The Omen

Review by Clint Morris

It’s evil. It’s malevolent. It’s self-seeking. It’s narcissistic. It’s maniacal. It’s uncontrollable. It’s plain sinful. But who can really blame Hollywood for remaking all these old horror movies? 

They’ve resulted in quite a few Christmas bonuses, after all.

Think of going to see The Omen 666 like generously donating to the Children’s hospital appeal on Good Friday. They’re getting the financial prize, and hopefully, some joy and reward, and you’re getting…well, you’re getting the satisfaction of helping another - in this case, giving so that that the Hollywood Horror remake-machine ‘may grow’. 

Don’t you feel good?

Most are as familiar with the story of The Omen - first directed by Richard Donner in 1976 - as they are cracks in a sidewalk: the U.S ambassador and his partner (in this case, Liev Schrieber and Julia Stiles) take home a baby from the hospital that’s not actually theirs. He knows it, she doesn’t. What they both don’t know is that the kid is actually the spawn of the devil, and before the end credits, he’s got a few people to take out. Yep, typical six-year-old - only one that’s got the nanny on his side (a devilish Mia Farrow), a teed off dog from hell, and an ability to sway his father - in this case, Satan himself - to do some of his dirty work for him.

Lay down the pitchforks, put away the flame-throwers, toss the stones back on the driveway: for once, we’ve no reason to picket a remake. Yep, you read right, this is actually quite good.

Unlike a lot of the remakes of late (see Fun with Dick and Jane or The Amityville Horror for examples) this one has actually been left in the pre-production toaster long enough to brown, and the result is a remake that’s both appetizingly loyal, and even slightly fresh - mainly because it’s been somewhat contemporised in it’s execution. It mightn’t be anything new, but it’s an oldie that still delivers.

We don’t just have a superb line-up of actors giving their all (Schrieber is especially good, Farrow is fantastic as the Nanny/bodyguard, and newcomer Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick is the perfect Damien), but we’ve got stunning cinematography, to-die-for locations and a genuinely creepy score by genre maestro Marco Beltrami. Moore’s direction is also slick, seemingly determined to give it the 70s feel and look of Dick Donner’s original.

On the other hand, director Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, Flight of the Phoenix) has followed the original so directly (it’s actually the same writer, too), that nothing in the film comes as that big of a surprise. Maybe if he’d shaken things up a bit - killed someone we were expecting to live, for instance, or vice versa, because that’s how it played out in the original film - it might have offered a little more in it’s own right, standing on it’s own more so it's its own entity. Still, it’s not quite as close to the original as Gus Van Sant’s Psycho - that was just plain wrong!

Like an employee who pulls some overtime to win a promotion he’s never going to get, the work John Moore has put into the remake is great, and very welcome, but rather unnecessary.

3.5 out of 5

The Omen
Australian release: 6th June, 2006
Cast: Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow, David Thewlis, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Gambon
Director: John Moore
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