The Omen (2006 film)

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The Omen
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Moore
Produced by	John Moore
Written by	David Seltzer
Starring	Liev Schreiber Julia Stiles Seamus Fitzpatrick
Music by	Marco Beltrami
Editing by	Dan Zimmerman
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	June 6, 2006
Running time	110 min.
Country
Language	English
Budget	$25 million
Gross revenue	$119,498,909
Preceded by	The Final Conflict
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Omen (also known as The Omen: 666) is a 2006 American 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 film is part of the Omen series.

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, traditionally is regarded as the "Number of the Beast," according to the New Testament (this is disputed by several theologians, however).

The MPAA rated this film as R for disturbingly violent content, graphic images, and disturbing sequences.

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 United States, by earning more than $12 million. 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.^[1] The film ended up grossing $119,498,909 worldwide.

The film was released in the US on Region 1 DVD on October 17, 2006.^[2] It was released in the UK, on a Region 2 DVD on October 23, 2006.^[3] It was released in Australia, on a Region 4 DVD on March 7, 2007.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Deaths 4 Response 5 The Curse of The Omen 6 Differences between the 1976 and 2006 versions 7 Connections To Other Satanic Films 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Plot

Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber) is a senior diplomat in the United States federal government, stationed in Italy. His wife, Katherine (Julia Stiles), gives birth to their first child, a baby boy who turns out to be a stillbirth. Katherine does not know that her child has died, and Robert is acutely aware that this news would devastate her.

However, the hospital's Catholic priest, Father Spiletto (Giovanni Lombardo Radice), presents Robert with a way to spare his wife the anguish: another boy was born that night whose mother died during 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 the United Kingdom, and when the ambassador dies at 6:06:06 in a bizarre accident where an oil truck is spilled into his limousine and then is ignited when it reaches a cigarette, Robert thus becomes ambassador and the family settles into a large estate just outside London. But disturbing events, all seeming to revolve around Damien, later occur. The most prominent of these is the hanging suicide of Damien's nanny at his birthday party. Soon afterwards, Robert is in his office when his assistant informs him a priest named Father Brennan (Pete Postlethwaite) wishes to speak with him. The priest says a rather eerie warning dealing with his son's birth, at which point Robert has security escort him out. Soon thereafter, a new nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Mia Farrow), is hired and tells Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) that she's been sent to protect him. Tension between Mrs. Baylock and the Thorns rises when the nanny starts to make decisions against their wishes, including trying to keep Damien from going to church and adopting a large dog without their consent. A trip to the city zoo ends with primates going wild at the sight of the child. Damien himself goes crazy, screaming and screeching during a drive to church. Meanwhile, a series of photographs taken by photographer Keith Jennings (David Thewlis) foreshadow a number of shocking deaths.

Father Brennan again speaks to Robert, and gives a prophecy saying Damien will kill anyone in his way. Father Brennan is soon killed by a large rod impaling him into the ground with shards of glass embedded into his face. Katherine discovers she is pregnant but wants to have an abortion because she is afraid to have another child. Shortly after this, Damien is riding his scooter around the second floor of their enormous mansion. He knocks Katherine off the stool she is standing on to water a plant, and she falls off it and over the ledge. She is still barely holding on and begs Damien to help her. He does not and she falls two stories to the rock hard floor, breaking her collar bone and suffering from internal bleeding. Robert rushes to the hospital and is informed that she has lost the baby. Katherine awakens and tearfully begs her husband, "Don't let him kill me." Robert finally becomes suspicious that something is amiss with his son. Fueled by the warnings given to him by Father Brennan and further information from Keith Jennings, Robert and Jennings go in search of Damien's real mother. After meeting a nun in Rome, he discovers that the hospital has burned down. Robert and Jennings go to a monastery and meet Father Spilleto, who tells them where to find Damien's mother. He finds the grave of Maria Avedici Santoya, Damien's real mother, in Chervet, an old cemetery 50 km north of Rome. When they both open the tomb, they discover a carcass of a jackal-like canine. In the neighboring tomb, Robert discovers a corpse of a human infant with a cracked skull. He realizes his real son was not stillborn but was, in fact, murdered that night. Then, he and Jennings are attacked by Dobermans. After helping each other to survive, they are able to escape from the dogs.

