Is that too strong a title for this post? Perhaps. But a quick glance at the more recent spate of horror movies might give you a clue as to my thinking: The Ring, The Grudge... and then: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saw, The Hills Have Eyes, etc. There's sort of this divide where on the one hand you have movies based on the "eerie" factor (a technique perfected by the Japanese through the simple art of filming everything in a blue wash, as pointed out by Something Awful) usually involving some sort of ghost, and on the other hand, movies based on Jessica Beil or Paris Hilton being chased by a non-ghostly but usually disfigured monsterman. Neither is a new concept and there's plenty of room for reiterations of both these themes. The problem happens when you take a film concept that has absolutely nothing to do with either of those genres and refilm and remarket it so as to bring teens to the theater - they, the most coveted of the cinema-going demographic. The remake of The Omen is just such a mistake, and the question becomes whether the central concept behind this story can make any sense to a modern audience anymore.
The first release of The Omen had a thoughtful premise: the struggle of Robert Thorn to accept the pre-modern idea that “evil� still exists. That the personification of that evil is his (essentially adopted) son brings other somewhat lesser important but still intriguing elements into play, such as the farming out of children to childcare professionals and newly-recognized reproductive rights. (Leave it to me to see this through a political/philosophical/theological prism. But I’ll get to that later) Sadly, this version doesn't even come close to addressing that central issue. It's just a Boo!-fest trading on the franchise credibility of the first go-round.
This remake isn't interested, I think, in ideas about good and evil, about the seen and unseen. Start from how the part of Damien is played here. This young boy has that annoyingly precocious sense of just-behind-the-eyes maturity. In every scene, this kid looks like he is fully aware of who and what he is, as well as fully prepared to get on with the business of anti-Christing. That's a real mistake. It gives him too much ownership of the evil, whereas the original emphasized more that this kid is the tool by which true evil will be brought about - through the maturity, and corruption of the eventual adult in modern society. The new version has the kid seeming otherwordly and, as such, it takes the horror out of humanity. It's as if the kid has a sign over his head blinking "Devil Boy Here!" What this does is cripple two important elements of the story.
It makes his mother's rejection of him all too palatable for the audience and destroys the tension that ought to exist over her failed maternal instinct to love and protect him. That idea ought to disturb us more than it does here. There is a slight subtext in the original that being upper-class dignitaries meant having little hands-on contact with the children and that that might be cause for some apprehension among upwardly mobile people. In today's feminist world, there's no need to excuse the lack of intimacy with one's child even though Katherine Thorn doesn't appear consumed by any careerism, or even employed at all. They almost deal with this in the remake when Robert tells Katherine perhaps they don't need a nanny, but somehow Katherine makes him look Neanderthal for even suggesting such a thing. It also bears mentioning that the idea of Katherine having an abortion of her natural child was a more controversial piece of the original than here. In a world where even partial-birth abortion bans are serially vetoed or overturned, why should anyone feel anything but empathy with Katherine’s desire to have an abortion? An audience that is unconcerned about a woman who is unconcerned with the personal upbringing of her child, and wouldn’t even bat an eye at her exercising her “right to choose� on another, tells us something about where we are today versus 1976.
The boy’s performance also ruins the tension within Robert Thorn between his rational materialist self and his emerging spiritual self (or possibly mentally disordered self). That's something the original captures quite well that this movie misses. Since the kid in this one is played so overtly demonic-with-a-capital-D, there's no room for sincere conflict on Robert's part. In the original, there's just enough wrong with this kid to get the father off the sane-materialist block, but room for doubt as to whether Robert should believe that the kid is evil, or conclude that he himself may be nuts to even ponder such a pre-modern argument. But THIS kid leaves so little room for doubt that the opportunity for that subtext is gone. It’s evil alright, but transparent goofy ghost-like evil.
Obviously, this story is about Robert Thorn more than anyone else. It is (or at least should be) the story of his spiritual journey from believing in nothing to believing in something. Accepting that the kid is the anti-Christ means accepting that Damien will stand for nothing and that's what will bring society down. He will come to epitomize hedonism and materialism, not a new theism. That's why the kid should NOT be played with horns and a little red cape as he is in the remake. The opposite of believing in something is not to believing in something else; it's believing in nothing. Robert's personal awakening is what spurs him to save the world from that nihilism personified by Damien.
