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The Omen (2006) at 20

17 Wednesday Jun 2026

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The Devil Gets a Digital Upgrade

Twenty years later, The Omen remake remains a fascinating example of Hollywood’s obsession with recreating perfection.

Some films are remade because there is something new to say. Others are remade because technology has advanced. And then there are films like The Omen, a production that seemed to exist because someone looked at one of the greatest horror films ever made and wondered what it would look like with a larger budget, digital polish, and a release date perfectly aligned with the Number of the Beast.

June 6, 2006.

6/6/06.

From a marketing perspective, it was genius. From a creative perspective, the results were considerably more complicated.

Released exactly thirty years after The Omen, director John Moore‘s remake arrived during a period when Hollywood was aggressively resurrecting horror properties. The early 2000s had become the age of remakes. Studios sought recognisable brands, established audiences, and proven concepts. Originality increasingly took a backseat to familiarity. Yet few films presented a greater challenge than The Omen. After all, how do you improve upon prophecy?

Remaking the Antichrist

The original Omen succeeded because it balanced supernatural terror with emotional authenticity. At its heart was not a story about Satan. It was a story about doubt. Gregory Peck‘s Robert Thorn was a man slowly watching certainty erode beneath his feet. Every revelation chipped away at his rational worldview until he could no longer deny the impossible. The horror emerged from belief.The remake understands this structure and follows it almost religiously. Perhaps too religiously.

Screenwriter David Seltzer, returning from the original film, essentially recreates his own script. Dialogue, set pieces, character beats, and narrative progression remain remarkably faithful. The result is less reinterpretation than replication. This is not a film interested in reinventing Damien Thorn. It is interested in introducing him to a new generation.

The Curse of Fidelity

Faithfulness is often treated as a virtue when discussing remakes. Yet fidelity can become its own creative trap. The 2006 version recreates numerous iconic moments with admirable precision. The nanny’s suicide. The cemetery sequence. The horrifying discoveries surrounding Damien’s origins. The infamous glass decapitation. Everything is present and accounted for. Yet something essential feels missing.

The original film possessed a sense of uncertainty. Audiences were invited to question whether prophecy, coincidence, or paranoia might explain unfolding events. That ambiguity created tension. The remake arrives carrying thirty years of cultural baggage. Everyone already knows who Damien is. Everyone knows where the story is going. The mystery has vanished. What remains is execution. And execution alone can only carry a horror film so far.

Liev Schreiber’s Burden

Stepping into the shoes of Gregory Peck was always going to be an impossible task. To his credit, Liev Schreiber wisely avoids imitation.

His Robert Thorn is colder, more reserved, and considerably more contemporary. He projects the confidence of a modern political operator, a man accustomed to controlling outcomes and shaping narratives. This interpretation works surprisingly well. Where Peck conveyed moral certainty gradually collapsing, Schreiber presents professional certainty under siege. His descent becomes less tragic and more existential. The performance anchors the film whenever spectacle threatens to overwhelm substance. Schreiber understands the assignment. The problem is that he is trapped inside a story many viewers already know by heart.

Julia Stiles and the Shadow of Lee Remick

If Schreiber largely succeeds, Julia Stiles faces an even more difficult challenge. Lee Remick delivered one of horror’s most emotionally devastating performances in the original, capturing a mother’s growing terror with heartbreaking vulnerability. Stiles brings intelligence and conviction to Katherine Thorn, but the screenplay affords her fewer opportunities to fully explore the character’s psychological collapse. As a result, some of the emotional devastation feels compressed. The tragedy remains intact. The humanity becomes slightly muted.

Digital Dread

One area where the remake inevitably differs is visual presentation. The original film emerged from an era of practical filmmaking and naturalistic cinematography. Its horrors unfolded within recognisable spaces that felt grounded and tangible.

The 2006 version embraces a more stylised aesthetic. Storm clouds gather with apocalyptic grandeur. Visions arrive with digital enhancement. Biblical imagery receives a modern blockbuster sheen. At times this works beautifully. Certain sequences achieve a painterly quality reminiscent of religious artwork brought violently to life. At other moments, the polish works against the material. The Antichrist is most frightening when he feels plausible. The more elaborate the presentation becomes, the further the film drifts from the unsettling realism that made the original so effective.

