The Omen

And, here we are again, and this time…. It’s a double-feature! The Omen + remake. Yeah, that’s right. Since I’m a big fan of the original, I bought the ‘Ultimate Collectors’-edition containing the whole original series (I-IV) plus the remake, so what better than to give you my ¢12 on them both, starting (of course) with the original. The film was written and directed by David Seltzer and Richard Donner respectively. It stars Gregory Peck (Robert Thorn), Lee Remick (Katherine Thorn), David Warner (Jennings), Billie Whitelaw (Mrs. Baylock) and Harvey Stephens as the now infamous Damien. The movie received widely positive critical response and is considered as one of the best films of 1976 and with a 85% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.6 score on IMDB, I dare to say that it still holds up in the audience’s eyes. But… on to the movie at hand!

The premise; When the son of an American diplomat (Peck) dies at birth, he secretly adopts an orphan child, in order to save his wife (Remick) from any unnecessary heartache. When after being appointed U.S Ambassador to Great Britain, a bunch of unexplainable events start to plague the family. When after the nanny publicly hanging herself (with the famous line; “Look at me Damien, it’s all for you.”) at Damien’s birthday-party, a new nanny arrives, claiming that “the agency” sent her and let me tell you… This bitch is crazy!!

I’m not here to talk about any specific events in the film or what happens when and how and so on, but what I am here to talk about is the movie… and it is a Masterpiece! The opening-sequence alone is enough to give you nightmares, and the ominous music (Ave Satani – composed by Jerry Goldsmith) was nominated for Best Original Song at the academy Awards.

Add to the equation the scene when the dog is searching for Mr. Thorn at the end of the movie and you hear that creepy chanting in the background (which is the one of the creepiest scenes I have ever seen), some fantastic directing (Richard Donner is a true genius behind the camera), amazing talent from the actors (especially Whitelaw as Mrs. Baylock) and a pinch of terrifyingly scary writing (Hats off to Mr. Seltzer), this is one movie that most surely is going down in history as one of the creepiest and scariest films of All Time. It spawned 3 sequels (with some rather convenient sub-titles, Damien: Omen II, Omen III: The Final Conflict and Omen IV: The Awakening) and earning itself remake in 2006. But how did the remake fair in comparison to the original? Let’s find out shall we..

 First off, it was given a sub-title; The Omen: 666, like that was really necessary? No, I don’t think so! The remake was written by David Seltzer just like the original, and directed by John Moore. This time around, the characters of Robert and Katherine Thorn are played by Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles and Mrs. Baylock and Damien are portrayed by Mia Farrow and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick. As far as a remake goes, this one was not very well received, with a 43-rating out of 100 on Metacritic, 27% Fresh-rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.4-score on IMDB. But how was it received at the T.T-headquarters? Well, I have to say that we were not disappointed.

For all intents and purposes, the remake is pretty much the same movie, only having been under a serious make-over. It does however give us a few additions to the original, where as we get to see for example how the fire that burns down the hospital gets started and the priests unraveling the prophecy, all in order to drive the story, to put it as “real” as possible, but other than that…. well, I’m not here to divulge scene after scene for you, so I’ll just let you see for yourselves. That is, if you haven’t already seen it.

Furthermore, the thing that puts the two movies apart really, is that where the original film relies on suspense, the remake puts all their trust in the visuals, therefore robbing us of the true Omen-experience. That’s fine and dandy for all of you who’s in to that kind’a thing but it’s just not for me (IF I had the option of course). Sure, there are some suspense present, I’m not denying that at all… but when you watch the original, you get goosebumps off and on pretty much the entire movie and that effect is just not around in the remake, sadly.

And the acting in the remake… wow! I don’t really know how to put it in words. The only actor I feel is doing somewhat of a good job is Liev Schreiber. The rest of the cast is stale, half-assed and boring. But they did manage to get a kid who’s Almost as creepy looking for the part of Damien, but just Almost!

And… there’s really nothing more I can say about the subject, without going all technical and what not, but that’s just not my thing, so I’m gonna leave you with these final words. If you haven’t seen any of’em, see the Original first, and only after that,you can make the decision to watch the remake. Even though the remake isn’t all bad, it has nothing on the original, that’s just a straight up fact!!

So, that’s it for tonight then… please tune in tomorrow, where we’ll be taking a loot at a little more spookier than werewolves, vampires and devil-babies! But until then…. Always watch the original of ANY movie before watching a remake, it’s just common sense!

 

ps; Happy Coincidence, folks… Today (October 4th) is Liev Schreiber’s birthday, so.. Happy 46th Birthday to you, Liev, and I sincerely hope you have many more in the years to come!

The Wolfman

Welcome, to Tango’s Thoughts October 2013 Horror-a-thon. Over the next 31 days, I will take you on a journey through horror, where I will pick off one title after another, until the exciting climax on October 1st, Halloween and I’ll be starting off our horror-a-thon with The Wolfman, the 2010-remake of Universal’s classic from 1941.

