Directed by Richard Donner
Written by David Seltzer
What an awesome film!! Seriously, this was one of the most enjoyable of Shocktober so far! Just for the wrong reasons I fear… I think at every plot turn I was able to poke holes in about everything I was seeing. I don’t necessarily mean holes in the plot, but more so in the logic. The Omen is a film about the anti-Christ devil child Damien and how he sets out to kill his parents and make their life living hell. Well, I’m sorry, but after having seen the film, I would rather think it is a training video on how NOT to parent. Honestly, how bad are these parents! No wonder the kid sucked. And even then, did the kid ever really hurt anyone? Dude’s like 5, I think all the circumstances where someone got hurt or killed by him was some sort of neglect from another adult. Let me explain further, but bear in mind that because the film is so ridiculuous, I did have an awesome time with the film, just not because I found it to be a good film.
Okay, so bad moves are as follows: father lies to his wife about the child really being theirs (messed up). They are always neglecting the kid (go for a long walk, realize much later they are paying no attention to him and he is missing). Then out of nowhere the nanny (because the parents of course can’t look after him) commits suicide because a dog looked her in the eyes. Oh, and it seems as though Ambassadors are celebrities? Why is there so much media? I haven’t ever heard of any ambassadors, like ever. I think the worst is when they let Mrs. Baylock stay on after neither of them knew her, and especially after her snappy nature towards them. Just bad parenting, and as far as I am concerned they got what was coming to them. I could go on with the examples.
As a result of all of these egregious offenses, however, the film becomes quite funny. Around every corner is some reason for laughter due to lack of logic. I am not sure if it was meant to be this way, but my understanding was that the film falls under the category of classic horror and not classic b-movie horror (say like Evil Dead for example). If I could, I would classify it as B and in a heartbeat I would say that it achieved its goal fairly well, but it just isn’t. You can tell the film is a bigger stuido production with on location shoots, an admittedly really good film score (the films strongest point), and even Gregory Peck in the lead role. Now, I am not familiar with the career of Peck that much, maybe the tail end was quite poor, but I still say that Mr. Peck should have stuck to killing mockingbirds. Killing evil anti-Christ children just doesn’t seem to suit him.
Corndog Chats 