A Product of Post-9/11 Anxiety

Viewed twenty years later, the remake functions as an intriguing time capsule of its era. The early twenty-first century was marked by growing uncertainty. Political instability, religious extremism, global conflict, and apocalyptic rhetoric dominated public discourse. Questions surrounding faith and power once again occupied cultural conversation. In that context, The Omen felt strangely relevant.

The idea that evil might infiltrate institutions rather than attack from outside resonated with contemporary anxieties. Damien remained frightening because he represented corruption hidden behind respectability. A child destined not simply to destroy society. But to inherit it. The remake perhaps never fully capitalises on these themes, yet their presence lingers beneath the surface.

Living in the Shadow of Greatness

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing The Omen was that it arrived burdened by comparison. This is not a bad film. Far from it. The performances are strong. The craftsmanship is professional. The atmosphere remains effective. The source material is inherently compelling. Its real crime is being measured against perfection. Richard Donner’s original transformed religious horror. John Moore’s remake preserves it. There is honour in that achievement, even if preservation ultimately proves less exciting than innovation.

The Prognosis:

Twenty years after its release, The Omen remains one of the more respectable horror remakes of the 2000s. Anchored by committed performances from Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles, it successfully introduces Damien Thorn’s terrifying mythology to a new generation while maintaining considerable reverence for its source material.

Yet reverence alone cannot recreate dread.

The film faithfully reconstructs the architecture of a masterpiece without fully capturing the unease that once haunted its corridors.

The devil received a digital upgrade.

But some nightmares remain impossible to improve.

  • Saul Muerte

Blessed Are the Children

13 Saturday Jun 2026

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Why Horror Fears Its Own Future

A child is both a promise and a prophecy.

Few figures in horror cinema are more unsettling than the child. Not the masked killer. Not the vampire. Not the ghost. The child.

For generations, horror filmmakers have returned again and again to images of corrupted innocence, murderous offspring, prophetic youths, and children who seem somehow disconnected from humanity itself. They stare with knowing eyes. They speak with borrowed wisdom. They smile at moments they should cry. And they often possess a terrifying understanding of the world that adults can neither comprehend nor control.

This recurring archetype has produced some of the genre’s most enduring nightmares. Yet beneath the scares lies something more profound than simple shock value. The evil child is not merely a monster. It is a manifestation of our collective anxieties about the future. Because unlike every other horror icon, children eventually inherit the world.

The Corruption of Innocence

The horror genre has always understood the power of contradiction. A church becomes a site of blasphemy. A home becomes a prison. A parent becomes a threat. Likewise, the child becomes frightening precisely because society instinctively associates childhood with purity. Children represent possibility, hope, continuity, and renewal. They are symbols of what comes next. When horror twists those expectations, the results become uniquely disturbing.

This tension was explored with chilling effectiveness in The Bad Seed, one of the earliest and most influential examples of the evil child narrative. Young Rhoda Penmark appears polite, intelligent, and charming. Beneath that perfect exterior, however, lurks a calculating sociopath capable of manipulation and murder. The film’s horror emerges not from what Rhoda does. It emerges from what she represents. The possibility that evil may be innate. That monstrosity might not be created. It might simply be born.

Children of a New World

By the 1960s, horror’s fascination with corrupted youth began reflecting broader cultural anxieties. The post-war generation was witnessing unprecedented social change. Traditional structures of authority were increasingly challenged. Scientific advancement accelerated at a dizzying pace. The future felt uncertain. Into this atmosphere arrived Village of the Damned.

Its platinum-haired children remain among horror’s most iconic images. Possessing telepathic powers and collective intelligence, these youngsters appear detached from ordinary human emotion. They are calm, rational, and utterly alien. Unlike previous monsters, they cannot be understood through conventional morality. They represent evolution itself. The next generation made flesh. The adults of Midwich are not confronting evil. They are confronting obsolescence. It is a fear that resonates far beyond science fiction. Every generation eventually confronts the unsettling reality that the future belongs to someone else.