The movie stars Benicio Del Toro (Lawrence Talbot), Anthony Hopkins (Sir John Talbot), Emily Blunt (Gwen Conliffe) and Hugo Weaving (Aberline), was written by Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self and was directed by Joe Johnston. It was released in Italy on January 27th, 2010 for its World premiere and on the 12th of February in the US. When it comes to criticism, it wasn’t the big hit the studios had hoped for, with a 4.8 average  on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.8 score on IMDB (to date). But enough of statistics and casts, that’s not why we’re here, is it? I didn’t think so…. So let’s just jump right in to it, shall we….

How do you get a perfect intro to what’s expected to be a fantastic film?You let the camera pan over a tombstone touched by moonlight while a female voice narrates the engravings;

Even a man who is pure of heart
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf
When the wolfsbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright 

Pan the camera through a dark forest, to a man screaming at someone, knowing he is not alone. It sets up the premise of the movie and it gives you an expectation of how the movie is going to feel. It’s dark and ominous, but at the same time it draws you in. Just perfect!

The rest of the movie is pretty straight forward, using whatever it can from its source material up until the second half of the movie, giving the Universal-classic the homage it deserves while still managing to feel original and fresh. But does it have what would be expected from a werewolf-based movie? Yes, yes it does. It doesn’t show you the beast right away, leaving it to be somewhat of a mystery. The hallucinations that comes with the curse (here showing us the ‘original’ beast). It has the cliched scene where the man wakes up outdoors in bloody clothing not knowing why, it has somewhat of a love-story entangled to the plot and it has not one, but several transformation sequences. Top that off with a fantastically fierce looking beast and you have what you need for a great horror-movie.

Speaking of the transformation. Whenever the subject comes up, I can not help to compare it to one of my all-time favorite scenes, the transformation-scene from An American Werewolf in London. It is, by far, The best transformation-scene ever to be put in a monster-movie and will probably be so for a long time, but the transformations in The Wolfman is not far behind, especially the one where we get to see Lawrence transform for the first time.

Just look at it. That right there, ladies and gentlemen, gets the Tango’s Stamp of Approval. the transformation-scene is where most of the werewolf-movies fail but this one does it right, not letting the CGI take over, as it most often does on these specific sequences.

There was a few scenes in this movie that stood out a bit from the rest. The London chase-scene were we see the beast run across the rooftops of London, crushing chimneys and dodging bullets from Aberline’s revolver – fantastic! When the first beast (yeah, there’s a plurality of wolfs) taunts the Gypsy-village – It actually scared me a bit. Of course the first transformation-scene, but the transformation-scene in the asylum. Wow, breathtaking. The reaction on the psychiatrist alone was almost worth the admittance-fee.

I’m not going to dive to deep into everything about the movie, but I will say this. The performances given to us by both Del Toro (who’s performance alone could have driven this movie if it wasn’t as good as it was) and Hopkins respectively, are phenomenal and of course, Weaving delivers his Aberline with utmost sophistication, once again showing us why he does what he does.

The only thing I felt could use a once-over was the ending. It leaves you rather unsatisfied. A climactic clash, followed by a short chase-scene through the woods, it sets up what could have been a magnificent ending to a gripping tale, but alas, it kinda just ends.

There it is, ladies and gentlemen, a perfect start-off point to what will be an entertaining journey for me, and hopefully for you as well. And as werewolves and vampires seem to be going hand-in-hand nowadays, what could be better for tomorrows post, than a review of a vampire-movie? I’d say… nothing. So, tune in tomorrow for Tango’s thoughts on Dracula 2000.

Until then…. niteynite, don’t let the monsters take a bite!

Robocop 2014 – Some quick thoughts.

Last time I talked about the subject, it had a 2013-release but as you all know, those early dates have been known to change. More often than not, really.  But as it looks right now, the movie RoboCop, is set for a February 2014-release.

And in light of this not too distant release-date, the Hollywood-execs thought it a great idea to release a trailer for us all to enjoy, and boy did I enjoy it! I think that it’s pretty safe to say, that the people behind this movie  are RoboCop-fans, because it just looks great. I’ll even go as far as to say that it looked like they were doing it all right. The leg-holster, the visor, even the paintjob.  And yeah, sure, with the trends of today, the movie is bound to have a lot of CGI in it (I’m thinking of you, ED-209), but this feels like it’s a too big of a product to give some sloppy late 90’s CGI-effects (R.I.P.D) and we won’t even notice it most of the time. All in all, the trailer looks great and leaves you with just as much hype needed to go see the movie, without giving you to high a hopes for it. Check it out:

As you can see, there are some throwbacks to the classic RocoCop (which I find really fantastic) as well as some knew elements we haven’t seen yet. But there is one thing I feel is missing, and that is when he’s under construction in the classic 1987-version, we get to see what’s going on around him through his perspective. That is something I find more and more interesting every time I watch it. It can feel a little macabre at times, but after watching Murphy get blown away completely, there’s nothing you can not take in!

And another thing the trailer had that got me pumped for the movie… Joel Kinnaman, delivering the ultimate action-line of all frikkin’ time!
‘Dead or alive, you’re coming with me!’ Chills man, chills is what ran through my spine when I heard it!

And as I mentioned in my last post about it (“And just look at the facial features… Amazing casting-choice on that one!”), the choice of casting Joel Kinnaman as Alex Murphy was great indeed. So all that’s left to say is; So far, the RoboCop-remake have the Tango’s Stamp of Approval!

And as always, until next time!..Peace!!