The Omen (2006 film)

The Omen (previously known as The Omen: 666) is the 2006 remake of the 1976 horror film The Omen. The film is directed by John Moore and is written by David Seltzer. Principal photography began on October 3, 2005 at Barrandov Studios in Prague, Czech Republic.

The Omen was released on June 6, 2006 (6/6/06) at 06:06:06 in the morning. This symbolically represents the number 666, which, according to the New Testament Book of Revelation in the Bible, is the Number of the Beast.

The Omen opened on a Tuesday in order to be released on June 6, and recorded the highest opening Tuesday box office gross in domestic box office history in the USA, by earning more than $12 million. Eerily, the film earned $12,633,666 on its first day, with the last three digits ending in the number 666. However, Bruce Snyder, Fox's president of distribution, said, "We were having a little fun" when referring to his studio's manipulation of the box office number's last three digits ^*.

Plot summary

Robert Thorn is a senior diplomat in the United States federal government, stationed in Italy. After two miscarriages, his wife, Katherine, gives birth to their child, a stillbirth. Katherine does not find out that her child has died, and Robert is acutely aware that this news would devastate her.

However, the hospital's priest, Father Spiletto, presents Robert with a way to spare his wife the anguish: another boy was born that night, but his mother died in childbirth. Robert is convinced to take the baby as his own and never tell Katherine. They name the boy Damien.

Robert's career ascends over the course of the next five years. He is initially named Deputy Ambassador to his friend, but the ambassador dies at 6:06:06 due to a freak accident caused by a man who may be a demon. Then he becomes the United States' ambassador to the United Kingdom and the family settles into an estate outside London. But disturbing events, all seeming to revolve around Damien, occur. The most prominent of these is the hanging suicide of Damien's nanny at his birthday party. A trip to the city zoo ends with the animals going into a murderous frenzy. And, most bizarrely, Damien himself becomes hysterical during a drive to church and blurred movements in a series of photographs taken by the photojournalist, Keith Jennings foreshadow a number of shocking deaths.

Having become suspicious, fuelled by the warnings given to him by Father Brennan, Robert goes in search of Damien's real mother. However, he discovers a carcass of a jackal-like doberman, canine. Beside the grave is the 'child' of the jackal (which should be Damien); Robert discovers a corpse of a little infant with a cracked skull. He realizes his real son was murdered that night.

After Katherine is murdered by Mrs. Baylock when she visits with the pretext of Damien wanting to deliver flowers to his mother, she injects her IV line with an air bubble; Katherine is very weak from the accident and sedatives and dies while struggling to stop Baylock, the Nanny, who is also evil. Robert is convinced that Damien is the root of these incidents, then finds out that his concern is warranted after a visit to a priest in the holy land: Damien is the long-prophesied Antichrist. Robert Thorn decides to kill his son in a church, by means of stabbing him with the seven Daggers of Meggido, in the shape of a cross - the only weapons in the world able to harm the Anti-christ. Unfortunately, Robert is killed by an Officer of Diplomatic Protection Group, attached to and trained by Specialist Firearms Command team while reciting the Lord's Prayer with his son struggling beneath him and Damien survives. Damien watches his father's funeral with a smile while holding the hand of the President of the United States, who is Robert's Godfather. During the last shot of the film, Damien turns around and sinisterly smiles at the camera.

Cast

Actor	Role
Liev Schreiber	Ambassador Robert Thorn
Julia Stiles	Katherine Thorn
Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick	Damien Thorn
David Thewlis	Keith Jennings
Pete Postlethwaite	Father Brennan
Mia Farrow	Mrs. Baylock

Differences between the 1976 and 2006 versions

In the original Damien knocked Katherine over the railings by bumping his tricycle into the chair she was standing on at the time. In this version Damien knocked Katherine over the railings by bumping his scooter into the chair she was standing on at the time.

Deaths

Before the nanny committs suicide during Damien's birthday party the first dog in which the Thorn family encounter is an evil possessed black Alsatian instead of a Rottweiler. Later in the film Robert Thorn then sees a Rottweiler next to where Damien's sleeping as either a stray animal or Mrs. Baylock's pet. What happened to the Alsatian is a mystery.

Two differences in particular involve the deaths of Jennings (David Thewlis) and Katherine Thorn (Julia Stiles). Katherine's death in the original film and book involves her being thrown out of the window by Mrs. Baylock. In the remake, Mrs. Baylock inserts air into her blood tube which blocks the flow of blood to her heart thereby killing her via an air embolism. This very slow and agonizing death could be in fact more realistic than that of the original as it causes less suspicision. However, the book also states that when Katherine fell from the balcony, Mrs Baylock lied and said that Katherine had tried to committ suicide (which is a lie) and therefore, Katherine's death in the original film and book looks more like suicide.

Jenning's death is interesting for it does not follow Seltzer's novel nor the original film. In the original book, Jennings is killed film by a pane of glass dangling from a crane above his head. When he bent down to pick up the knives, the glass would drop and decapitate him "like a guillotine". Special effects supervisor John Richardson tried several times to achieve the effect, but each time the glass leveled and landed horizontally. Richardson suggested the glass could fly off the back of a truck instead.