Damien Thorn and the Birth of Destiny

Few characters embody this idea more completely than Damien Thorn. When The Omen arrived during the height of religious horror, it transformed the evil child archetype forever. Damien was not simply dangerous. He was prophetic.

The Antichrist.

A child whose existence carried apocalyptic implications. What distinguished Damien from many of his predecessors was inevitability. Rhoda Penmark might be stopped. The Midwich children might be destroyed. Damien represented something far more terrifying. Destiny.

The adults surrounding him are not merely fighting for survival. They are attempting to prevent history itself. In doing so, The Omen crystallised a recurring theme that would echo throughout countless films that followed:

Children are frightening because they embody the future we cannot control.

Revolution Through Childhood

The 1970s and 1980s saw the archetype expand further. Nowhere is this more evident than in Children of the Corn, adapted from the short story by Stephen King. Unlike Damien, Isaac and his followers are not supernatural aristocrats destined to rule nations. They are religious extremists who have overthrown the adult world entirely. Parents are slaughtered. Authority collapses.

Children establish their own society governed by violent dogma. Viewed through a cultural lens, the film taps into fears surrounding generational rebellion and ideological radicalisation. Adults become powerless spectators while the next generation constructs a future founded upon values they neither recognise nor understand. The cornfields conceal more than monsters. They conceal the possibility of replacement.

The Impossible Moral Question

Perhaps no film interrogates this theme more directly than Who Can Kill a Child?. Released the same year as The Omen, Chicho Ibáñez Serrador‘s masterpiece strips away supernatural explanations and forces audiences into an ethical nightmare. The title itself becomes the challenge.

Who can kill a child?

The film weaponises one of humanity’s most deeply ingrained moral instincts. Children are traditionally viewed as victims. They are protected, nurtured, and shielded from harm. When they become the aggressors, our ethical framework begins to fracture. The horror emerges not from violence itself but from hesitation. The inability to reconcile innocence with threat. Even today, few horror films pose a more uncomfortable question.

The Child as Reflection

As horror evolved into the 1990s and beyond, the evil child continued to adapt. The Good Son presented evil as domestic and intimate. Orphan manipulated assumptions surrounding childhood itself. Japanese horror introduced spectral children whose grief transcended death in films such as Ringu and Dark Water. These works differ dramatically in style and execution, yet they share a common thread. The child becomes a mirror. A reflection of adult fears, failures, and uncertainties. Whether supernatural, psychological, or symbolic, these figures reveal anxieties that society struggles to articulate openly.

Fear of losing influence.

Fear of social change.

Fear of inherited trauma.

Fear of what awaits beyond the horizon.

Why the Archetype Endures

The continued popularity of evil child narratives suggests these fears remain deeply embedded within the human experience. Every generation imagines itself uniquely positioned at the edge of transformation. Political upheaval, technological advancement, environmental uncertainty, and cultural evolution create recurring questions about what kind of world will emerge next. Children naturally become the embodiment of those questions. They are the future made visible. Hope and uncertainty intertwined. The horror genre simply explores what happens when uncertainty wins.

When the future arrives wearing a smile.

When innocence conceals something unknowable.

When tomorrow no longer belongs to us.

The Prognosis:

From The Bad Seed and Village of the Damned to The Omen, Who Can Kill a Child?, and Children of the Corn, horror’s fascination with corrupted youth has never been about children alone.

It is about what children represent. The unknown future. The next generation. The possibility that the world they inherit may no longer resemble the one we understand. The monster under the bed eventually disappears. The child standing beside it grows up. And one day, inherits everything.

Further Exploration: Children of the Apocalypse

The evil child remains one of horror’s most enduring figures because it attacks one of humanity’s most fundamental beliefs: that children represent hope for the future. Whether they arrive as prophetic harbingers, supernatural vessels, cult leaders, or simply reflections of our deepest societal anxieties, these young monsters force us to confront uncomfortable questions about innocence, inheritance, faith and destiny.

From Village of the Damned and The Omen to Children of the Corn, The Good Son, and modern successors such as Hereditary, horror has repeatedly returned to the unsettling notion that the next generation may not save us—they may be our undoing.

