The latest remake of the classic 1976 horror film The Omen is totally unnecessary and unscary.
We should have known better. Probably one of the biggest gimmicks in the history of filmmaking, John Moore’s The Omen, which was released on 6/6/6 (the Biblical mark of the beast, don’t you know?) last week, is just another limp Hollywood remake. The original 1976 film by Richard Donner is one of the most memorable and haunting horror films ever made. Its death scenes were brilliantly orchestrated and shocking (even today), and coupled with compelling performances by its three leads (Gregory Peck, Lee Remick and the scary Billie Whitelaw as evil nanny Mrs. Baylock), and Oscar winner Jerry Goldsmith’s classic choral score, the original The Omen is unprecedented. Moore’s version, on the other hand, while faithful to its source, is shockingly boring, lifeless and unintentionally funny, with some of the original’s fantastic death scenes deleted for reasons unknown. One thing’s for sure though, The Omen 2006 stinks to high heaven.
Those who have seen the original must be familiar with the plot, although slight adjustments have been made in this awful remake. The ultra-bland Liev Schreiber (The Manchurian Candidate) plays US diplomat Robert Thorn, who, when his son dies in childbirth, takes a substitute baby from a priest at a Rome hospital. Thorn’s wife Katherine (Julia Stiles, Save the Last Dance) slowly begins to realize her child Damien (newcomer Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick), who happens to be the son of the Antichrist, is “different.” How so? Damien violently attacks her on the way to church, and when the little bugger peers through the glass at monkeys in the zoo, they jump frantically around in fright (ooooooh, scary). The increasingly disheveled Katherine must also cope with seemingly harmless new nanny Mrs. Baylock (Mia Farrow, Rosemary’s Baby), who turns out to be one of Satan’s disciples and is after her life. Throw in an eccentric visiting priest (Pete Postlethwaite, In the Name of the Father), who desperately tries to tell Robert there’s a reason his kid is scaring the monkeys away, and an innocent photographer (Daniel Thewlis, Naked) who gets decapitated along the way, and The Omen is one hell of a messy horror schlock.
Director John Moore, whose previous films include second rate actioners Flight of the Phoenix and Behind Enemy Lines, directs this modern pulp trash like he was half asleep. Not only is the film a mere carbon copy of the original (sans the unnecessary jolting dream sequences), Moore has even managed to make the film tiresome and trivial. The laughable cast do not help things either. The expressionless Liev Schreiber trudges through the film as if mildly sedated, while Julia Stiles is equally passive throughout. But the film’s main problems are Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick and the shockingly dreadful Mia Farrow. We crack up every time the former tries to flash us his “evil” stares (which look more like huffy smirks), while Farrow is more funny than scary. When her Mrs. Baylock gets her just desserts, you can’t help but laugh at the whole scenario.
This pallid remake doesn’t generate as much fright as it does giggles. Whoever thought the rise of the Antichrist could be soooooo pathetic?