Amy's Robot

The Omen: The Devil Wears Osh-Kosh

Here are a few reasons to go see The Omen, even though it is a useless remake that got terrible reviews.

• Even though most of the scenes, characters, and dialogue are lifted straight from the original, some of these elements are actually better in the remake. For example, I was always a little bit uncomfortable with Gregory Peck as Robert Thorn. He did a good job and all, but I don't think I'm alone in thinking that the man who played Atticus Finch doesn't need to be running around quoting fake rhyming lines from Revelations and failing to kill the Antichrist, thereby destroying all of humanity. Thorn is a frustrating character who spends the whole movie not making connections, refusing to believe the people who are trying to help him, and basically letting every good person around him die. Watching a great actor like Gregory Peck play an exasperating role in a sort of hokey horror movie always made me squirm a little. But Liev Schreiber? No problem.
• A few scenes in this new movie are totally obvious Stanley Kubrick rip-offs (Julia Stiles in her red bathrobe brushing her teeth in the all-white 2001-esque spaceship bathroom; Damien riding his Razor scooter down the winding hallways just like Danny on his bike.) Not exactly original, but a well-executed Kubrick rip-off still looks cool. [ADM points out that Damien rode a tricycle around some hallways in the original The Omen. I don't know, the way the new version was shot reminded me of The Shining more than the original did.]
• The kinds of people who will go to see a remake of The Omen in the theater are the best horror movie audience, especially the people who make a point of going to see it on 6/6/06. At all the really terrifying moments, the audience at the theater where I watched it shrieked like little girls and covered their faces in a big collective theater-wide heart attack, and then all talked loudly about how terrifying that moment was, and it felt like being at a really fun rock show.
• Whoever had the idea of casting Mia Farrow as the devil's minion/nanny is a genius. In the past couple of years, we've had two versions of a prequel to The Exorcist and a remake of The Omen. Do you think somebody will complete the recreation of the '60's-'70's Hollywood Triumvirate of Satan and do a remake of Rosemary's Baby? Or maybe a sequel--Rosemary's Tween?
• The set-ups of all the deaths that are spookily predicted in the photographer's pictures are like the best scenes from Final Destination. When you know a character is inevitably going to die in some gruesome way, it's fun watching the world around them slowly turn itself into a choreographed domino-effect of death.
• And maybe best of all, if you go see The Omen in the theater, you get to see the trailer for the new Borat movie, which is coming out in November! Trailer doesn't seem to be online anywhere yet, but it will probably show up first on Borat's main site. It looks as great as you would expect it would be.

A note for New Yorkers: The Omen and the screeenings of Blow-Up at BAM that start tonight would make a nice little set of movies about hidden images of death in photographs.

[Thanks to Agent 0019 for the post title.]

categories: Movies
posted by amy at 9:52 AM | #