Movie Info
Movie Name: The Omen
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): June 6, 2006
MPAA Rating: R
That’s going to leave a scar
When the son of Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber) is stillborn, Robert is secretly convinced to take in an orphaned child without telling his wife Katherine (Julia Stiles). As their child Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) ages, Robert and Katherine both begin to see differences with him…and horrific accidents surrounding their lives. Robert is contacted by a priest named Father Brennan (Pete Postlethwaite) who seems to know the truth about Damien. Robert is on a race against time with a photographer named Keith Jennings (David Thewlis) to uncover if Damien could actually be the Antichrist.
Directed by John Moore, The Omen is a horror thriller. The film is a remake of the 1976 Richard Donner movie and the movie’s marketing campaign based itself around the release on June 6, 2006 (aka 06/06/06…which features into the story heavily). The film fared decently in the theater, but was met with mostly negative reviews by critics who felt it didn’t compare to the original film.
Seriously…you’re grounded young man!!!
The Omen was a classic. I can admit that though The Omen was quite creepy and the almost Rube Goldberg type deaths were fun, it was really slow pacing and so-so storytelling. Instead of improving on this, the new Omen film just made the same mistakes with less style and vision.
The story is a very tense story on paper…the only hope for humanity is to kill a child that could bring about the end of the world and the only person who can kill him is the person that raised him as his son. The first movie was quite slow and deliberate, but did need to pick up the pace a bit. Here the process is sped up, but there are no surprises since even the deaths match up with the original for the most part. If you haven’t seen the original Omen, there could be some shocks, but it seems to me that the movie would be pretty predictable even then.
Parents always have to force their kids to go to church
The one thing that the movie does have going for it is a great cast. I love Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles who both always seem to bring a bit more depth to their roles than other actors. Both roles were highly coveted and had many actors up for them…Pierce Brosnan and Jim Carrey for Roberta and Hope Davis, Laura Linney, and Alicia Witt for Katherine. Mia Farrow was wanted for the film and surprised some by taking the role as the crazed nanny. Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Gambon, and David Thewlis round out the cast nicely and add some depth to the shallow story. Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick just doesn’t have the original Damien’s creepy factor, but does a nice job. The movie does also features a small appearance from the 1976 Omen’s original Damian Harvey Stephens as one of the reporters questioning Schreiber about his nanny’s death.
Don’t hate me because I”m the Antichrist
With movies like Final Destination taking the deaths from The Omen series and upping the odds, it just doesn’t feel like this version of The Omen went far enough. Other than the death in the car, there aren’t any “new” deaths and most of the deaths are just rehash of the deaths from the original film. Things like Thewlis’ beheading however don’t just reach the shock level of the original’s style and look (though I did like there was a bit of a red herring with a sloped path near the scene of the death).
The Omen isn’t a horrible movie, but it is a movie you watch and say “Why?” if you saw the original. I recommend checking out the original movie…and maybe the first sequel, but I can’t really recommend this Omen for scares or shock…it’s just extremely average horror with an above average cast. Damien apparently gets to live a life of leisure and death with this Omen being the last of the series…but Hollywood loves to rehash things, and an Omen TV series called Damien ran for one season in 2016.
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