The OctOmen - Take 2: The Omen: 666 (2006)

This IS rare – a double header!

In my defense, both of these were…they were something else, and while I could have just took things past deadline, I really want to close this month proper with the books. I meant what I said, I’m having more fun with those than I expected.

But that is for Halloween proper.

For now, I want you to travel back in time with me once again. The year is 2006, and Hollywood is still madly in the throes of its love affair with horror remakes. With degrees of success coming from rebooting The Ring, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead and The Hills Have Eyes, just about every horror property was getting sized up for a modernization for one reason for another.

The Omen’s reason for being remade, if the marketing is anything to go by, may be the most unashamedly cynical out of the entire collection. A quick trip through the internet on promotion, as well as that alternate marketing title, makes it easy to see how the producers of this remake were REALLY counting on that June 6^th release date to help put butts in seats. Even back then it was hard to shake the feeling that this entire project was banking on that 6/6/06 release date to help sell the movie.

In the interests of giving the movie its fair shake, I did my best to push the sour, cynical taste the marketing left in my mouth to the side this time out. I hoped that, after having managed to find the good and bad in parts II and III, maybe I could find more redeeming in this than I had remembered from seeing it all those years back.

I don’t know if you want to see it as a good or a bad thing that the first good thing I can say for this is that it IS better than Omen IV: The Awakening.

Independent of that point – I wanted to feel like I was being harder on this movie than I was. On paper, this does have some promising elements in it – David Seltzer is scripting it again, the production values look decent enough, and the cast list sports names that, on their own, I’d find promising.

I keep wanting to make some manner of joke about the fact the actor playing the priest here was previously famous for being in Cannibal Ferox, but somehow, just that thought on its own is pretty hard to top.

I stress again – I really wanted to feel like I was being harder on this movie than it needed.

That said, the first thing coming to mind this time was being surprised by how dated this movie feels now. From the first ten minutes, this movie shows its age, placing itself rather uncomfortably with a sequence that establishes doomsday prophecies foretelling Damien’s arrival – prophecies invoking real life disasters such as 9/11, the Columbia disaster, and Hurricane Katrina to prove their point. I can appreciate verisimilitude as much as the next person, but given the furthest of these disasters was only four years out when they were filming this, it’s a little surprising no one – test audience or studio member – didn’t see this and ask “…you really sure you want to do that?”

More than that awkward opening beat, however, is the overall direction and editing on this movie, which makes it incredibly easy to place in time when this was made. Between the movie’s color palette and the use of stylistic speeding up and slowing down repeatedly throughout, it didn’t really come as a shock to me to realize that, prior to this, director John Moore’s earlier work was making action films. There’s points here where he seems to have a hard time turning it off, such as in a scene when Thorn and Jennings go to Israel. Their arrival includes passing through an armed checkpoint in a prolonged moment that carries less like a horror movie cue and more like a scene from a mid-2000s action/war drama. Back when I first saw this, I really didn’t pay the scene much mind, but watching it now, I'm surprised at just how much it places this movie time-wise.

Another area where I give this movie some credit, it does make another bid to bring a more pronounced horror element than some of its predecessors did, and again, it does so better than IV did. How successful it is on its own is debatable. Some of the more memorable sequences offered up are the nightmare sequences the movie gives to both Katherine and later Robert Thorn – offering vividly colored, stylized shots that loosely tie to the story but seem more about making a strong visual than they do making sense.

Also, credit where it's due - I give Seltzer brownie points for slipping in a reference to the jackal skull hallucination that got cut from The Final Conflict. It might not have been his intent, but I'm giving him the points anyway.

Outside of the nightmare sequences, the movie’s success with horror gets shakier. This is thanks in no small part to an uneasy sense of just when and how to use suspense. At times, we have scenes like when Katherine walks in on Damien making a late-night snack that the movie tries its hardest to make unnerving and sinister. By comparison, a later sequence with Thorn and Jennings in the cemetery where Damien’s mother is buried, while shot with a good overall atmosphere, doesn’t  seem interested in building suspense. For a moment that contains three major surprise beats, two of which should be shocking reveals for our protagonist, the reveals are presented in a matter of fact way that robs them of much of the impact it feels like they need.

Part of this is also on the cast. I wanted to be able to speak better for them because, on paper, I can see the potential for these roles. Unfortunately for one reason or another, the performances just aren't landing. Liev Schrieber and Julia Stiles are both generally good actors, which makes it surprising to see them both feel so completely checked out for much of the movie. For his part, Schrieber is trying to compensate with a decent Gregory Peck impression, but it only takes him just so far when his performance makes it hard to feel he’s especially concerned about the fates of his wife or son.

"...so anyway, next day Brando shows up on set with a bucket of ice on his head. I ask what that's about and no one has any answer. Trust me, as crazy goes, this movie's got NOTHING on that."

The supporting cast likewise sports some talented names – Pete Postlethwaite, David Thewlis, Michael Gambon, and Mia Farrow in a move I wish didn’t feel as much like stunt casting as it does – who also seem unsure what to do with their parts. Postlethwaite and Gambon in particular feel like each is bringing a performance better suited to the other's role – where Postlethwaite feels more sad and contemplative, Gambon is presented as half crazy and close to barking orders to Schrieber with a desperation that feels out of place with the rest of the scene he's in.
As the newcomer to this cast, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick isn't too bad as Damien. Or if I’m being honest, my issues with Damien don’t stem from his performance. Like IV before it, this movie really doesn’t seem that interested in having evil hide itself, and much of how Davey-Fitzpatrick is shot and directed leans heavily into that, presenting him as quiet, with a constant dead-eyed stare. It’s a version of the character that you’d expect to see in a parody making light of everyone’s obliviousness to the obviously evil child.

Well, evil or an insomniac. Either way, it feels like they're really leaning into making him 'other.'

I can’t help but feel a bit of bookending writing about this. Watching this remake compared to the first further confirms how much of what made the 1976 version work was Richard Donner and his cast’s handling of the story. Even with Seltzer coming back for this, this version feels like a misstep. It’s certainly stylish – a feature that is both a blessing and a curse given how some of it dates the movie – but under that, the movie’s direction and performances feel lacking. It’s not a complete mistake of a movie, but it falls prey to the same pit the sequels fell into in that it feels like it really could have been more than it turned out to be.

Well, I can’t say my opinion of this is better than before, but it at least feels like I understand why it didn’t work for me more this time around. It’s a step at least.

And now the fun part – tomorrow we bring this month to an end with a literal apocalypse, in more ways than one, with the bonus look at the final two novel-only Omen sequels.

Till then.