For a deeper dive into the history, symbolism and evolution of evil children in horror cinema, be sure to check out Resurrected Horrors Episode 5: Children of the Apocalypse on the Surgeons of Horror YouTube channel. The episode explores how filmmakers across decades have transformed childhood innocence into one of the genre’s most potent nightmares and examines why these stories continue to resonate with audiences today.

👉 Watch: Resurrected Horrors Ep 5 – Children of the Apocalypse

Because in horror, the most frightening monsters are often the ones we are supposed to protect.

  • Saul Muerte

Damien Thorn: Growing Up Evil

09 Tuesday Jun 2026

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How Omen II and The Final Conflict Turned the Antichrist into a Corporate King

There is a common misconception surrounding the Omen sequels. For many horror fans, discussion of the franchise begins and ends with The Omen, a masterpiece of religious horror whose influence can still be felt in everything from Hereditary to The First Omen. Yet to dismiss the films that followed is to overlook one of horror’s most fascinating character arcs. Because Damien Thorn was never destined to remain a child. Unlike Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, or Freddy Krueger, Damien’s power did not come from his ability to kill. It came from what he represented. The Antichrist was not merely a monster hiding in the shadows. According to prophecy, he was a future ruler. A figure destined to inherit power, influence nations, and usher in the end of days.

The brilliance of Damien: Omen II and Omen III: The Final Conflict lies in their willingness to follow that idea to its logical conclusion. The devil’s child grows up. And the world welcomes him with open arms.

The Horror of Self-Discovery

If The Omen explored the fear of unknowingly raising evil, Damien: Omen II examines something equally unsettling: discovering who you truly are. Directed by Don Taylor, the sequel finds Damien entering adolescence, living under the care of his wealthy relatives while attending military academy. On the surface, he appears to be an intelligent, well-adjusted teenager navigating the awkward transition into adulthood.

Yet beneath that ordinary facade lurks an unavoidable truth. Damien is beginning to realise he is different. The film cleverly reframes the coming-of-age narrative through the lens of supernatural destiny. Most teenagers wrestle with questions of identity, belonging, and purpose. Damien’s journey simply happens to involve discovering he is the son of Satan.

The result is a strangely compelling inversion of adolescence itself. Rather than rejecting a dark legacy, Damien embraces it. His acceptance is not tragic. It is triumphant. And that is what makes it disturbing.

Evil Learns Its Name

One of the sequel’s greatest strengths is its patient handling of Damien’s awakening. The original film kept the child largely passive, a vessel around which terrible events unfolded. Omen II grants him agency. As fragments of prophecy reveal themselves, Damien gradually sheds any illusion of normality. The discovery of the Seven Daggers of Megiddo. The revelations hidden within ancient texts. The mysterious deaths surrounding those who threaten him. Each piece pushes Damien closer toward acceptance of his role.

By the film’s conclusion, the uncertainty that haunted Gregory Peck‘s Robert Thorn has vanished entirely. Damien knows exactly who he is. And he smiles. It remains one of the most chilling transitions in horror cinema. Not because evil wins. But because evil finally understands itself.

From Antichrist to Executive

If Omen II is about awakening, The Final Conflict is about consolidation. Released in 1981 and directed by Graham Baker, the third instalment presents a fully grown Damien played with remarkable confidence by a young Sam Neill. The casting was inspired. Years before audiences would know him from Jurassic Park or In the Mouth of Madness, Neill brought intelligence, charisma, and elegance to the role. He understood that true evil rarely appears monstrous. It appears successful.

By now Damien has become an influential corporate executive with direct access to political power and international influence. Gone are the hidden conspiracies of the earlier films. The Antichrist no longer lurks in the shadows. He sits in boardrooms. Attends diplomatic functions. Commands armies of loyal followers. The devil has learned how institutions work.

The Politics of the Apocalypse

Viewed today, The Final Conflict feels surprisingly prophetic. The film emerged during an era increasingly defined by corporate expansion, global influence, media power, and political spectacle. Damien’s rise reflects anxieties that were beginning to dominate Western culture. The threat is no longer supernatural invasion. The threat is infiltration. Power structures become the mechanism through which evil operates. The Antichrist does not conquer the world through force. He climbs the ladder.