In fact, that's what makes this a modern take on Abraham's tale in the Bible. This man's spiritual devotion to the idea of good and evil (a belief in God, really) is being tested. Robert must bring his only son to the temple and offer him as a sacrifice - except that in this version, the deus ex machina is not Yahweh himself, but a S.W.A.T. team and it isn't the innocent who is saved from death, but the guilty.
Once more, this is why the kid's performance is so ruinous. You get the sense that the kid in the original was told his character was just a brat, to play it that way, and was given no further motivation or explanation. As such, the key scenes are all the more wicked because the kid seemed so disturbed but comprehensible and recognizable to a parent. But in the remake, you feel like the kid was told from day one that he was the STAR of a horror film about the Son of Satan, and the little bastard called Dakota Fanning, talked it over, and went all "method" on us.
One example is the fit Damian throws at being driven to the church. It reeks of "Thou shalt not take me to the temple of my immortal enemy, the Nazarean, and for such a transgression I shall assail thee!" Contrast with the original, where the kid wailed in a way that made him seem indeed berserk, but in a random petulant childlike way. We all understand why kids probably don't enjoy church very much, so we get that. It's this kid's vehemence that makes the scene effective, not his motivation. All Damien knows is that he does NOT want to go to that church, but it's for us to figure out why that is, not for him to telegraph it from a mile away. I prefer the idea that his aversion to God or symbols of spirituality is subconcious, and that that's how materialism overcomes sprituality: not by going toe-to-toe with it, but by subverting it via one's base subconcious urges.
Another example is when Damien knocks his mother over the railing. The original movie I think plays the scene such that Damien is a self-absorbed brat who rides his tricycle wherever he wants, with a level of disregard for others that is abhorrent. When he knocks his mother over, his indifference to her plight reads as a simple “Well, you shouldn’t have been in my way.� THAT’S horrifying. In the remake, it’s a cut-and-dried murder plot hatched with ham-fisted obviousness. This exemplifies the remake’s overall misunderstanding of Satanism. It isn’t the worship of a devil-figure and the carrying out of his evil plan; it is worship of the self at the expense of everyone who gets in the way of one’s own carnal pleasure. That metaphoric idea is personified perfectly in the form of a spoiled little brat, not some cartoonish mini-demon.
How can you tell this remake is failing at getting across any of the ideas I’ve discussed? Well, you can’t get any better argument than all the spook moments tossed in to wake you up. Contemplating the ideas of good, evil and nihilism ought to be frightening enough, but no… we need the fantastic imagery of a cow-skulled beast in the mirror or Damien in a ghoulish mask terrorizing Katherine in her sleep. Rather than exhibit Damien as a human symbol for our own conflict with morality, they make Damien personify a Halloweenish and simplistic version of evil, and when you aren’t scared enough by that, they have to throw a mask on him to boot. Talk about working overtime in the wrong direction.
What I am suggesting is the possiblity that this movie fails because we don’t even have the capacity to debate good and evil anymore. Could we already be so relativistic in our thinking that it’s now medieval to talk about quaint ideas like morality or ethics? The lack of that frame of reference for this movie ought to serve notice as to our powerful modern urge to slay all gods. At least The DaVince Code was upfront and confrontational about its essential atheistic argument over religiousity. The Omen doesn’t even think it’s a conversation worth having anymore.
8 Comments
So good! :D
Well... obviously... but you knew all of this before hand. So -- why would you waste eight bucks and two hours of your time on it in the first place? You're smarter than that.
I know that you probably aren't going to agree with this, but I think this version of the Omen is meant to be a reflection of the times and the current political climate. There are things already set in motion before he comes along and even though it is so obvious he is evil and it seems crazy that someone else can't see it, there's nothing you can do about it. No one cares enough to do anything about it.
that's how a lot of people feel about events going on in the world now. There's a lot of obvious evil lurking and you either choose not to see it or you just let it be.
Superb take, and the comparison with Abraham is inspired. But I have a few disagreements.
