( 6/06/2006 12:03:00 PM ) Bill S.
ALL FOR YOU, DAMIEN! – A few scattered (all I seem to muster lately) thoughts on the original 1976 version of The Omen, sparked by today's release of this remake:- I saw the movie the weekend it was first released, and at the time my then-wife and I didn't have a clue as to what the movie was about, thanx to a profoundly teasing ad campaign. About halfway into the flick – when we realized it was basically a patriarchal spin on the much more disturbing Rosemary's Baby – I suspect we both felt more than a little disappointed, even if the plight of Gregory Peck's distraught daddy had us in its grip. Nowadays, with trailers giving away half the storyline, I don't think anybody would be caught unawares by the movie's subject matter.
- In its day, the flick's state-of-the-art killing fx were considered big stuff. Today, the deaths look fairly tame, but I remember Harlan Ellison once railing against 'em in TCJ back when Omen director Richard Donner'd been announced as the director of Superman – The Movie. Describing the flick's most memorable death – David Warner's beheading by a large plate glass window – Ellison made the effect sound even more explicit than it actually was: demonstrating the imagination's capacity to remake even a visual medium in one's mental movie screen.
- Lead Gregory Peck, playing the American ambassador who discovers that his young son may indeed be the Anti-Christ, was an inspired choice in the original. I'm not sure many actors of either his or the current generation could've pulled off the final scene with the same blend of modernity and Old Testament intensity. (He's killing the monster! He's Abraham killing Isaac!) I've really gotta wonder whether new lead Liev Schrieber possesses enough gravitas to pull this off . . .
Ah, hell, I won't be seeing this 'til it shows on cable, anyway, even if it does mean missing out on a 06/06/06 showing . . .
#
|
|
|