This evolution distinguishes the Omen sequels from many of their contemporaries. Rather than repeating the formula of the original, they expand its scope. The apocalypse becomes less about individual horror and more about societal corruption.

Damien is no longer merely a child.

He is a system.

Sam Neill’s Devilish Masterclass

Much of The Final Conflict rests upon the shoulders of Sam Neill, and he delivers one of horror’s most underrated performances. His Damien is calm, articulate, and frighteningly rational. He does not rant. He does not cackle. He does not resemble traditional cinematic evil. Instead, Neill portrays a man entirely convinced of his divine purpose.

Every action is justified. Every atrocity serves a greater plan. That conviction transforms Damien into something more dangerous than a monster. He becomes a believer. Even decades later, Neill’s performance remains one of the franchise’s defining achievements, elevating material that occasionally struggles beneath the weight of its ambitious theological ideas.

The Child Apocalypse

What ultimately makes Damien Thorn unique among horror icons is that he embodies a specific fear that resurfaces throughout genre history. The fear of children inheriting the future. The fear of what comes next. Films such as Village of the Damned, The Bad Seed, Children of the Corn, and Who Can Kill a Child? all tap into similar anxieties, but Damien occupies a category of his own. He is not merely a dangerous child. He is destiny incarnate. A prophecy walking amongst ordinary people. The sequels understand this fundamental truth better than they are often given credit for. Rather than treating Damien as a slasher villain, they treat him as a political and spiritual force gradually ascending toward power.

Reassessing the Sequels

Neither Damien: Omen II nor The Final Conflict reaches the towering heights of the original film. How could they? Richard Donner’s masterpiece remains one of the greatest horror films ever made. Yet judged on their own merits, both sequels offer far more than their reputation suggests. They expand the mythology intelligently, deepen Damien’s character, and dare to explore questions of power, faith, corruption, and destiny that many franchises would simply ignore. Together they transform a frightening child into something far more unsettling. An adult.

The Prognosis:

While The Omen introduced the Antichrist, Damien: Omen II and Omen III: The Final Conflict completed his evolution. The first charts the terrifying discovery of identity. The second explores the corruption of power. Together they form one of horror cinema’s most overlooked character studies, transforming Damien Thorn from an unsettling child into a chilling reflection of institutional influence and human ambition.

The devil did not arrive to destroy the world.

He grew up inside it.

And for a time, he ruled it.

  • Saul Muerte

The Omen at 50: The Devil’s Child and the Death of Innocence

The Omen at 50: The Devil’s Child and the Death of Innocence

31 Sunday May 2026

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Fifty years later, Richard Donner’s masterpiece remains the gold standard of religious horror.

There is a moment in The Omen when a priest desperately pleads with an American diplomat to kill a child. Not because the child has committed evil. Not because he has revealed monstrous tendencies. Not because there is proof beyond prophecy, superstition, and mounting coincidence. But because the child might be evil incarnate. That moral dilemma remains as shocking today as it was in 1976 and perhaps explains why The Omen has endured for half a century while countless imitators have faded into obscurity. Unlike many supernatural horror films, it asks audiences to confront a terrifying possibility: what if evil arrived not as a monster, but as innocence itself?

Fifty years after its release, Richard Donner‘s masterpiece remains one of the defining works of religious horror and one of the most influential genre films ever produced.

The Antichrist was no longer coming.

He was already here.

The Shadow of The Exorcist

The early 1970s witnessed a profound shift in horror cinema. The collapse of old censorship barriers allowed filmmakers to engage directly with subjects that had previously been considered untouchable. Horror became darker, more adult, and increasingly interested in questions of faith, mortality, and spiritual corruption.

Then came The Exorcist.

Its unprecedented commercial success demonstrated that audiences would embrace horror rooted in religion, theology, and existential dread. Studios quickly sought their own supernatural phenomena, but few understood why The Exorcist had resonated so deeply. Many copied the possession. Few understood the fear. The Omen took a different path entirely. Rather than exploring demonic invasion, it explored demonic inheritance. Evil was no longer an external force seeking entry into the family home. It was already sitting at the dinner table.

Watching.

Waiting.

Growing.

