DVD Tragedy--The Omen

[sistermagpie]

I'm one of those people who watches my favorite movies over and over. I also listen to all the commentaries on DVDs and watch all the extras. And all last week I was in the mood to watch The Omen--so you can imagine my distress when I went to my shelf on Sunday and discovered I had somehow LOST MY COPY! I have no idea how I did it.

The Omen was an important movie in my life. Even though I was far too young to see it when it came out it loomed large in my imagination. Probably it was because I knew it featured an all-powerful kid who gave malevolent death glares and I very much aspired to be one of those as a child. (I succeeded only well enough to occasionally get yelled at to "get that awful look off my face.") The Omen was especially intriguing for my not understanding the title, which I pronounced with a short "o" so that it sounded like "The Almond" without the final d.

The many sequels to the movie can't match the first one--not just because they lack Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner and Billie Whitelaw all perfectly cast in their roles (not to mention Harvey Stephens as Damien whose only tiny flaw is delivering his few lines in a cockney accent), but because I think they fell victim to a common problem in sequels: trying to re-create the original by focusing on the wrong thing.

The guiding principle in The Omen is that while you're pretty sure Damien Thorne really is the anti-Christ, the director always left open the possibility that he wasn't. It's quite possible that nothing in the movie is the work of the devil, and that anyone who believes otherwise is either a nutcase or, in the case of the rock-solid Robert Thorne (what else could he be when he's played by Gregory Peck?), worn down by grief and stress. The kid himself, director Richard Donner points out, "never declares" for either side officially.

The need to leave open the possibility for coincidence meant a lot of unlikely but not impossible accidents--sure you don't expect somebody you know to be beheaded by a random piece of flying glass in the street, especially shortly after somebody else you know got skewered by a falling lightning rod, but it could happen!

The trouble is, you can only really sustain the "what is he?" question for one movie. By the first sequel we've all admitted he's the devil. What we really needed was a new thing to fear now that we knew that. He needed to live up to his potential in the first movie, and he doesn’t. Instead we just get more bizarre accidents which are now blatantly the work of Damien or his off-screen Demonic Dad. Damien becomes like any other serial killer in a franchise, like Michael Myers from Halloween or Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th. The only "suspense" comes from what creative way he'll kill someone next--Hunting dog attack? Thin ice? Elevator turned guillotine? Falling piano?

It’s a whole lot of death for what in the end is no purpose at all. When Damien died and got to hell, he probably faced a lot of lectures about how he spent his life on earth. ("God's kid started off in a manger and look at all the things he did—how come my kid had to be the slacker?") The franchise drags out the story without ever moving forward, so that Damien really isn’t any closer to taking over the world at 32 as he was at five.

But still, he was great when he was five.

Comments

[latxcvi.livejournal.com]

I've always loved The Omen, too, and especially because you weren't really sure if Damien was or wasn't. I adore the way we still don't know for sure at the end of the original.

The franchise drags out the story without ever moving forward, so that Damien really isn’t any closer to taking over the world at 32 as he was at five.

I always thought that the second sequel (the one featuring Sam Neill) would have been awesome if Damien had 'won', if he fulfilled his demonic potential. It was a horror-fantasy franchise after all. There wasn't any good reason Damien couldn't have taken over the world in the third film (this was, of course, before film-makers realized there was real power to the boogeyman winning in the end, like what happens in the Saw franchise or the Japanese horror entries like Ju-On/The Grudge).

I'm one of those people who watches my favorite movies over and over.

Me, too.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I know! How could they not have figured out it would be good if he won? He was Sam Neill for goodness sake--he was great. Instead they have him with that ridiculous woman, whoever she was, and she's just annoying. Then she doesn't even have to do the stuff she's supposed to have to do to kill him.

I remember one mention of that movie once where the person said something like, "Okay, for 3 movies if anybody even looked at Damien funny they'd get hit with a falling anvil five minutes later, but now this chick takes him out just be running up and stabbing him with a shoulder like TAKE THAT!"

[ackonrad.livejournal.com]

Now I want to see this movie, too. Any chance you've just put the DVD somewhere and forgotten about it? If you haven't given it to anyone, I can't see how it can be lost. It has to be somewhere in your house.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee! I love it. I didn't see the remake--it looked bad to me. And it had Julia Stiles in it, which is never a good thing.

What I'm worried happened is a few months ago I was cleaning everything and I threw a lot of stuff out and I'm worried I somehow got that DVD mixed in with a pile of trash! I don't know how I could have done that because it's a DVD, but that's all I can figure. I asked a couple of people at work if I lent it to them and somehow didn't remember but it doesn't look like I did.

