The Omen **** (2006, Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) – Classic Film Review 248

The slick and exciting 2006 horror thriller remake film The Omen is unexpectedly good, a whole load better than could possibly have been imagined. Liev Schreiber is first rate in Gregory Peck’s old role as US ambassador Robert Thorn.

Arguably we didn’t need a remake of the stupendous 1976 chiller classic The Omen. But this slick and exciting 2006 horror thriller The Omen is unexpectedly good, a whole load better than could possibly have been imagined. A respectful, fairly faithful remake, it was it released on 06/06/06, a gimmick in line with the film’s satanic plot.

Liev Schreiber is first-rate in Gregory Peck’s old role as Robert Thorn, the American ambassador in London who finds his son Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) is the Antichrist. He’s been secretly swapped for his stillborn child at birth at 6.00am on 6 June in Rome, and has the Devil’s mark of 666.

Although nobody else is quite as classy as he is, hammy David Thewlis and Pete Postlethwaite go out in style as Keith Jennings and Father Brennan, and Mia Farrow is super as the boy’s nanny and the housekeeper Mrs Baylock, an agent of the Devil.

Mysteriously, Julia Stiles gets top billing as Schreiber’s wife Katherine, although she’s got far less to do – as all who remember Lee Remick in the 1976 original will know.

It’s a slight pity about the Prague, Czech Republic, location filming: it really looks nothing like London at all!

Principal photography began on 3 October 2005 at Barrandov Studios in Prague, Czech Republic, where the film was mostly shot. The ‘Jerusalem’ scenes were filmed in Matera, Italy and some of the London scenes were shot in Herbert Park, Dublin.

Harvey Stephens, who played the boy in 1976, has a cameo as a tabloid reporter.

Again it is very smartly written (and credited to original screenwriter David Seltzer) and slickly directed, this time by John Moore, the efficient film maker of Behind Enemy Lines (2001), Flight of the Phoenix (2004), Max Payne (2008) and A Good Day to Die Hard (2013). Moore was keen to make the film as the 1976 original is among his all time favourite movies.

The film made a worldwide $120 million from a lowish $25 million budget and so was a neat box-office hit. Some critics bizarrely attacked the movie for following the original too closely but most praised Moore’s impressive visuals and the strong cast.

The film was greenlit in July 2005 with Dan McDermott attached to write but he was later denied a writing credit by the Writers Guild of America as the screenplay was determined to bear too close a resemblance to David Seltzer’s script for the 1976 film. So Seltzer receives sole credit despite being uninvolved with the production of the remake. Chap Taylor did uncredited rewriting.

The search for Damien spanned Los Angeles, London and New York. In 2005 newcomer Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick was cast in the part, with his screen test doubling as the movie’s teaser trailer. The six year-old Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, appearing in his first film role, was not told during filming that his character was the son of the Devil. Julia Stiles said the film-makers thought ‘he was too young to understand it’.

Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick’s performance won him a Chainsaw award from Fangoria magazine for ‘Creepiest Kid’.

The score is composed by Marco Beltrami, using cues from Jerry Goldsmith’s Oscar-winning score for the original film.

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