First of all, if I'm reading you right, you think that in the original Damien (note correct spelling, but I don't know whether or not they changed it in the remake) is merely a pawn, not the actual instigator of evil, and the evil he does and will later become is the result of the evil people who surround him. I don't agree, and I think your later descriptions of his freaking out about going to Church or knocking his mom off the balcony are closer to the mark: the kid's genuinely evil, but nevertheless at an age where he doesn't have a fully formed self-consciousness. He is, but isn't self-aware that he is. At first. But the last shot in the movie tells us the kid knows, and knows what he's here on earth to accomplish.
Secondly, I sense a contradiction in your argument when you say the father is facing a conflict between antiquated religion vs. contemporary atheism but then claim the story isn't really about the devil but about our id-impulses let loose from their superego captors. I think the implication of the later movies is that Damien is indeed posing a new theology. One in which he (or his father, or both) is worshipped and feared and everyone else is enslaved (the antithesis of Christianity, of course, where God is worshipped and loved, and man becomes free).
Finally, while the new version sounds like it went down the wrong track with blatant supernatural effects, I don't think the original movie was intended as an allegory for modern hedonism, but as a Gothic to freak audiences out. I think the lack of special effects (and I agree that the story works better without them) relates to competition. After all, this started with the success of Rosemary's Baby, and then The Exorcist really raked in the big bucks, so along came another rip-off. (Speaking of allegories, Stephen King thinks these movies are all allegories based on parents' horror at what kids in the sixties and seventies had become; on a subconsious level, there may be something to that.) But since The Exorcist had already done everything to be done with supernatural special effects, they went another route with chills and sudden acts of violence.
To Joe's points:
1) Not a pawn, but rather a metaphorical symbol who exists inside AND outside the literal context of the film. From his life of political wealth and luxury, he will come to epitomize a culture of materialism and hedonism, one where each person's inclinations tend to be the final arbiter of actions. That, I think, bolsters the argument you cite from Stephen King - that those movies were in response to an essentially hedonistic movement of the youth of the day. (Damn "free love" hippies.)
2) The review/comparison between the two films indeed leaves out entirely the question of what any sequels may address and I am perfectly comfortable with that. After all, the market demands of sequels can warp beyond recognition the coherent philosophy of any preceding film (e.g. Star Wars).
3) To this point, I'd offer that, as I learned in my American History Through Film class (Go Coogs!) sometimes a film can be a reflection or interpretation of a current social crisis without intentionally setting out to do so. Sometimes we look back and can see through the prism of historical insight that a film may have transmitted a coherent message from the subconcious minds of the creators.
Is that going out on a limb? Am I placing a theoretical frame over a film wherein none belongs? Perhaps. But I am comfortable with the idea that such a thing can spring forth from the subconcious. Was Toho conciously creating a political anti-nuclear screed replete with symbolism when they made the Godzilla movies, or were they making simple matinee monster fare? I'd say they were much more conciously making the latter, but ended up with a touch of the former as well.
To Kassi's point:
I would love to believe that's what the filmmakers wanted, and with a change in emphasis, that could have been accomplished. In fact, I allude to that somewhat in my review. My hunch is that we would differ quite strongly on the implications. To wit (via Joe):
What if the filmmakers had made the film even more ambiguous as to the true nature of the child rather that slap-you-in-the-face obvious? My point was that the original succesfully conveys at least a modicum of doubt in the father's mind as to whether this kid's the real deal or not, but you probably figure by the end that he is. But if all the scenes had been played with even less certainty that the original, then the viewer would really have had to struggle with whether or not you were able to make a pronouncement of evil, or was the kid just misunderstood, crazy, or even whether you are nuts for considering such things.
Best comparison I can give is to that of the kid watching his mother fall. We are boggled as to the kid's thoughts and motivation (that is, in the original, mind you - the remake leaves no room for doubt) and have to conclude he's either amoral, nuts, or truly evil. When I turn on the news and see that some asshat has walked into a Jerusalem cafe filled with women and children and blown himself to pieces, I find many voices arguing many different perspectives: 1. evil 2. misunderstood 3. crazy 4. brutalized by those damned imperialist Americans.
Can today's world call a spade a spade? Can we recognize true evil anymore? Had this film played the kid with more subtlety, it would have been an interesting exercise to gauge the viewer's conclusion and would perhaps told us much more about ourselves than about the film.
I told you you wouldn't agree. ;)
I could really do without all the lame music video rip offs too.
Yeah ;-)
...but I'm always pleased when you offer comments.