[ackonrad.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with Julia Stiles? Not that I know much about her - I've seen her only in 'Ten Things I Hate About You' and 'Mona Lisa's Smile', but except that she could use putting on a little weight (but really, most Hollywood actresses could), I didn't notice anything that bad about her.

Oh, I see - it's possible that you've thrown it away. This sucks, but it can happen. Once my parents managed to throw away some money they'd put into an old shoe and forgot which one it was. Of course, it was their own guilt. I mean, honestly, who hides their money into shoes?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just think she's a terrible actress so it's never a plus when she's in a movie. Although I just remembered she didn't bother me at all in the Bourne movies. Maybe because she was supposed to be a spy so her usual bored expression was fitting!

OMG your poor parents! Never put money in the shoes!

[ishtar79.livejournal.com]

Boo to unecessary sequels, they ruin the 'magic' of so many franchises. Psycho. The Exorcist. The Matrix.

Heh, so you enjoyed the Omen as a kid? I saw it in my twenties and found it terrifying.

Speaking of unnecessary, how about that recent Omen remake? I didn't bother watching, but people tell me it's like the old one word for word-minus the actual atmosphere and uniqueness.

But yes, one of the awesome things about the original Omen is the ambiguity. Somehow it tends to bring it closer to 'our' reality, and therefore is scarier than if Satanic Daddy showed up, horns and all.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Heh--a guy just gave me Exorcist II to watch--he didn't think I'd make it through the whole thing and I almost didn't. I think I'd seen pieces of it before...omg, it's awful. And amazingly it really does destroy the whole point of the first movie. You wouldn't think it was possible but it does. It's like John Boorman wanted to turn it into some weird new age fantasy series or something and it's just...no.

I haven't seen the remake but that was my feeling about it--I think the only reason they remade it was because somebody realized they could release it around 6/6/06. I do think it's funny David Thewol was in it, though. He does seem like a fitting guy to play somebody who was originally David Warner. But honestly, the cast was always going to be somewhat of a bring-down. As the director said about casting Gregory Peck, he just makes the movie because if Gregory Peck is scared, you're going to be scared too!

[alula-auburn.livejournal.com]

My friend and I went to see it one night when we had free passes and nothing better to do, and the presence of David Thewlis and Michael Gambon were by far the most amusing parts. Well, and we had some interior design lust for the house in London, and some speculation about how you get on a post-9/11 plane with a pouch full of demon-killing daggers (provided by Dumbledore!). He didn't even put it them in his carry-on! He sat on the plane with a bunch of knives on his lap!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! That's classic! In the original it's funny because he works in the actual American embassy, only nowadays it's got all these barriers around it. And also they have his desk in front of all these windows where it's hard not to think that if you wanted to assassinate him, it'd be pretty easy!

[artystone.livejournal.com]

It’s a whole lot of death for what in the end is no purpose at all. When Damien died and got to hell, he probably faced a lot of lectures about how he spent his life on earth. ("God's kid started off in a manger and look at all the things he did—how come my kid had to be the slacker?") The franchise drags out the story without ever moving forward, so that Damien really isn’t any closer to taking over the world at 32 as he was at five.

ROFL. Warped by fandom, I am. I immediately flashed on Poor Draco being dissed for not being the Chosen One.

I'm not a fan of the genre, but I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who thinks, "what's the point" of the murder and mayhem in films like these. The original in pretty much any series you get the, "oooh what's really going on here" aspect but after that it's just more pointless death. In Damien's case you'd think Satan would have more important things to do than just randomly off people in all sorts of grotesque ways. I mean, isn't he suposed to be Taking Over The World and all that? Hacking off heads with fire-escapes is all well and good but it only get you so far in world domination.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Exactly--it's actually something I really appreciate about Hostel II, which granted has lots of torture and murder because that's a big part of the series. But they realized in the second one that they couldn't re-tell the same story--the "secret" of the hostel was revealed. So they tried to take a slightly different take, at least, letting us see the bad guys in action and exploring that side of it. So the suspense came not from not knowing but from the fact that we did know and the characters didn't.

In the Omen movies there's nothing interesting about knowing. It's like they never thought through what could actually be scary about the anti-Christ besides that he's the anti-Christ and that means lots of people die around him in bizarre ways. To the point where you are almost like hey, maybe you should use your powers of coincidence to keep people from getting close to the truth to begin with if you're going to have to kill them when they get too close?

