spoof. Nor is it a shot for shot remake like Gus Van Sant's recycling of "Psycho" a few years back. But I'm not making it up when I say that average moviegoers and critics alike at a recent press screening broke out into laughter at various times during our advance screening.
Some titters came from "insider" knowledge such as the introduction of Mia Farrow playing the lead nanny part and stating that she loves working with children (the joke being the "Rosemary's Baby" connection and her decidedly different outlook on demonic rugrats back then).
But most of the rest came from moments where I doubt the cast or crew imagined they'd be generating comedy. Namely, those concerned young Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as Damien delivering what were supposed to be incredibly intense, disturbing and soul-piercing looks at others.
Whether it's because the cat's already out of the bag regarding any of the film's "big surprises" (since we saw most of them the first go-round) or just the way the kid emotes those demonic feelings (or a combination thereof), such moments generated some decent, albeit presumably unintentional comedy.
Had the filmmakers -- director John Moore and screenwriter David Seltzer -- been able to foresee such reactions, it might have behooved them (not to mention the viewer) to go the camp route. That certainly would have explained the parents -- played by Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles who replace the originals embodied by Gregory Peck and Lee Remick -- and their naive, lazy and/or stupid manner of rearing their child and reacting to his tantrums and other such troubling behavior.
That said, Farrow seemed to have gotten the memo before shooting commenced. She delivers an entertaining bit of high camp as the older nanny who turns from nice to quirky to crazily dangerous in short order, thus injecting some much needed energy into this otherwise staid production (where the occasional grisly deaths and other supernatural doings somewhat manage to break up the otherwise slow monotony that is the story).
Playing it straight, Schreiber and Stiles have a harder go of it. Their chemistry together or with Davey-Fitzpatrick as their son never feels convincing or right (the latter, I suppose, appropriately so), and thus our interest in their well-being and/or quest to discover the truth and deal with it is severely impacted.
The always terrific David Thewliss appears as the paparazzi style photographer who gets caught up in what seems to be the coming of the Apocalypse. While he has some fun moments, he's otherwise hampered by the plot that ends up turning him into one half of the supernatural Hardy Boys (Schreiber being the other). And Pete Postlethwaite seems to have fun chewing up the scenery as the obviously troubled priest who repeatedly tries to warn the Ambassador that his little devil of a son, is well, really the little devil.
Perhaps if the first film didn't exist, this one might have been more interesting or, more importantly, scary or at least spooky. But this one's biggest scares come from standard horror film jump scenes (even worse, some are of the cheap nightmare variety), and it's as slow as molasses (although it's stylishly framed and shot).
It also cheaply uses real-life events such as 9/11 for its apocalyptic fodder, and everyone appears to have received incredibly diverse (and not particularly complementary) acting direction, leaving the offering ending up being unintentionally funny when not boring, rather than spooky or disturbing. And that inadvertent laughter is not a good prognosticator for "The Omen" remake going down as a classic in the genre. It rates as a 4 out of 10.
![[Logo]](/images/screenit_logo2.jpg){kind=logo}