Gregory Peck and the Horror of Doubt

One of the film’s greatest strengths lies in its casting. Gregory Peck was not a conventional horror star. By 1976 he was cinematic royalty, forever associated with decency and moral conviction through performances such as Atticus Finch. That image becomes the film’s secret weapon. As Robert Thorn, Peck portrays a man trapped between rationality and faith, desperately searching for explanations that do not require him to accept the impossible. Every revelation strips away another layer of certainty until the very foundations of his worldview begin to collapse. The horror isn’t that Thorn believes the prophecy. The horror is that he slowly realises it may be true. Peck’s restrained performance grounds the increasingly extraordinary events in emotional reality. His descent never feels theatrical. It feels tragic. The story isn’t about discovering a monster. It’s about losing your child.

Billie Whitelaw Walks Through Nightmares

If Peck provides the emotional foundation, Billie Whitelaw delivers one of horror cinema’s most unforgettable nightmares. As Mrs Baylock, she enters the film with an unnerving calmness that immediately signals something is profoundly wrong. There are no grand speeches or exaggerated villainous flourishes. Instead, Whitelaw weaponises certainty. She never doubts. She never hesitates. She knows exactly who Damien is. And that unwavering conviction becomes terrifying. Many horror villains threaten through violence. Mrs Baylock threatens through devotion. Her absolute belief in evil remains one of the most chilling performances the genre has ever produced.

The Sound of the Apocalypse

It is impossible to discuss The Omen without acknowledging the extraordinary contribution of Jerry Goldsmith. His Academy Award-winning score remains among the greatest ever composed for a horror film. Goldsmith rejected conventional suspense cues in favour of something closer to a corrupted religious ceremony. Latin chants, ecclesiastical arrangements, and thunderous orchestration transform scenes into acts of spiritual warfare. “Ave Satani” does not accompany the horror. It becomes the horror. Even decades later, few scores evoke dread with such overwhelming power. Without Goldsmith’s music, The Omen would still be exceptional. With it, the film becomes transcendent.

Death Scenes and Divine Retribution

For many audiences, The Omen is remembered for its spectacular deaths. The hanging nanny. The impalement. The decapitation. The cemetery attack. These moments have become iconic fixtures of horror history, endlessly referenced and imitated across subsequent decades. Yet what makes these sequences so effective is not merely their shock value. They feel inevitable. Each death carries the weight of biblical punishment. The violence appears orchestrated by forces beyond human comprehension, creating the unsettling impression that fate itself has become hostile. Long before the elaborate mechanics of modern franchise horror, The Omen presented death as destiny.

You cannot outsmart prophecy.

You can only postpone it.

The Birth of Damien Thorn

Horror cinema has produced countless monsters. Very few become cultural archetypes. Damien Thorn joined the rare company occupied by Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Michael Myers because he represented something fundamentally unsettling. Children symbolise possibility. Hope. Continuity. The future. Damien weaponised those assumptions. The film transformed innocence itself into a source of dread, helping establish the “evil child” archetype that would influence generations of filmmakers. From Children of the Corn and The Good Son to contemporary religious horror, echoes of Damien Thorn continue to reverberate throughout the genre.

He doesn’t stalk victims.

He doesn’t wield weapons.

He simply exists.

And the world falls apart around him.

Fifty Years of Dread

Perhaps the most remarkable achievement of The Omen is how little it has aged. Its anxieties remain disturbingly contemporary. Fear of political power. Fear of institutional corruption. Fear of blind faith. Fear of losing control over the future. These concerns feel no less relevant today than they did in the mid-1970s.Indeed, one could argue they feel even more urgent. That timelessness explains why Damien Thorn continues to haunt popular culture. While many horror icons belong to specific eras, Damien speaks to a universal anxiety embedded deep within the human psyche: the fear that evil may not arrive from outside society. It may emerge from within it.

From our homes.

From our families.

From the people we love most.

The Prognosis:

Fifty years after its release, The Omen remains the benchmark against which religious horror is measured. Anchored by magnificent performances from Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, and Billie Whitelaw, elevated by Jerry Goldsmith‘s immortal score, and directed with remarkable confidence by Richard Donner, the film remains as powerful, provocative, and unsettling as ever.

A masterpiece of religious horror.