In the remake, he is bending down to pick up the knives and the camera shows that on the top of the roof of the house next to Jennings, there are builders working. A hammer slides down the roof, hits a sign fastened to the wall. This sign loosens and falls backwards. As Jennings is standing up, the sign decpitates him from behind. Although it can be argued that this death is similar to Seltzer's original vision, it is still unlike the book and 1976 film version.

Response

The film currently has received mixed reviews. Andrea Chase from Killer Movie Reviews wrote that the film "lacks the energy of discovery or, you'll pardon the word, revelation. Rather, it feels like a RE-telling just going through the motions and hitting the motifs that we all loved in the original." ^* Joe Utichi from FilmFocus wrote that "Moore's approach fails entirely to capitalise on Damien's creepiness and he might have best been left out entirely; the only adrenaline-pumping moments in the film come from the jump-scares throughout." ^* It received two thumbs up from Ebert & Roeper. The film currently stands at 28% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes (85 out of 121 reviews are counted rotten). ^* The Rolling Stone magazine has given it 1 out of 4 stars. They comment, "Not since Gus Van Sant inexplicably directed a shot-by-shot remake of Hitchcock's Psycho has a thriller been copied with so little point or impact."

The Curse of The Omen

During the filming of The Omen, a strange occurrence happened on set: an entire day's worth of film was lost. "It's strange. We lost a day of film," said Glenn Williamson, a producer of The Omen. "It's not uncommon to maybe lose a reel or maybe a shot. We lost an entire day of film on the scene when Thorn goes to cut ^*

In another strange event, Pete Postlethwaite (Father Brennan) not only lost his brother while he was filming the movie, but before he passed, his brother was in a card game in which he drew three sixes. Postlethwaite is reluctant to put together a connection, but adds "I think things like that do happen and it's just sometimes we're not sensitised enough to see the problem."^*

What makes these occurrences even stranger, is that similar "curses" plagued the filming of the original 1976 movie, The Omen, although the occurrences that took place then were much worse.

Trivia

Rachel Weisz was originally offered the role of Katherine, but declined because she was pregnant. Laura Linney, Hope Davis, and Alicia Witt were all also offered the role before Stiles got the part. ^*
The film previously had a subtitle as The Omen: 666 but was dropped to The Omen. ^*
The film was released on June 6, 2006 (6/6/06). An interesting note about this date is that June 6 is a Tuesday. Generally, movies are released on Friday (and sometimes on Wednesday or Thursday for blockbuster movies).
The film's promotional posters, advertisements and trailers have all capitalized on a common interpretation of an inverted cross (or Cross of St. Peter) being a Satanic symbol. The inverted cross is in fact a symbol of Saint Peter as this is how he was crucified.
Mia Farrow's nephew is named Damien (the son of her sister, actress Stephanie Farrow). Damien was also the middle name of her brother, Michael Farrow (deceased).
Mia Farrow played the leading role in Rosemary's Baby, which is also a horror film based on a novel of Satanic offspring.
Harvey Stephens, who played Damien in the original movie, has a cameo in this film as a tabloid reporter.
Marco Beltrami was a student of Jerry Goldsmith and on the soundtrack you can hear a reprise of Jerry Goldsmiths famous score on the track The Omen 76/06.
James Nesbitt was originally up for the role of Jennings until the director eventually went for David Thewlis
Many Škodas, tramlines and Czech signs can be seen in the street scenes giving an obvious clue to the movie's filming locations.
A picture of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster can be seen along with the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the 2004 Tsunami.
The line, "When I close my eyes, I see horrible things." was in the previews, but not the actual movie. Also missing from the film yet in the previews was the line, "Bye-Bye." This line was spoken by Damien immediately before Katherine lost her grip, and was probably cut to limit Damien's lines because of how indifferent, mysterious, and emotionless he is when tragic events occur (i.e. the nanny's suicide, the incident at the zoo, etc.). Several other moments seen in previews do not occur in the actual film - such as the robed jackal figure raising Damien in the bathroom, a small extension of the ambassador's death seen from within the limousine, and a shot of the police running up the steps of the church where Robert Thorn has taken Damien.

When Robert Thorn is shot, the Police Officer does not follow the Rules of Engagement correctly, merely shouting 'Stop!', before opening fire. This is almost certainly not what would have happened, and the officer would not have shot to kill, merely to wound or incapacitate.

Themes

Damien only has 4 lines throughout the entire film, if you don't count the 2 times in the film where he screams.
After the first nanny hangs herself at Damien's birthday party, you can see a macaroni picture of a woman with a noose around her neck on the side of the wall in Damien's room, and a picture of the black dog that possessed the nanny to kill herself next to the macaroni picture.

The wallpaper in Damien's room also resembles a neverending line of sixes.

The color red plays a big role in the film, because every time it appears something occurs. (Red decorations on Damien's 5th Birthday Party, a person with a red raincoat appears before Father Brennan's death.) The color may also represent innocence in Katherine Thorn's case. Because red means "death" or "danger", when she announces her second pregnancy, the fact that she is wearing red could be a sign that something is going to happen to her, her unborn baby or both. Also, before she falls fom the third floor landing after being pushed by Damien, she is seen watering red flowers, while she is wearing an all white ensemble which may also represent innocence for her part.
A microphone can be seen at the top of the screen on numerous occasions throughout the film.

MPAA

Rated R for disturbing violent content, graphic images, and some language.

External links

Das Omen (2006) | אות משמיים

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