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I really like Hostel 2, more than Hostel 1. Totally thought I was in the minority on that one! I know the whole reversal of the Desperate Housewives guys was pretty predictable, but I love the sort of continuation and embellishment of the first film's themes about how the guys always start off just sort of casually dehumanising women in a way that maybe amuses the target audience (which I presume to be adolescent guys - what makes me LOL about this, and Hard Candy, though, is how laughs heard from the audience during castration scenes always seem to male!) like hiring a body, in the first by way of a hooker (and then throwing them off the bed!) to the next level of wanting to hurt them, and it being clearer that these guys sadism was very clearly connected to misogyny (as opposed to the first film, where it's more about them being Americans exploiting Eastern Europe.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I think Hostel II is better than I. The first one is more like "You treated the women as bodies you rent to do things to, and now you're the one who's the whore!" but it's not getting into it as much. The girls in the second one are also smarter than the guys--the guys could have escaped but stay behind because they have to have sex with girls one more time.

But with the girls there's all this other stuff going on--they're lured there with promises of safety, and you have those creepy guys on the train. But it's also got a really clear message: Rich people suck. Or rather, rich people get to decide who lives and who dies. So even though you can see certain things coming that just makes it satisfying. Like, just like you know beforehand that the guys are really going to kill the girl, you also know that she's got more money than they do, and that matters more than sex.

[professor-mum.livejournal.com]

I remember buying the book. I read it one sitting and never looked up. The original movie freaks me out, particularly the scene with Greogory Peck in the graveyard, opening the tomb.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

The graveyard scene is awesome! And the one right before that when Father Spiletto writes them a message when the bells ring at the monastary!

I read the book before I saw the movie, actually, since I was too young to see it. I think I was about 10 when I read it and the thing that freaked me out the most was they said when Damien was born he was...some word I didn't know. Probably "hirsute" because it meant he was covered in hair and that totally freaked me out!

[professor-mum.livejournal.com]

What was the evil nanny's name? Mrs. Baylock? Not the short term girl who does the "It's All For You Damian" hanging...was she a nanny as well?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yup, Mrs. Baylock. I think she's named after a demon.:-)

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I read the book at that age, too! Hilariously, isn't it even more graphic than the movie in some ways? (I seem to remember Father Spiletto or one of the monks having sex with an African guy who's tribe then skinned him or castrated him or something.) And I could have sworn that the 'jackal' line is either much earlier or much later than in the movie...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it's probably more graphic in lots of ways...I'm trying to remember if any sex scenes or anything stand out as they would have to me at that age. I'm sure Spiletto probably had to be doing some weird ass stuff somewhere.

THE ALMOND

[spare-change.livejournal.com]

I still have never seen the Omen (although now I really want to), but the sequel was constantly being played on cable when I was a kid, and there are some images that really stuck with me, like when he doesn't allow anyone to fix his hair and expose the 666 tattooed on his scalp. O_O

Probably it was because I knew it featured an all-powerful kid who gave malevolent death glares and I very much aspired to be one of those as a child.

AHHAHAHAHAAAHAA. ♥ I was the same way ... oh, those childish fantasies of power! And I love that you mispronounced "Omen." I think many kids who read a lot grow up with a vocabulary of words they never learned how to pronounce correctly. I still screw up some words on a daily basis. :D

Re: THE ALMOND

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! What's awful is that if you've seen all three you realize that dang birthmark moves around! In the first movie I think it's at the back of his head when Gregory Peck finds it--like really behind him. In the second movie he has to be able to see it himself so I think it's like on the crown of his head. Then in the third movie it's, like, over his ear. I remember thinking--if you shaved his head would he have those things all over his scalp?

To this day I still sort of pronounce it wrong in my head before I say it right--I have this clear memory of driving down Main Street in New Rochelle and looking up at the orange RKO marquee that was playing it! (And of course we haven't even talked about the music which is fabulous.)

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

The Omen is one of my favorites. It could very well be interpreted as an incident of mass hysteria around one family. I believe Rosemary's Baby was left open to be interpreted as a possibility of Rosemary experiencing a pre and postpartum depression episode. Both movies never make it clear and remain enigmatic.

That is almost never done now. Everything is given to us. No one ever has to interpret anything or come to a decision on their own. Even the news has slant, just in case we don't have the brain cells to properly condemn bad events.

I don't mind sequels, if they are created with a stand-alone ethic. I really hate sequels that just rehash everything that occurred in the last film. Most are like that, because the makers really just want easy money not a good product.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, Rosemary's Baby totally works that way too--is she crazy? Are they crazy? The movie's really more about paranoia than the devil. In fact when the baby's born it's almost like the end of a bad joke--wait, he's got yellow eyes and horns? That's...cute?

I also agree on stand-alone sequels, because they're not always bad. Actually one series I would say really works that way are the Planet of the Apes movies because each one really has a different idea. None of them just re-hash the one before.