A landmark of 1970s cinema.

And the birth of one of the most terrifying children ever placed on screen.

  • Saul Muerte

Damien Thorn: Growing Up Evil

Movie Review: The First Omen (2024)

08 Monday Apr 2024

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You ever see a movie and think, who directed this?  Not in an incredulous “who the hell made this shit?” but in a genuine “why is this so good and suddenly not?” sort of way?

So much so, you immediately contemplate: “Did more than one person direct this?”

Thus we come to The First Omen.  The prequel (when is it NOT a prequel these days?) to the all-time 1976 classic The Omen.

Any feature film director, let alone a relatively new one, knows that the first few minutes of a film are incredibly important.  Impact is important.

And the best directors achieve Impact by directing well.  Subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) lens choices, camera angles, camera movement, framing, acting direction, editing decisions, sound design, music cues – the list goes on.

And the first thing The First Omen does is make good choices.  And when I say first thing, I mean the first things we see.

From the get-go the opening scene invokes the feel and tone of the first film.  The bleak overcast, almost oppressive pitch that made Richard Donner’s masterpiece a quintessential 70’s horror is replicated well here, and the Impact Moment that soon follows hits the mark with a promise that this could be more than a paint-by-numbers cash grab.

So what happens after that?

Well for one thing is starts to get a little too 70’s, in that after such a good start, you soon find yourself wondering where is this going?  In an attempt to set up tension (like all good horror films should) it delves into a usual set of characters that you spend valuable minutes deciding whether or not they’re a good-guy in disguise, or a bad-guy in disguise (FYI, you’re guesses will be right).

But the thread the film weaves as we follow its lead – a nun in waiting called Margaret Daino (played by Nell Tiger Free) as she bounces from one character interaction to another, is less rollercoaster and more nomadic.

And a lot of this has to do with direction.  Not that it gets terrible after the first scene.  In fact, it’s quite creditable.  BUT fine is a far cry from great.  And after a number of ok scenes, you do start to wonder “where are the cares and where are the scares?”

Now some of this may not partially (or even solely) be the fault of the director – production company and studio politics (read: interference) is a genuine thing.  But the good action callers know that once out of the blocks, you don’t let up.  Especially for this sort of film. 

Hence my opening tender: “Were different parts of this thing directed by different people”?

This is especially felt during one of the films more tentpole horror moments that the makers were no doubt hoping would be iconic, but is so over the top on paper, it was always going to require a deft hand to ensure it doesn’t fall into farce on screen.

But it does.  And so too the next scene, and the scene after that!  All are so unsubtly on the nose, it’s disappointing.

Having said that, there is a decent enough twist regarding the motivation of the antagonists (the people who want to see the Anti-Christ born) that lies outside of the moustache twirling motive “We are Satanists, so we are evil bahaha.  Derr”.

And the films end dovetails neatly into the events of the 1976 Richard Donner movie.  And when it does, it closes out with an interesting character still alive that promises much for The (presumably) 2nd Omen.

Mind you, how they’ll get that storyline to work without mucking up the timeline or logic of the current existing “sequels” is anybody’s omen.  Sorry, guess.

The Prognosis:

Promises much at the start, but lacks the strength of a true single-minded auteur at the wheel to guide it.  Still, it will be interesting to see if there’ll be an anti-anti-Christ installed for the next chapter.  Such an interesting idea would be a good sign.

  • Antony Yee

R.I.P. David Warner

27 Wednesday Jul 2022

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It’s been a while since I’ve been compelled to comment on the passing of cinemas’ greats, but upon learning of David Warner’s departure from this world, I was moved to write a few words about this great icon of the celluloid screen.

For me, my first encounter with the actor would be on the small screen, possibly on a copied VHS, for the film TRON in his triple credited performance as Ed Dillinger / Sark/ Master Control Programmer. The latter’s monotonous and sinister tones still resonate today such was the impact of Warner’s vocal performance.

Of course, as my movie experience enveloped, and with it my fascination with the horror genre, I grew to learn of his more infamous roles that took place beforehand. This is not to forget his involvement in the controversial Sam Peckinpah flick Straw Dogs which saw him take on the role of ‘a mentally deficient man’, Henry Niles and the shaky-yet-morally integral platform that Dustin Hoffman’s David Sumner chooses to stand upon to defend his cause.