Mrs. Baylock visits Katherine in the hospital under the pretense of delivering flowers. The nanny injects Katherine's IV line with an air bubble, and while struggling, Katherine dies of an embolism. Robert is convinced that Damien is the root of these incidents, and decides to follow Brennan's advice and go to Megiddo and meet Bugenhagen. Bugenhagen tells him what Robert has feared all along: Damien is the long-prophesied Antichrist, and therefore must die. Robert Thorn refuses to kill his son at first, but sees a change of mind after Jennings is decapitated by a falling sign after saying that if Robert doesn't kill his son then he will. Thorn decides to change his mind because he formed a close friendship with Jennings and he should've listened to him. Robert flies back to his home, finds Damien and cuts off a lock of Damien's hair, and sees a 666 birthmark, and is about to kill Damien by means of stabbing him with the seven Daggers of Megiddo, in the shape of a cross - the only weapons in the world able to harm the Antichrist. Suddenly, he is attacked by Mrs. Baylock. After a fight, he goes to a church to kill him. Unfortunately, just as he is about to strike the blow, Robert is killed by an officer of the Diplomatic Protection Group, attached to and trained by a Specialist Firearms Command team at the instant at which he is reciting the Lord's Prayer with his son struggling beneath him. Damien survives. Damien watches his father's funeral while holding the hand of the President of the United States, who is Robert's Godfather. The last shot of the film shows Damien turning around and smiling at the viewer while making eye contact, in the incredibly evil way which made the initial version of this film famous.

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

Canada: 14A for gory violence and frightening scenes.

[edit] Cast

• Liev Schreiber as Ambassador Robert Thorn
• Julia Stiles as Katherine Thorn
• Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as Damien Thorn
• David Thewlis as Keith Jennings
• Pete Postlethwaite as Father Brennan
• Mia Farrow as Mrs. Baylock
• Michael Gambon as Bugenhagen

[edit] Deaths

Character	Cause of death
Damien's first nanny	After an encounter with the demon dog, she happily hanged herself from the roof of the Thorns' house. The dog hypnotized her to do this so that Mrs. Baylock would become Damien's new nanny.
Father Brennan	Impaled by a church spire that was knocked down by a lightning bolt during a storm.
The Thorns' unborn child	Dies following Kathy's fall from the landing.
The Thorns' firstborn son	Killed by a fracture in the skull as soon as he was born, it was then called an accident so the Thorns would adopt Damien. The body was found buried in the grave next to the grave of Maria Avedici Santoya, in a cemetery 50 kilometers north of Rome.
Kathy Thorn	Killed by an air embolism by Mrs. Baylock in her hospital room.
Keith Jennings	Decapitated by a falling sign.
Mrs. Baylock	Hit by Robert Thorn's car, while trying to protect Damien.
Robert Thorn	Shot by diplomatic police when he tries to kill Damien.

[edit] 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^[4]." 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^[5]." It received a "two thumbs up" rating from Ebert and Roeper. Empire Magazine gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars and said "Competently made, and enjoyably played. But you do really end up wondering what the point was. Cinematic déjà vu is the most likely response." The film currently stands as 26% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes (41 out of 156 reviews are counted Fresh)^[6]. It scores a 43 on Metacritic.com meaning it has garnered mixed or average reviews from the critics. Rolling Stone magazine gave it one out of four stars commenting, "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." It has also been nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor (2007) (David Thewlis who has also been nominated for his role in Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction (2006)) ^[7]

[edit] The Curse of The Omen

• In a 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 sensitized enough to see the problem."^[8]
• It's also reported that during the production a large reel of film negative was destroyed in very suspicious and unusual circumstances. John Moore says on the DVD that the film is certainly cursed, he puts it that there were "way beyond normal film fuck ups."

[edit] 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 used his scooter instead.

In the remake, recent events were purported to fulfill Biblical end-time prophesies, such as the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the Indian Ocean tsunami, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In the original 1976 film, Robert finds out about the death of Father Brennan via a newspaper from a mysterious caller on the telephone. In this remake he finds out from a news website from a hyperlink sent by Tom via e-mail.

[edit] Connections To Other Satanic Films

David Thewlis quoted extensively The Book of Revelation in the 1993 film Naked. Mia Farrow gives birth to the Antichrist in the 1967 film Rosemary's Baby. After Father Brennan finishes talking to Robert Thorn, a red-hooded character can be seen running in the background, a reference to the 1973 film Don't Look Now.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Omen at the Internet Movie Database
• The Omen at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Omen at Allmovie

v • d • e The Omen Series Original Films The Omen • Damien: Omen II • Omen III: The Final Conflict Remakes The Omen (2006) Other films Omen IV: The Awakening Characters Damien Thorn