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I did a film class once where we had to write a paper on the sexual revolution and it's effect on horror; so how once contraception was widely available and abortion was legalised, there were suddenly more films toying with the idea of children/marriage as the horror itself (Rosemary's Baby, the Exorcist, the Omen, the Stepford Wives...)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I remember reading this one book on horror movies that got into that too--because it was basically like that in the first half of the century horror movies were concerned with things that came from war, and afterwards it was all about contraception, with all sorts of demon babies or monster babies or women being forced to have babies.

[kerosinkanister.livejournal.com]

That's a fantastic post. I admit the Omen never quite grabbed me but I've got a certain soft-spot for that era horror/suspense. The most recent re-incarnation seemed pretty much by the numbers, though Damien at least looked suitably creepy.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's funny when you look back and remember that movies used to be okay with suspense. I get the impression the new one is obviously horror faster.

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

It was such a terrifying movie - you're left with so many questions, and everything seems to happen just out of the corner of your eye. Also, satanic Mary Poppins - it doesn't get better.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I so love Mrs. Baylock. And there's this weird dignity to the movie somehow--part of it's Gregory Peck, but also the settings and everything.

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

I find David Warner creepy in whatever he's in, even when he's playing the good guy.

sure you don't expect somebody you know to be beheaded by a random piece of flying glass in the street, especially shortly after somebody else you know got skewered by a falling lightning rod...

Life is full of those amazing co-incidences, really it is. It only surprises me that the (on-screen) media didn't get hold of it, and turn it into a tabloid currents program 'Child of Doom - Who will be Next???' item, with the presenter then being electricuted by the power cables in the TV studio. No-one ever seems to *notice*, or put 2+2 together except for the one person that no-one listens to. That's one of the rules of the genre, and particularly of any sequels, when the rules become the raison d'etre (forget plot development).

It's a similar scenario (as you say) with Michael Myers: is he just another psycopath? Or is he really the Boogie Man? Sequels give you the answer. (As does the novelisation of the film, which I read once ... I'll have to see if I still have that at home somewhere.)

Devil-Dad's disappointment in his son = >:D

(We saw the sequel on TV the other night. Forgettable.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I know--David Warner is just so...whatever it is about him. So creepy.


I was going to say exactly that about people like michael Myers etc. The more you know, the less scary he is. Backstory is just not a good idea when you're talking about the boogeyman. Or especially when they made Jamie Lee Curtis his sister, because nwo it's just some weird guy who wants to kill his family rather than this primal force of Halloween scariness.

[fictualities.livejournal.com]

("God's kid started off in a manger and look at all the things he did—how come my kid had to be the slacker?")

LOL! That made my day. :D

And oh, yeah, the power of suggestion. You're so right about how much more suspense there is when you don't KNOW that the kid is the antichrist. See, if he's NOT the antiChrist, there's always the possibility that this string of Horrible Things will end -- that they were all coincidences. So each time another one happens it's like discovering that this is the AntiChrist ALL OVER AGAIN -- maybe. Again and again and again you see this evil as if it's the first time. You don't habituate to it, or not as easily.

I think there's a similar dynamic with zombie movies. A full-fledged, drooling, staggering, brain-eating zombie isn't really all that scary. What IS scary is someone who may be about to turn into a zombie at any time. There's that moment of uncertainty when you don't know whether they're a zombie or not. That's what makes me want to dive under my seat.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's funny you mention zombies--I just read this book about zombies taking over the world. And yet of all the zombie movies I've seen the best one is still Night of the Living Dead, which has a small group of people in one isolated house--though in that movie anybody who died became a zombie.

I keep going back to the fact that they got Gregory Peck for it because just having it be this movie star from the 50s makes it all the more serious because he's so believable. Did you know he did the film soon after his son killed himself? He really wanted to work, but they were kind of afraid that the scenes at the end would be far too disturbing at him--but he was okay.

Speaking of creepy kid flicks

[artystone.livejournal.com]

When I was about 12 I watched "The Other" on TV. It remains to this day the creepiest thing I've ever seen. I'm sure that if I watched it now, it'd be campy and stupid, but as I remember it, it worked. I think the scariest part was that there didn't seem to be any reason for the evil (there may have been but I missed it) which made it outright terrifying. All you knew is that there was something very, very wrong with that/those kids.

Re: Speaking of creepy kid flicks

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh hurray! I love The Other--that was another one where I read the book first and the book's better. John Ritter is in the movie, isn't he?

But yeah, there's really no reason for the evil, exactly. Just that Holland is evil. But I loved it--I recommend the book if you haven't read it!