With a couple of years away from the role that would cement his place in horror history though came a notable turn for Amicus Productions’ anthology film, From Beyond The Grave in the segment called The Gatecrasher. Here, Warner plays Edward Charlton, a man who buys an antique mirror, holds a seance, and then goes on a killing frenzy… as you do, before succumbing to the true horror.

It is of course in 1976 when Warner made his mark as the doomed photographer, Jennings in The Omen. His captured images foretelling the deaths of characters including his own now iconic one, The death scene may be the most memorable part to his character, but the role of Jennings was a grounded and necessary part of the revelations in juxtaposition to Gregory Peck’s Robert Thorn. It is Warner’s ability to instill a sense of integrity that makes the shock of his demise all the more harrowing.

There would be some notable non-horror roles in the mix, but once again he would show another side to his on-screen presence as Dr. Alfred Necessiter in The Man With Two Brains to show his knack for maniacal comedy.

Warner would even don one of horror’s most iconic characters in the Creature from a tv adaptation of Frankenstein, before appearing as the father character in Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves. By the late 80s’ he would appear alongside Zach Galligan (who was hot following Gremlins) in Waxwork.

Such was Warner’s presence on screen that it wouldn’t take to long for him to be called upon in successful franchises such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Secret of the Ooze, Tales From The Crypt, Star Trek: Next Generation, and Twin Peaks, 

It would be in the mid 90s when he would work for the first time with John Carpenter in Body Bags that would lead on to his cameo as Dr. Wrenn in In the Mouth of Madness, one of Carpenter’s lesser known masterpieces. He would also cameo for Craven as drama teacher Gus Gold in Scream 2; the same year he would play villainous character, Spicer Lovejoy for a certain James Cameron movie about a doomed cruise ship. You may have heard of it.

There would be further notable twists and turns through his career, and I’m a doing a disservice to his talents here to skip through them with ease, but will address that his turn as Professor Abraham Van Helsing in Penny Dreadful and Professor Cavanaugh were worthy additions to the genre.

It is without doubt that David Warner had an immense impact on film and tv across all mediums. For this writer, he will be always remembered. A true performer in every sense of the word who brought all his characters to life with great rectitude and credibility.

R.I.P. David Warner

  • Saul Muerte

Retrospective: Omen IV: The Awakening

19 Wednesday May 2021

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Whilst I can applaud the attempt to take this well trodden franchise into a relatively bold new direction, this French-Canadian made for tv horror, can’t remove the shackles that Damien Thorn had on The Omen. The problem arises in how this franchise can exist without the antichrist himself being integral to the uprise of evil. The fact of the matter is that it can’t. No matter how you try to dress it up, any manifestation of darkness will be secondary in comparison.

In what would be the last instalment, chronologically speaking before the 2006 remake, Omen IV: The Awakening tries to inject the fear again by introducing Delia to the fold. Delia, like Damian before her, was an orphan with an ominous background and brought into the world in a nun-owned orphanage. 

There are a lot of similarities to the original 1976 feature, with a powerhouse couple (in this instance, two attorneys) Gene (Michael Woods) and Karen (Faye Grant) who raise Delia, only to discover something more sinister at play. Also the protective nanny, overseeing that no harm should befall the anointed one. Omen IV appears to follow a more female gaze with Karen’s journey as the central theme in juxtaposition to Gregory Peck’s Robert Thorn. It’s a missed opportunity however as if this wasn’t tied down to 90s tv budget territory, there could have been a more poignant message to explore here. 

There are some other nice elements, such as the army of New Age spiritualists who deem themselves strong enough to rise up against the forces of evil, but prove to be too weak. I also like the cojines twins macguffin that held the idea of the antichrist reborn. It’s a loose thread but one that I could attach myself too. No pun intended.

Despite these elements, Omen IV was always punching above its weight and restricted to the platform of choice in order to carry out the story. It suffers from poor acting as well, so it was never going to amount to much trying to deliver a paper-thin version of what the original movie was able to achieve.

  • Saul Muerte