Next post spoilers.
Fucking awesome! I was afraid that the Omen would fall victim to Hollywood’s “lets make a remake and change everything around” philosophy. The audience at my theater started chanting started chanting “Kill Mrs Baylock!” and erupted in clapping when the bitch got run over. Did anyone else think for a splint second that the Pope commited suicide at the end?
Well, I may end up being in the minority here, but I thought the movie was horrid. I got the feeling the audience I saw it with had the same thoughts, because they erupted in laughter at several different parts.
It seems like the movie relied on cheap jump scenes (accompanied by shrieking noises), on par with the ‘jack-in-the-box’ links that you see so much. I’d rather watch a horror movie actually rely on horror to scare you, not “Boo! Here’s a dog!”
Then again, I haven’t seen the original, so maybe I’ve missed something.
Ebert and Roeper liked it. They said it was almost shot-for-shot like the original. Roeper was particularly pleased with the satisfying “kills”.
I don’t plan to see it. I liked the original, saw it in the theater. I remember some uncomfortable laughter though, back then. The violent scenes were telegraphed. Maybe the laughter was a release of tension. (?)
Not being snarky or anything, but what’s the point of doing a shot-for-shot remake? I thought the point of remaking something was to put it in a different context, or to add your own interpretation to the story. Isn’t it kind of like Xeroxing the Mona Lisa?
And the laughter could have been nervous laughter, but for example: One of the times was when Ms. Baylock was feeding Damien strawberries.
Oh, and BOO! Here’s a dog!
The point of a modern remake is to have a product with instant name recognition to put in theaters, since moviegoers as a rule don’t tend to go to the theater unless they know in advance what they’re going to get.
I haven’t seen the original since I was a kid and don’t remember much. Except for Damien surviving most scenes were a surprise. Was Damien the President’s godson or was his father?
The kid is the Antichrist
Is there still that scene where Damien’s father is searching all over Damien’s body for “the sign” and he finds:the number 666 on Damien’s scalp under his hair?I thought that was really scary when I saw the original film.
I just got back from seeing the movie, and while it’s not what I would call a great movie, I did enjoy it. It probably helped that the theater was full, so we got the benefit of the communal experience (which I think helps for horror movies with everyone getting scared at the same time and then laughing in tension release afterward) and forcing my group to sit close to the screen since we got there late meaning that everything was even scarier. Also, Liev Schreiver is dead sexy in my opinion, so for the short time periods when the movie plot didn’t have my attention, I was still happy.
I saw the original a few years ago and remember liking it, but not thinking that it was a great movie that it would be a travesty to remake, and I thought the new one was an enjoyable way to spend the evening out with friends.
They pretty much have that in the new one:
The dad goes to visit a priest in Megiddo to find out how to kill Damien. The dad feels skeptical about killing a small boy, and the priest says that the child should have a 666 birth mark, and that if it’s no where that the dad has seen before it must be under the scalp. So when the dad goes home, he starts cutting the boy’s hair off and finds the 666 birthmark.
As I said before, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the original, so I don’t remember if it happens in the new one exactly like in the original, but it was very similar I believe.
I totally agree. It’s not like The Omen is a movie that could be “improved” by better effects or more accomplished actors. The first one had Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, for pete’s sake.
I don’t know if Roeper’s “shot for shot” comment was intended as praise or something else, but he seemed pleased that the movie wasn’t reinterpreted.
People keep complaining about remakes, but they keep coming, and they must be making money. nonsuch is probably right – many (most?) viewers want to know what they’re getting.
Just got back from watching it.
I was too young to watch the original when it came out, and never got around to watching it on tape (although I did watch the second and third movies). So I had nothing to compare this movie to. Maybe that’s why I liked it. I’ve read reviews complaing that the acting was inferior to the original, but I though the actors were all well cast - except Damien, who was too creepy to be … creepy. You know what I mean? He seemed to be pretty well aware of the fact that he was the spawn of Satan, whereas in the original series he doesn’t find out until he’s much older and is horrified when he finds out (at first, anyway). IIRC, anyway. I thought it would have been more jarring if he’d seemed more normal.
But apart from that, I enjoyed the movie. The scenes were pretty eerie, especially the one where the dad and the photographer in the boat - it reminded me of Dante’s Inferno and the River Styx. The dream sequences I found to be downright creepy, but then again I am just a big wuss.
I can usually milk entertainment out of anything…
but not this.
First- with few exceptions, this is a shot-for-shot remake with mostly lackluster performances. The only two standout performances were David Thewlis (sp?) as the photographer and a truly luminescent Mia Farrow as Mrs. Blaylock.
Second- the beginning starts with an added scene of a priest in the Vatican Observatory discovering a triple comet, preparing a report on the End-Times signs & presenting it to the Pope & his select council of Cardinals. So far so good, except Revelation 8-9 is horribly misquoted. That just set the movie on a bad foot forward for me.
Third- Liev & Julia- yaaaawwwwwwwnnnnnn!!!
Fourth- BOOM MIKES GALORE!!! DID NO ONE SEE THE BOOM MIKES!!! SURE- THE CAMERA WILL OCCASIONALLY CATCH ONE & THE EDITOR MAY OCCASIONALLY MISS IT BUT THEY WERE ALL OVER THIS DAMN MOVIE!!!
Fifth- the really scary grabber scenes in the previews were very brief dream/vision flashes with no real substance in the story. I thought at least those would refer us back to the NBC miniseries REVELATIONS, which was just a prequel for THE OMEN.
I loved the first one- saw it the first week of release in the theater 30 years ago. I thought the second one was even better. They mucked up III & I vaguely stayed aware of the TV-made IV (was there a V?)
I wish I had slept two more hours & caught this one on DVD.
That’s a problem with the way the theater has the projector adjusted. Same thing happend to me when I saw ‘Signs’ pretty much ruins the movie. You need to talk to the manager when this happens.
If you’re going to nitpick that, why not nitpick the 666 vs 616? (Talked about here and here too) At some point, you just have to ignore “facts” and suspend belief. Like, why would you bother to bury the jackal’s body and then the baby’s body and make sure that the hole in the skull is easily evident?
As for me, I thought the movie was ok. I had seen the original and got a bit bored when the remake followed it scene by scene. Oh, here comes a dog, here comes the police at the end…etc.
If we’re gonna nitpick minor things, how in the hell did the dad manage to get several daggers on board a plane? Are ambassadors afforded some special luxury of being able to bring weapons on board? Because, from what I hear, they won’t even let you have nail clippers, or scissors.
Do private planes get special dispensation for these things? (And how much does an ambassador make?)
Most movies are not matted (Having the black bars on the top and bottom of the picture) like they are on DVD instead the projectionist must line up the film properly so that the unintended images of booms or planes up in top corner of the screen during the sermon on the mount scene are cut from the screen.
Part of this problem is also some directors are lazy and decide that because the offending image is out of the intended viewing area it doesn’t matter, hoping the projectionist will do their job
Complain to the theater about the projectionist, not about the filmmakers.
Roger Ebert:
Many projectionists lack the skill or the equipment to properly frame movies in their original aspect ratios. This problem is more common than you might think. When you see a boom microphone dipping down from the top of the screen, especially more than one in the same picture, the odds are overwhelming that the fault lies not with the filmmakers, but with the projectionist right there in your theater, who is showing the film in the wrong aspect ratio and allowing you to see more than the intended visible picture area.
He was on a private jet. Likely a US government one. Did anyone else think it was odd that aside from Mrs Baylok the Thorns had no live-in servants? And they have some weird taste. Damien’s bedroom looked like an attic used for storage. And that bathroom was just bizzare.