The Omen
(2006)
review by Died with Boots On

"When the Jews return to Zion, and a comet rips the sky, and the Holy Roman Empire rises, then you and I must die. From the eternal sea he rises, creating armies on either shore, turning man against his brother, till man exists no more." The spine of the Bible cracked open to the Book of Revelations, a Cardinal interprets the omens of the apocalypse as they are listed in the book, reeling off precursors to Armageddon. The stars falling from the skies is rendered by the space shuttle Columbia's crash landing, the mountains crumbling is represented by the collapse of the World Trade Center in the 9/11 attacks, and the waters rising from the oceans is equated with the devastating Hurricane Katrina. Also symptomatic of the end of time are the atrocities of the war in Iraq juxtaposed with the other telltale hearts. The film has a creepy sense of urgency because of the montage of our present day Sodom and Gomorrah, and especially since it acts like today, the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year, is the birth of the Anti-Christ. Simply put, we are all going to Hell in a hand basket.

"The Omen" is the lovechild of " The Ring 2 " and "Final Destination 3." The characters pilgrimage to the land of Damien's or Samara's birth in order to unlock the secrets of their past, while dropping like flies as part of Death's intricate design, each death forewarned in a snapshot taken by a perceptive photographer. See where they overlap? But don't fret, for "The Omen" is still ten times better than both of the other two combined.

The film begins with a politician's wife miscarrying her child after complications. The snarled up birth left her womb in shambles, and the priest who oversaw the birth guesses that she will never be able to carry a child again. Upon hearing this disheartening news, the husband effuses that a child would mean everything to his wife. The priest offers a deceitful and underhanded, yet forgivable, resolution. A child had been born at the same time as his own in the maternity ward, only this child killed its mother during labor, and no other family existed. Desperate, the husband, Mr. Robert Thorn (Schreiber), accepts the priest's offer to take the estranged child under his wing, if only for Mrs. Katherine Thorn (Stiles). Five years pass, and their son, little Damien (Davey-Fitzpatrick), is a perfect angel. After Damien's father becomes an ambassador to the United Kingdom, Damien is thrown a lofty birthday party with hundreds of guests and press coverage. Out of nowhere, the festivities come to an abrupt, hair-trigger halt as Damien's nanny announces her whereabouts from the roof the Thorn's palatial château. "It's all for you Damien," she yelps before plunging to the ground, recoiling as her neck snaps in her hand-fashioned noose.

Damien's new nanny, Mrs. Baylock (Farrow), is a psychotic monster with a hellhound at her feet who hails from one of the innermost rings of Hell, conspiring with the Thorn's little bundle of joy as he seeks to rise from the tides of his father's political empire and bring about the downfall of mankind. Not only that, but Damien has a friend in Death. People arresting Damien's plot have been marked, and are predestined to die as one domino snowballs into the other, his mushroom cloud billowing upward and outward.